The Day a Pig Stole Our Video Production Gear in Greenleaf, Idaho!
When you’ve worked in video production long enough, you learn to expect the unexpected—but no one ever tells you to watch out for pigs! At Oh Show Productions LLC, we’ve filmed all over Idaho, Montana and Oregon. Every location has its own unique surprises, but one of our most memorable video shoots ater 25+ years of doing video production happened just recently in Greenleaf, Idaho. We arrived and were greeted by a big, lovely, dirty sweet pig wagging her tail and welcoming us to her dog house and the home of Dean Oliver. We were there to conduct interviews with legendary rodeo Hall of Famers Dee Pickens and Dean Oliver as part of the “Heroes and Legends” TV series for the PBR network in Houston Texas. We were hired by PBR locally to capture these two legends on camera for the network.
While we were focused on setting up the interviews and behind our backs this incredibly friendly pig quietly wandered over to our gear and stole two lighting bags and a few stands. Sure enough, the pig had proudly dragged both bags into her dog house. It turns out she wasn’t trying to destroy our equipment at all. She was simply decorating, (and building a nest). Apparently, professional light stand bags make excellent nesting material.
At this point, my production assistant volunteered to retrieve the missing gear. He carefully walked over to the pig’s dog house, reached inside, and gently pulled both bags back out. The pig didn’t argue. She didn’t grunt in protest. She didn’t chase anyone. She simply watched with what looked like mild disappointment, as if she was thinking: “Well…I guess my new furniture wasn’t meant to be.” The only casualties from the entire incident were two dusty, dirt-covered light stand bags that needed a quick cleaning before heading back into the production truck. No damaged equipment. No injuries.
Just one slightly disappointed pig.
After plenty of laughs, we finished filming our interviews with Dee Pickens and Dean Oliver, packed up our cameras, and headed home with a fantastic unforgettable story. People often imagine that working for a professional Boise video production company is all cameras, lights, scripts, and editing.
Most days, that’s true. But every once in a while, your biggest production challenge isn’t the location or lighting an interview or capturing the perfect shot…It’s negotiating with a pig that has unexpectedly decided your lighting equipment belongs in her dog house. Fortunately, she was one of the friendliest pigs we’ve ever met, and she was only trying to make herself a comfortable little nest. It’s moments like these that make working on location throughout Idaho so much fun. Every video shoot brings new people, new places, and occasionally…a very determined pig with excellent taste in video production gear! LOL! 😂