((our flashback scene))
((superscottiescopic))
((me with the Lambda head)) allows you to hang the camera above and close to objects or hang and tilt it upside down or do a complete 360 //
This the end of week 4 on Vamperifica and I never told you about week 3.. These last weeks have been crazy and so completely varied. We have worked with the Lambda head to get the camera within inches of a table.. we have worked with a crane called the superscottiescope that a man named Scottie built from the ground up! We have shot two epic fight scenes and a flashback scene with adorable children doubling as the leads.. We have been to the beach, we have been in studio and we have been in an amazing gothic synagogue turned art studio. Its been crazy.. and I can't help but find that I am interested to see it all put together.. Its hard to tell when you are painting each puzzle piece at a time, what the painting will turn out to be, but this could be really funny.
Filmmaking is the hardest work that I have EVER done. Good thing I like it. Yesterday was only a twelve hour day.. thank God, but we were shooting in a dark alley a bunch of night stuff.. so our hours went from 5pm to 5am. The alley way was also down some stairs from a hill that ran up from an downtown intersection. We left our camera carts below but a lot of tools had to be taken to the top of the hill, where video village would be and where the camera would be. Camera department is also in charge of monitor.. that is CONSTANTLY moving to accommodate where the director needs to be to see the same angle as the action. So I have to disassemble the monitor and the stand and get it to the top of the hill, then set up the stand and put the monitor on it. Sandbag the stand and run the cable. We need to have fresh batteries standing by for the RED at all times.. that means if we swap our backup batteries, its on me to run down to production and make sure to replenish the back up. We have two mat boxes. One for handheld that is a clip on and is constantly falling off.. and one that is standard and slides on to the camera rods. Yesterday, I had to keep track of them both because we kept switching setups from handheld to sticks. We haven't used the sticks, or tripod, barely at all this gig. Thank God because they are a beast to set up. We did this day and I had to lift both the baby sticks and the standard sticks into position.. most of the time with the fluid head that at least added 20 lbs. With us shooting down below and up above the alley, the bnc video village cable had to be run all over the place and from all different vantage points. Each time the set up changed the cable had to go with it. And on this glorious occasion we were using water towers so all the camera gear and camera itself had to be safetied for rain. The slate as well cannot get wet so for each take I ran down or across the alley to slate and then up and out of the rain. In between all of this is when I get to write the reports for each take and the notes of which lens, aperture, and ISO we were using for each shot. Then we have lens changes. For the martini, or last shot of the night, we used the zoon lens on the camera.. 18-100 zoom Cooke lens. The box is a beast.. I lugged it across the forest to the edge of the alley and deep chasm that they were shooting down into. The zoom lens takes a decent amount of time to set up because the camera rods have to be replaced to support the much longer lens and the zoom motor has to be attached to allow the camera operator, or in this case the fearless DP, to zoom the lens easily.
Now imagine this mess that we needed to get the camera up and running.. and now imagine me having to pack all of it up at the end of the night.. ((with James' help, of course)) Long day. Demanding day.
This the end of week 4 on Vamperifica and I never told you about week 3.. These last weeks have been crazy and so completely varied. We have worked with the Lambda head to get the camera within inches of a table.. we have worked with a crane called the superscottiescope that a man named Scottie built from the ground up! We have shot two epic fight scenes and a flashback scene with adorable children doubling as the leads.. We have been to the beach, we have been in studio and we have been in an amazing gothic synagogue turned art studio. Its been crazy.. and I can't help but find that I am interested to see it all put together.. Its hard to tell when you are painting each puzzle piece at a time, what the painting will turn out to be, but this could be really funny.
Filmmaking is the hardest work that I have EVER done. Good thing I like it. Yesterday was only a twelve hour day.. thank God, but we were shooting in a dark alley a bunch of night stuff.. so our hours went from 5pm to 5am. The alley way was also down some stairs from a hill that ran up from an downtown intersection. We left our camera carts below but a lot of tools had to be taken to the top of the hill, where video village would be and where the camera would be. Camera department is also in charge of monitor.. that is CONSTANTLY moving to accommodate where the director needs to be to see the same angle as the action. So I have to disassemble the monitor and the stand and get it to the top of the hill, then set up the stand and put the monitor on it. Sandbag the stand and run the cable. We need to have fresh batteries standing by for the RED at all times.. that means if we swap our backup batteries, its on me to run down to production and make sure to replenish the back up. We have two mat boxes. One for handheld that is a clip on and is constantly falling off.. and one that is standard and slides on to the camera rods. Yesterday, I had to keep track of them both because we kept switching setups from handheld to sticks. We haven't used the sticks, or tripod, barely at all this gig. Thank God because they are a beast to set up. We did this day and I had to lift both the baby sticks and the standard sticks into position.. most of the time with the fluid head that at least added 20 lbs. With us shooting down below and up above the alley, the bnc video village cable had to be run all over the place and from all different vantage points. Each time the set up changed the cable had to go with it. And on this glorious occasion we were using water towers so all the camera gear and camera itself had to be safetied for rain. The slate as well cannot get wet so for each take I ran down or across the alley to slate and then up and out of the rain. In between all of this is when I get to write the reports for each take and the notes of which lens, aperture, and ISO we were using for each shot. Then we have lens changes. For the martini, or last shot of the night, we used the zoon lens on the camera.. 18-100 zoom Cooke lens. The box is a beast.. I lugged it across the forest to the edge of the alley and deep chasm that they were shooting down into. The zoom lens takes a decent amount of time to set up because the camera rods have to be replaced to support the much longer lens and the zoom motor has to be attached to allow the camera operator, or in this case the fearless DP, to zoom the lens easily.
Now imagine this mess that we needed to get the camera up and running.. and now imagine me having to pack all of it up at the end of the night.. ((with James' help, of course)) Long day. Demanding day.
((me with the slate at the ready!!))
1 comment:
Nice, Sahale. I too am wondering how this crazy puzzle will fall into place. You are an indispensable and charming piece of it.
Write On!
Cheers, Richard (Producer-Vamperifica)
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