BALLOON FEST IN ABILENE,TEXAS 2008

This is the Big Country Balloon Fest 2008 held every October in Abilene, Texas.
This year seem to be a great success! Their web site is:
http://www.bigcountryballoonfest.com/index.htm
The beginning titles of this video have kites flying in the background early Saturday morning. They are the team of: The End Of The Line Kites from Austin Texas. Their site: http://www.onr.com/austin-eol/Roster.htm They were really great looking kites, and fun to watch!
As I understand, the weather was absolutely perfect ballooning weather - almost no wind at all. On late Friday afternoon, Nolan Schuler (balloon pilot from Colorado Springs, Colorado) had to make a quick landing at South 19 and Barrow due to little wind. He also has a close brush with some tree tops at the end of the Saturday take off at the end of this video. I believe he was the last to take off on Saturday morning.
The light wind apparently shifted enough, that his balloon traveled a different direction carrying his basket near some housing and tree tops. It looked to be a minor close call, and I believe all turned out well. I wanted so much to get footage from the balloon point of view looking down on Abilene...maybe next year.
The video was shot on a Canon GL2 and edited with FCP.
Comments are welcome! If you are interested in video services, please contact me at: towerscope@clearwire.net
-Jonny Cates

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• balloons
• ballooning
• gondola
• flying
• kites
• Abilene
• Texas
• red
• bud
• park
• music
• festival
• big
• country

[towerscope]

Thanks! It was fun to shoot. Had to run around quite a bit as you can see. I really wanted to end it by showing a POV of a balloon going up...but that was a $200.00 shot! Maybe next time, if it doesn't get rained out that is....

[chaoticstructure]

Really good video, Jonny. Man! You were busy. How on earth did you cover so much by yourself? I liked your treatment of this. So serene yet catching all the close up action. Impressive. FAR better than the ones I have of this same event because I stood on the edges of the crowd and shot from my front yard. lol! This was up close and personal.

[justaburg]

awesome great video i was there