West Texas Karate: Instructional Video Production
If you’ve followed Hamil Bros Studios for very long, you probably know that Ross, and his son Jonathan have been students of Masters Hinkle at West Texas Karate for over two years, which, in our opinion is easily Lubbock’s best Karate School (don’t believe us, they’ve won Best of Lubbock several times).
Jonathan started at WTK in August of 2024 and Ross went and watched every lesson he could. After months of sitting by and watching, Ross could no longer stand it: he spoke with International Chief Master Chad Hinkle to see what arrangements could be made for Ross to join.
Ross had a life-long love for martial arts and knew that the services that Hamil Bros Studios offer could greatly benefit them with instructional video production
As such, an agreement was reached, Ross was in, and thus began one of the biggest recurring projects Hamil Bros has ever taken on.
In October of 2025, the first small round of videos was produced.
These were lessons for that belt cycle’s weapon: nunchucks. Cowabunga! Right?
Ross spent an evening after class with Master Hinkle getting what would be used as video portal lessons for the next time the nunchaku came around.
Fast forward nearly a year, and a plan was put into place to get the videos done for each belt cycle (a belt cycle being the period of time training and learning new materials for belt rank advancement).
In September of 2026, it was determined that it was time to get the videos for the next cycle scheduled. This was going to work out well because the next cycle was going to be Cycle A. So this was a fresh start.
The cycle material was starting over and that meant being able to start from day one of the first cycle.
19 Days and more than 140 instructional videos later, Cycle A was delivered and waiting for full approval.
A New Exercise in Lighting
Studio Lighting For Week One
When we first took this on, we really had very little idea what we were getting into, after all, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Expecting 10-15 videos a cycle (in the beginning) and finding out how much more there was to do really put things in perspective.
To make things as simple as possible, we decided to shoot in the Dragon Room (AKA: The Vault). The walls are decorated with martial arts symbols and best of all, there aren’t mirrors everywhere you look.
Ross started off with a fairly simple lighting setup.
Our Aputure 600C Pro for the key, pushing through the Aputure LightDome 150, our Amaran 300C with a Mini Dome mounted to the drop ceiling as a fill light, an Amaran 200x with an Aputure 30120 softbox mounted to the drop ceiling in the back as a back light, and another 150C mounted to the ceiling to highlight the wall art.
It doesn’t sound like much but, the thing you have to consider is that this room has mats on the floor and, not only do we not wear shoes on the mats, we definitely don’t put a ladder on the mats. They would easily be destroyed in a matter of minutes under those conditions.
So, for every light that was ceiling mounted (which was done to avoid light stands on the mats), we had to put something down under the ladder to protect the mats.
This made the process of hanging lights take a lot longer than expected and cable management was a nightmare.
We could have zip-tied each cable to the drop ceiling frame, but that seemed like a major waste to time and resources, so, we did the best we could with velcro and safety cables from the lights.
This setup was for a single-camera shoot. By the second day, we realized we would need a second camera.
So we grabbed the second camera and tripod. It didn’t take long to realize that we were under lit on the second camera angle, which was approximately 90 degrees from the A camera.
To throw a little more light, we threw a second 200x Amaran on a kicking dummy (AKA: Banana) and bounced it into the wall. It wasn’t the best solution but it’s what we had with us.
This was the first set up for September 10th, 11th, and 13th, after which we had to break the setup down for another project.
Relight the Fight
Week 2: More Lights Equals More Efficiency
When it came time to set back up for the next round of video production, Ross formulated a different plan. We were under-lit the last time and we didn’t need to be.
This time, the lighting package was going to be much more robust and manageable at the same time.
For this round of video shoots we opted to key with one of our Aputure 1200d lights (set to about 60%). This light was mounted on one of our Norm’s Combo stands with has a handy 90-degree baby pin on it which was used to mount a couple of grip knuckles with a grip arm to hold up our 4×4 Modern collapsible frame with our Chimera 4×4 quarter grid diffusion.
This light was pushed all the way into the corner.
For our main fill light, we rigged our Aputure Nova P300C panel light on a baby stand, with it’s softbox and diffusion.
In the opposite corner of the room from the 1200d key light, we placed our Aputure 600C Pro to be our 90-degree key for when the instructors turned from the A camera to the B camera.
This light was diffused with our Aputure LightDome 150 with the thinnest diffusion we had for that dome.
This light was mounted on a baby stand as well.
For our back lights, we had to get creative. As much moving around as there is, there wasn’t a good single way to do the back light.
So, for this, we employed all three of our Amaran 150C point lights and equipped them with our three Aputure 30120 rectangular soft boxes, spreading them across the ceiling to give as much back coverage as we could.
These lights required us to ceiling mount them.
Finally, the last light, the splash light on the back wall. Having used all of our 150C lights, we decided to use our Aputure 80C BLAIR point light with a standard mid cone.
Truth be told, that light seemed to be as bright as the 150C that previously took its place.
We may have to see if there is any footage of Ross mounting these lights to the ceiling.
Due to scheduling, Ross had to light the entire room on his own and, instead of bringing a ladder and risking damaging the floor mats, he decided to use the WTK’s Century Plyo Boxes which stand about 36” high with a full set. So, that’s what he moved around the room, hanging the lights.
If you recall, cable management was the biggest issue in the first round of video shoots for West Texas Karate. Nothing was hanging into the frame, but it looked trashy and, in instances where we will be leaving equipment for an extended period of time, we want things to look nice.
To mitigate this, Ross found a free design of 3d printable drop ceiling cable hooks.
He printed around 48 of these hooks and, if you can imagine, they were a life saver.
We went from a rat’s nest of cable being cobbled together to try to keep them from dangling too far down to a reasonably clean setup running the cables across the ceiling and keeping them nice and tidy.
To get a better picture of what was described, below is a diagram of the lights
In Front of the Camera
Several months ago, Ross was promoted to Jo Kyo, which is an instructor trainee.
That put him in a unique position to be able to help out more with the video production that simply lighting, shooting and editing.
On the last day of production, the materials being shot were self-defense lessons against a dagger or knife attack (yes, WTK trains with weapons as part of their heritage and lineage).
Being that it’s difficult to demonstrate and teach self-defense without an opponent, Ross was able to dive in and become the proverbial “bad guy”.
Needless to say, Jacob was glad he showed up for this day of shooting. It’s not often he gets to see his big brother being taken down by an international Tang Soo Do master.
After a few flips, rolls, and a Van Gogh experience, the shoot was a wrap and we were done filming the videos for the upcoming belt cycle.
Post Production
The post production on this video production was fairly simple in that there wasn’t a lot to edit out. Mostly editing retakes and small things like that. The most time consuming part was adding the disclaimers at the beginning and the end.
Color balancing the cameras was easy and the audio was relatively simple, although it took a few shoot days to really nail down the best capture method.
The thing that really saved a huge amount of time were the scripts that Ross developed for Davinci Resolve to expedite many processes.
Notable mentions are a script that will take all of the media from a specific shoot day and sync the camera and audio files together, while trimming them down to the length of the shortest relative clip and linking each synced stack together.
Sounds like a lot of work, and it was, but it’s now a click of a button.
To take it further, there were a couple days that ended up on the same media card together and each day’s clips were shot roughly at the same time, meaning that there would be timeline conflicts, so some parameters were added to the script that would take the clips and put them in separate timelines so long as the timeline is named after the shoot date.
For example, we had clips from 9/27 and 9/28, with files that both take place at the same time each day. So, we created a timeline for 09-27-2026 and the script was designed to only place clips that were shot on that date in that timeline.
The amount of time that saves is hours over the grand scheme of things.
The other fun script developed was a script that would mute certain words or “ums”.
This script made replacing words very easy in case of a mis-speak or if we wanted to clean out some of the less flattering dialog.
It wasn’t a huge issue on this project, but it will definitely be useful moving forward.
In the end around 140 videos were delivered and this covers materials from white belt basics like how to tie a belt through 4th or 5th degree black belt materials.
Shameless West Texas Karate Plug
If you’re looking for the best karate school Lubbock and West Texas has to offer this is what Ross has to say:
I’m nearing the end of my second year at West Texas Karate. I can’t honestly speak to any of the other schools, however I have encountered one other in the northern West Texas area and their presentation was lackluster. I don’t mean that in a way that suggests they weren’t fancy. I saw their booth at an event and they didn’t look like they cared.
From the first moment I took my son, Jonathan, to his first class, I could tell immediately that masters Chad and Alicia Hinkle deeply care for their art.
Before I joined I knew that they were people that I had a deep respect for.
After I joined, it did not take me long to realize why they have been open for as long as they have. This is not a job for them. This is a passion and, with that, every student is treated like they are as important as the master instructors.
Once I joined, I was immediately in love with the culture and the environment.
¾ of the way through my intermediate rank (blue belt) when I was invited to join the Master’s Path and begin training to become an instructor, which was a no-brainer to accept.
“Beyond the love and respect for the martial arts, they have an amazing leadership club, which sounds a bit dry on the outside, but is actually a lot of fun and has helped me tremendously personally and in running Hamil Bros Studios.
I have also spoken to other parents and older students with children and/or grandchildren who have shared that their experiences at other studios were lacking. Whether it was that the materials being taught were underwhelming or earning a belt rank being tied to the amount of money spent on training.
West Texas Karate is a place to belong. I have watched students walk in timid and walk out with their heads held high.
Recently, I sparred with a young man, maybe around 10 years old (yes, everyone spars with everyone), and I remember how, when he first came in as a white belt, he was comfortable in his shell. He did what he needed to do to get through class, but he was allowing himself to be held back. When sparring with him the other day, there was a fire in his eyes. I’m over 30 years his senior and I could tell he wanted to devour me in sparring.
It was extremely satisfying to watch.
So, why is West Texas Karate the best school in West Texas? It’s because they hold themselves to a high standard while pushing their students to be great martial artists, great people, great students, great friends, and great family members.
Candidly, there’s nowhere else I would rather be.