Sparkle Season Starts Now: Highlights from the Christmas Tree Lighting

By Emma Wuthnow
Staff writer
Email: thehutchinsoncollegian@gmail.com

Thanksgiving is officially over. No more having to deal with crazy relatives, turkey comas (at least until Christmas dinner), and getting injured trying to play football.

And now people get to listen to Christmas music, drink eggnog, and plan that chaotic shopping spree.

For a couple of weeks, Hutchinson did a tree lighting with the Hutch Rec at DCI park. Hutchinson Community College Media Analyst and Trainer Bobby Obermite was asked to do the videography for the lighting.

“I was contacted by my friends Jacelyn Chambers and Loribeth Reynolds from the Hutchinson Recreation Commission about a month ago,” Obermite said. “I have worked with HRC since I was a teenager in various roles. They have been an impactful non-profit in our community for decades. Their team was curious if I had the skillset and equipment to film a timelapse video of the construction of the tree.

“This was exciting for me since I have been a photographer and filmmaker since I was a kid. Timelapse is a unique approach to visual storytelling that takes a lot of experience and patience. They are a combination of filmmaking and photography that can be shot with many different types of cameras from your typical smart phone to professional digital cameras.”

Obermite also explained his approach for this project.

“They gave me a lot of creative freedom with my approach to the project,” Obermite said. “This is their first year partnering with DCI on the 30-foot-tall Christmas tree, so naturally they wanted to document it professionally. They originally thought the process would take about four hours. That changed to roughly six hours once we got closer to the shoot date. Essentially you are simply shooting individual frames just as you would in any film or video project, but instead of the standard 24 frames per second you will shoot one frame every half second to one frame potentially every hour or even much longer depending on the subject. For this project, I chose to shoot one frame every second. Since construction ran roughly six hours, that came out to around 21,600 frames of individual photographs captured of the construction from a single camera. After converting the individual frames to the cinematic standard of 24 frames per second, or 23.976 if you really want me to nerd out, in a non-linear editing software. I then sped the 15-minute video up roughly 1000% so the Hutch Rec could easily place it in their marketing media without having to do much on their end. For the composition, I wanted to consider multiple concepts.

“Firstly, I shoot most of my work in the 16×9 format for audiences. This is the preferred format for theaters, monitors, and televisions. However, I arranged the composition to make it convenient to crop the video in 9×16 as well for better viewing on your smart phone through social media apps. Giving the marketing team options to work with. I also wanted an angle that had the DCI logo in the background to correlate that partnership. Of course, I wanted the tree to be the main focus of the video, but capturing the crew constructing the tree was equally important. I started with one camera shooting wide, covering most of the park and the crew constructing the tree, but for a more unique angle I had a camera placed in the center of the tree looking straight up to the sky. This shot, while much more creative and possibly more visually interesting, was not as important to the whole story, so it was my secondary angle.” 

Obermite was asked about a specific moment that stood out.

“Something unexpected was getting to film the team from Wray Roofing bring out their massive crane to put on the star,” Obermite said. “That was a fun surprise for this storyteller. The project as a whole was also a great opportunity for me to take two of my advanced students out to see how a production like this takes place. Ethan Carter and Preston Reed have been two of my strongest students at HutchCC Media and Film program over the last two years, and it is always rewarding when I can take them on location for a project like this. They brought different cameras they have been experimenting with and were able to capture amazing footage for their own professional portfolios.”                                      

Facilities and Maintenance Manger, Jeff Johnson, was asked about the opportunity to set up the tree lighting.

“Hutch Rec is the agency responsible for facilitating the purchase, installation and lighting of the Christmas tree,” Johnson said. “Partners in the venture have been the City of Hutchinson and DCI Park. I’ve worked for Hutch Rec the past 11 years, and in my various rolls, I’ve been responsible for facilitating various community events. My employer trusted me to manage all the logistics surrounding the Christmas tree installation. Of course it was a team effort, with several other employees from Hutch Rec performing their responsibility to make this event happen. Denice Gilliand was the one responsible for all the coordination it took for the entire event, my part was to see that the tree was purchased, installed and then worked properly for the event.”

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