Did some tornado aftermath coverage for NBC this week. Hard to wrap one’s head around such intense destruction. Interviewed some remarkable folks who were already picking up the pieces and moving on. Reminded me that I have way too many possessions. I should have built a small 302-based bag for this, the 664 was way overkill.
Finally got to contribute to my favorite show. Jessica Williams came down to Dallas to shoot a piece about Cinco de Mayo. It aired on the 7th.
Long day but the segment ended up being a good one.
What started out being described as a three day process trailer gig became a two-day (day 1 was MOS) affair, with only the last day being on the trailer. The guy I usually work with was out of town so I braved it solo. Bad call. It was a largish shoot with a healthy amount of agency/creative, PLUS, as a bonus surprise, it was being shot in English and Spanish with two casts.
They requested earwigs for the kids only hours before, fortunately I had a pair of old school ones with the neck loop. Thankfully I had just enough IFB gack to outfit that earwig request along with Comteks for all the agency types.
Dual language meant swapping out the cast every time there was a different camera angle. We were shooting on on Alexa as well as an epic, the epic was for the interior shots. It was only supposed to be a one at a time camera shoot, but the process trailer day they sandbagged them with requesting to shoot both at the same time. That made for a really fun day for the camera guys.
A new docu series for TNT, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Austin-based Megalomedia. It features day to day doings of the US Marshal Service, specifically the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Fugitive Task Force. Say that 10 times fast….
Currently in week 7 of production in Houston, Texas. Using Panasonic 3100s and a Red Epic. All one block of Lectro so any character can be accessed by any of the four crews. Everyone’s wearing Kevlar on this one.
Once again I got to saddle up with my friends at Gratis 7 and the Austin Stone.
This time it’s an exotic game dance called Texas Mountain Ranch outside Hondo, TX that is a backdrop for a series of videos helping men overcome issues in their life. It features Colt McCoy and Matt Carter, a pastor at The Austin Stone.
The hunting there is mostly deer and elk, but there are several exotics that call it home. I had a blast with the coatimundi, kangaroos, camels, zebra and jackrabbits.
Using mostly C300s, we shot a good deal of actuality and a couple of days worth of a sit down discussion in the hunting lodge that formed the main content of the shoot.
I had an SR on on C300 and sent a mono mix to it, using an onboard shotgun for nat sound. Jammed it and the 2nd cam from my 664.
A scenic week of good toil with great friends.
A fun commercial shoot with Real Normal, featuring Byron Brown, Mike McRae, Will Elliot and directed by Kirk Johnson.
Unique Eats is a Cooking Channel show that features interesting establishments that have made a name for themselves all over the US. I worked with them a couple years back and it was exactly as I remembered it, except they’ve upgraded their audio kit to the 552 from an ancient FP33. Still using a T-powered 416 though, with a phantom converter barrel sticking out the side. Boo. Camera still a Panasonic HDX900.
My favorite restaurant this time around was probably a new Thai place called Sway, at the corner of S. 1st and Elizabeth. Beautiful wood decor everywhere with giant tables that everyone shares. The food was terrific, the head chef came over from La Condessa.
30 production days later, this beast is has been put to rest. 16 flat tires, multiple horse incidents and assorted broken gear complimented this rollercoaster that took us all over the Lone Star state.
My bag-centric approach proved to be the right call, many locations were not cart-friendly and being able to jump in a creek bed at a moments notice was a blessing. We remoted a sharkfin and a helical most of the time and I used my other sharkfin for my boomer’s IFB. A Comtek BST 72-216 fed the director and both cameras scratch tracks for dailies. We hung my Lockit on the Epic and the Red One used as B-cam had a non-functioning timecode port, so all it’s footage will have to be hand sync’d. Have fun with that!
My PSC RF Multi SMA bit the dust the first day, replaced it with an Octopack and never looked back. My UH400A that we used on Zero Charisma for booming began having range issues, so it needed to hit the Mothership and we used a UM400 and a phantom box to get by.
More gear fun… We were doing a daytime campsite scene, I glance down and smoke is drifting up lazily from the antenna port of my Comtek base station. I yanked power (it was connected to the genny) and pulled it out, smoke continuing to come out for the next couple of minutes. Sigh. Another toy heading back to home. I had a portable Comtek tranny available to limp us by.
Other than a couple of broken wires, that was the last of the gear accidents.
This was a challenging shoot, largely due to the use of the B-Cam, lots of wides and tights were being used. We were also constantly chasing the light, as the days are a lot shorter this time of year.
Overall it was a fun crew, we had our laughs when we could and we’d get a game of Ninja in whenever possible.
Ponderosa Rig V2
Starting a new indy flick that happens to be a Western next Friday. Knowing from experience that locations on these can be unfriendly at best, I decided a cushy cart setup would not be the best approach. I decided to go full on bag for this. I’ll be able to be static quite a bit I’m sure, but I want to be as portable as possible at any given moment. I’ve included 7 wireless, my Comtek BST and this will be the first real torture test for the PSC RF Multi SMA antenna distro. I’ll be able to send signal to all the receivers via the standard whips when conditions are on the go, and easily be able to hook onto the sharkfins when we’ll be staying put for a bit. I’m nervous about the distro as it’s been back to the mothership twice now for RF amp defects. I banged on it quite a bit just now and it seems to be playing nice. I prefer the bigger BST in the bag when it’ll fit as the XLR connections are far less prone to physical noise and interference.
Ponderosa Rig V3
Ok, so the PSC Distro crapped out 15 minutes into the first day of shooting. Bummer. It’s still at the Mothership for the third time now. I spotted an Octopack for sale and immediately bought it and somehow the dude got it to me from New York during the storm stuff. Why I waited so long to get one of these is a mystery to me. Since selling my Venue I wanted to get a cart and bag friendly distro setup and this has been perfect thus far.
Currently in Portland, OR, subbing for the very last two weeks of COPS 25th season. Having never been to Portland I jumped at the chance. The weather’s been fantastic and I found an awesome disc golf course at Pier Park. The cops have been fun to work with and the shooter and I are getting several stories in the can.
