A new local venture will be behind the scenes of cablecasts of University of Hawaii sports starting Thursday and will branch out into other television production and engineering work over time.
The company, FRE LLC, was formed in June by Keith Aotaki, former director of engineering for Hawaii News Now (KGMB-TV and KHNL-TV), as well as colleagues Bryan Kam and Aaron Iyomasa.
It will operate as Da Crew Production and Engineering Group.
Aotaki left the stations in August and has been "doing independent work … and stuff" while he and others "have been biding our time to get some kind of signed agreement, crewing for OCSports," Aotaki said.
That happened within the past couple of weeks.
He has worked off-camera in Honolulu television beginning in 1977 at KITV and has been responsible for providing production crew members for UH sports telecasts for some 20 years.
The same people will be operating the cameras and doing all the other work for OCSports’ telecasts of UH games, using equipment and facilities provided by NEP Supershooters LP, according to Dan Schmidt, OCSports general manager and executive producer.
Previously, most of the crew members were freelancers, contractors or vendors, so the addition of Da Crew will bring all the camera operators, sound crew members, graphics people and others under one company, "putting the responsibility for crewing and administration of crewing all in one place," Schmidt said.
"This allows us to put everything into one bucket," he said. "These guys saw a need and filled it."
The "slight" change will be invisible to Oceanic Time Warner Cable viewers of University of Hawaii sporting events on OCSports.
"Our first date crewing will be this Thursday," Aotaki said, for UH Wahine basketball.
Part of the business plan is to "do crew service for OCSports, but the other parts" will include crewing for other productions or projects, providing engineering services to studios and hopefully providing services to television stations, he said.
"Anybody who needs a camera guy or sound guy or graphics person, we can crew that producer’s needs — we supply personnel … because we have access to the freelance community," he said.
"Because of our background experience, we can cover all bases," Aotaki said. "We’re a service-oriented group."
Not chopped, and richer
Hilo native Royden Ellamar beat three other contestants to win the $10,000 first prize on Food Network’s "Chopped," in the "Hecho en the ‘Chopped’ Kitchen" episode.
Ellamar "was the calmest and most confident of the participants," proud father Fred said via email.
Mystery basket ingredients are described in the show’s synopsis as being from Mexico, including pigs’ feet and tres leches (three milks) cake. However, born into a family of hunters, Ellamar was not daunted by the trotters. Coconut was another of the ingredients given to the chef-contestants in the show, but others, including goat chops and yucca, are not exactly standard fare at Ken’s House of Pancakes, where Ellamar got his culinary start washing dishes.
Ellamar is now executive chef at the AAA Four-Diamond Sensi Restaurant at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. He is featured in a video on the restaurant’s website discussing not just the restaurant’s food, but also how he was inspired to get into the business, and expressing pride that his son has followed in his culinary footsteps.
That son, Tayden Poha-Ellamar, is a cook at the newly opened Sage restaurant, also in Las Vegas.
"Royden mentioned throughout the show about his sacrificial years when he left his son in beautiful Hawaii only to pave the way, and now it’s happening," Fred Ellamar said.
Royden Ellamar’s winning episode will be shown again on the Food Network twice on March 5, twice on March 14 and again on March 16.
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On the Net:
» www.foodnetwork.com/chopped
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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.
