At long last we started production on this music video. Let’s go then…
Pre-production meeting:
We went to Katella Grill for our first official pre-production meeting. We briefly talked through the week’s activities and what was left to be done. I’ve worked with Clay and Jeff before, but this was the first time I’ve met Kerry – the show’s First Assistant Director. As soon as we started our meeting, I knew we were in good hands. He’s got his game together.
Several locations were still not locked down – last minute negotiations. We did have The Grove and after breakfast, we visited there to take a look.
It’s a nice venue. The first location for the shoot is a lounge designed by Bobby Trendy (you may remember him as Anna Nicole’s tacky designer).
From there it was off to the production office for some more planning and calling. Then home to pick-up a bottle of wine for Albee at Panavision as a thank you.
Jeff (Prod) and Clay (Dir) making the hard decisions.
Clay (Dir) and Kerry (1st AD) talk about the coming days.
Clay explains his ideas for the red carpet at The Grove in Anaheim.
Prep / Load-in
After the morning meetings, I for my part, needed to visit Panavision and Hollywood rentals, but mostly Panavision. I first visited Panavision. Albee wasn’t there but I did leave him a nice bottle of Riesling. When I got there, the 1st & 2nd Camera Assistants were checking out the camera package. Here’s a summary of what we ordered:
- Panstar II (we also got an extra body just incase) – Super 35 / 2.40 ground glass
- 14.5-50mm Primo Macro Zoom
- 25-250mm Panavision/Cooke Zoom
- 6mm, 8mm, 10mm Primo Prime
- 24mm Slant Focus
- Incline Prism
- Film Stock: Kodak Vision 2 5218 500T & Kodak EXR 5248 100D
(Craig and John at prep)
It was too late to visit Hollywood rentals, but I got a call from the Key Grip and Chief Lighting Technician letting me know everything was in order. From HR we ordered:
- Loaded 3-ton Grip Truck
- 200 Amp Genie
- Assortment of Kino Flo lights
- 650w and 1K tungsten units
- 1200 HMI PARs
- 9-light Maxi-Brute
- 7-light Arri Ruby 7
- Car mounts
From Chapman Leonard we got:
- Super Pee Wee
- 24″ Slider
- 40′ of straight track
Again, a big “thank you” to Albee at Panavision and Izzy at Hollywood Rentals for their help on this project.
That night I listened to the song a couple of dozen times and reviewed my notes for the various scenes in the treatment.
Day 1 of 4
Day one of production is always fun. I got to Anaheim about a half hour early and stopped at McDonalds for a little breakfast. When I got to The Grove – our first and only location today, David (Key Grip) was already there. Then slowly everyone started showing up and we started our day.
(Clay hard at work evaluating the shot)
(Stairwell shot of Roscoe being told to sign a contract)
The Crew:
1st AC: Craig J. / 2nd AC: John J.
Chief Lighting Technician: Kevin W. / Assist. CLT: Stephan G. / Electrician: Nick
Key Grip: David S. / Assist. Key Grip: Alex / Grip: Matt
[ Before I go on, I want to thank the crew for there hard work and dedicated service to this project. They put up with a lot and keep going. Kevin and his electric crew were among the best I've worked with. Kevin was fantastic, offering some great suggestions and really working toward the look of the project as well as rolling with the punches when things changes. David did a fantastic job rigging the camera for some car mount shots and when it's crunch time, he's a machine. And thanks to Craig and John for keeping the camera going. The Panastar isn't light weight to work with and after twelve hours of lugging around the camera with a thousand feet of film in the mag, thanks for your hard work. ]
I gave the Keys a tour of the facility and what we’d be doing where. The grip truck arrived, but the genie was not in tow. It seems that the PA that was to drive the genie and grip truck to Orange County the previous day was given a driving test to see if he could handle the tow. He failed and a driver from HR delivered the genie that morning at an additional cost. (A good bit of advice for any other independent show planning on sending a PA to pick-up the grip truck with a genie in tow.)
The band showed up with rock star punctuality – i.e. two hours late. That didn’t sit well on a schedule already tighter than a bull’s arse in fly season.
We used the 24mm slant-focus on one shot. It wasn’t as dramatic as I would have liked- bellows would have been the preferred weapon of choice. We mostly stayed with the 3.4:1 (14.5-50mm) lens.
( shots from the red carpet )
For the night shots, we used a Maxi-Brute (narrow spot globes) shot through some 250 diffusion for general ambience and a pair of PAR Can trees (10 units total) and used the Ruby 7 for backlight or to highlight the architecture. The PAR can trees were made from two rolling stands with a 10′ Speed Rail bar attached across them. Mounted to the Speed Rail were five PAR cans each using narrow spot globes and 1/2 CTB.
The lighting was mostly clean with the occasional mixing of daylight globes and tungsten. For the club scene, we used my broken mirror gag. The grips taped a set of mirrors to pancake and then shattered the glass. The effect is a reflected light with various shapes. Traditionally, I’ve used 12×12 mirror taped up heavily and with no hard backing so you can move the whole thing around and create various lighting patterns, but this worked just fine too. The effect is similar to a moving light or disco ball. Cool and useful.
( my broken mirror gag )
Much of the time, we used the 1K through a Chimera and with the 30° honeycomb grid. I love this light it’s wonderfully focused and beautifully soft. (I worked with Robert Primes on a lecture a few years back – he introduced me to this wonderful combo.) The only thing that would have made it better was if we had used a 2k instead. But the budget was limited and we got as much as we could afford. Still it work and I loved it.
The aesthetic of the show came together very quickly. Strong backlight and a soft fill on the far side of the camera. The key light usually was the Chimera/honeycomb combo or a Kino Flo. For backlight, Kevin and I favored using the ETC Source 4. I’ve been ordering this light on most shows for the past three years. I read an article in American Cinematographer about a DP who was using them to create an ambient fill in a room by bouncing the light off the ceiling of the room and using the leafs to cut the light sharply at the edges of the ceiling. I started using the light in this manner, but for our show, I wanted a strong and focusable light source. The edges can be taken out of focus or sharpened and shaped. Try it, you’ll like it. I even overheard Kevin (CLT) say he’ll request it on every show from now on.
Click to view example…
Here’s a hard learned lesson for every DP. Don’t touch the gear! It’s one of those things the AC, the Gaffer, the Dolly grip, etc. always tell me. I’m not clumsy or incapable of working the gear, it’s simply that there was a time when I could and when you’re in a position of authority and supervision, you don’t touch the gear. In my heart, I’m still crew, but there comes a point when your not. I tried to help move the dolly and what did it get me? Well, my hand must have been near the seat post and it slammed back while moving the dolly and pinched the tip of my ring finger. Nothing serious, no loss in shooting time or anything, but it did bleed for a while. So what did we learn… Don’t get off the boat, never get off the boat! No, just don’t touch the gear!
Turn around was real short. We finished up around 2AM and had to be in Ontario International Airport at 10AM. I gave myself two hours to drive out there plus the usual morning stuff.
Day 2 of 4
(Tilo and me – it was a rough night for everyone!)
Got there a half hour early. Today we’re at Ontario International Airport shooting at the new terminal. We shot near the United Airlines ticket counter. It was nice having the United logo behind our ticket counter lady.
I was able to take two crew members. I took Craig (1st AC) and David (Key Grip). I needed Craig there because I have no idea what to do with the Panastar. It’s been years since I’ve had to build and tear-down a Panastar. I was surprised to find that I still have a changing tent, though!
(high angle shot as Kurupt and Roscoe hug goodbye)
We got some shots of Tilo and Roscoe at the airport planning to leave town. Our first cameo was with Kurupt. His part in the video’s narrative is that he’s seeing Young Roscoe off at the curb. We did something kinda cool for the shot of the car driving up. Instead of keeping the vehicle in focus while it drives up to the lens, we set the focus to a point closer than where the car is going to stop – in effect, reverse focus. This made the image very out of focus then quickly sharp. Nothing new here, I’m sure, but it did go against the grain to everything that the AC had been taught.
(photo from the viewfinder)
It seems that Kurupt has a production company and after his shots were done, Clay and him had a talk. It would be great if Kurupt could find a place for Clay in some future production. It’s his time to shine and I’m sure this video will prove his ability and showcase his talent.
(Kurupt and Clay talk about the shot)
Later in the day, we used the inclined prism for a shot of Tilo walking up to the ticket counter. It was a cool shot seeing the lines on the tile fly by the lens so close. At this point I have to say something about Tilo. The not the usual rock star. He was genuinely interested in our crew and what they did – it wasn’t all about hanging out with the director. He would talk to the 1st AC about the prism and was in awe of it and its capabilities and he wanted to look through the lens and just show a great deal of respect and interest in what everyone did. He was definitely fun to have around and tried really hard to make sure his performance was exactly what the director needed. Much respect!!
One note about the incline prism. We couldn’t use the 14.5-50mm lens (3.4:1) because it has a small lens hood / protector which prevented it from sitting flush with the prism’s rear element. Instead, we used the 10:1 (25-250mm) which just made the close focus distance of 5′ 6″.
( incline prism in use – loved it! it really looked trick!!)
A small production note. Ontario is an excellent production friendly location. They were very accommodating in light of the current security climate. They just finished having “24″ shoot an episode there which was the talk of everyone who had dealings with us.
(look everyone – it’s my Panavision hallway photograph)
At the end of the day, we needed to shoot a plane flying overhead. We travelled off of the airport to an industrial section just east of the airport, parked our car and set-up the shot. This Christmas, my girl got me a director’s viewfinder. It really came in handy today. When one plane flew over, I zoomed the viewfinder to estimate what lens we would need to film the plane from wing tip to wing tip and still have a little room on either side. It turns out that from where we were we needed a 50mm lens. Cool! A few minutes later, the camera was up, the plane flew over and we got the shot.
(L: David moving the dolly – cool 70′s stain-glass! – R: A shot I just had to have. I don’t know if it’ll make the cut but seriously, nothing says “airport” like a huge plane, yes?! The best part is that it’s used for training and so it has no markings. )
Day 3 of 4
Back to Ontario Airport. This time we went to the old terminal. Its most recent claim to fame is that it was Miami International Airport in the movie “Catch Me If You Can”. The officer there said he got a big kick watching the looks of driver’s faces as they drove by after just getting off a plane.
The first cool shot of the day was something that Clay talked about fairly early one. I’m convinced that he’s got this aversion to SteadiCam. His predilection for the dolly is something I just can’t fault him for, though. He pushes you to get shots you know can be gotten another way but somehow it works out and usually, it works out swimmingly. This is just one example. The way the shot works out is the camera follows Tilo from behind (head and shoulders) as Roscoe passes by camera left. The camera stops and Tilo continues – focus remains fixed at the point were the camera stopped. The camera then whip-pans 180° to find Roscoe standing there looking at Tilo holding there for a second or two. The camera then continues panning back (360°) to reveal Tilo standing in frame. We used about 30′ of track, stopping at about 20′. I used the gear-head set to neutral since the movement around would be much more fluid in part from its design and lack of friction but also due to just shear added weight. Also, the wheels are much easier to ease into a stop from a high-speed move. As far as the mechanics of setting up the shot, we reverse engineered it – starting at the end and setting matching focus marks for Tilo and Roscoe and working back to the beginning of the shot. Unfortunately there’s no way to view the shot so monitoring had to be done off the onboard monitor.
The running joke on set went something like this… “Hey Clay, I think I read somewhere that there’s this new thingamajig called a “SteadiCam”!” But hell, the shot worked and I really have to hand it to Clay – my hat’s off to him. Kudos, you magnificent rogue!!!
Click to view dolly move…
We did have a few opps! moments. One that I heard but didn’t confirm is as we’re lighting the hallway, in the distance there was the distinctive sound of an HMI lens falling and shattering. I know that sound since I’ve heard it before. I can still hear the gaffer calling on his walkie, “what was that!!”. The other took place at this location too. Here again, I heard about but haven’t confirmed that a nine-light we placed outside the building and shooting into the lobby area might have been too close and the heat from the light cracked (I heard shattered) one of the glass panels on the buildings facade. If true, Opps! indeed. It happens – that’s why you get insurance.
Company move to Santa Ana and a street between the County Jail and the Santa Ana Stadium. We got some shots of the car driving by and some hood mounted shots.
While the Ontario Airport folks were very accommodating, the folks in Santa Ana were not. We were forced to only stay on the stadium side walkway and the grip truck and genie could only be parked there. Great! Lemonade out of lemons time!
We placed the Maxi-Brute at the end of the street lighting some trees and lighting the car. Ten PAR cans about fifteen feet apart were placed along the remainder of the street we had with the beams lighting the pavement like hash marks from sidewalk to sidewalk – it looked like the marks on a tiger’s back. Finally, the Ruby 7 was place halfway along the street to light the building and car at the second half of the street. We didn’t have any cable crossovers on the truck so we couldn’t run cable across the street. (A good note for anyone doing street lighting – bring crossovers!)
Inside the car we used a Mini Flo kit for the driver and passenger and in the back-seat we used a 4′ – 2 bank Kino Flo. To power that light, we used a 300w inverter. It looked phony, but it looked right for a rap video. Slick and polished.
Click to view lighting for our night shoot…
Dave stands by his rig like a proud papa! Great job David!!!
A shot of the hood mount rig during the stability test.
Here are some quicktime movies captured from the video tap.
Lesson’s learned: It would have been nice (but not necessary) to have a wireless start and stop for the camera or a longer start/stop cable. Cable crossovers are a must-have. More lights and more power are definitely in order when shooting at night and seeing as big of a world as we saw. What would I have like to have had? Well a couple of condors with three Maxi-Brutes each would be a good start.
With our hours used up, we called it a night. Off to day four.
Day 4 of 4
(Stuff!!)
Started by going to Location Sound in Burbank to purchase a new earpiece. Then it was off to Irvine for our first location. We used lots of 5248 today. Not my film of choice – too slow. It was a budgetary decision – hard to say no to 12¢-a-foot (I think that’s how much they paid).
Most of the stuff was alright but it was the performance that worked out real nice. We placed Tilo on an applebox next to the pool. He was back lit by a PAR can with some 1/2 CTB. A 6×6 with bleached muslin was placed to the left of camera for fill and for reflection on his glasses. Directly in-line with him and camera, on the other side of the pool, we placed a 1200HMI with no lens, aimed directly into the pool. On either side of the pool, I had two PAs with broom handles – AKA “stir sticks” – gently stir the water to generate ripples. Awesome! If we had more time, I wanted to create a water effect on the side of his face farthest from the camera. Next time – still good though!
(Singing to camera)
Company move… we’re off to Garden Grove. We shoot at a Studio there. Unfortunately, lunch was two hours late because of an unfortunate call and a opps! in planning. The crew got a little upset about it as one can imagine. But as a tribute to the quality of the crew, they moved on and continued to work harder than a fan at a funeral home in July! Thanks guys!
(Antonio (Key Set PA) stands-in – Sometimes you are rockin’ has hard as you think you are!!)
One of the groovy things we did is an old gag I’ve done on past projects. What I’ve done is shine the light from a flashlight into the viewfinder to create these cool flashes and blow-outs on the film. This time, I used a red laser pointer. It looked amazing on the tap – I can’t wait to see it on film. I wish I had examples to show. Hopefully soon.
I’m a fan of the slider. It’s a camera support that slides on rods that run the length of the plate. We ordered a 24″ plate but there are 36″ and I think even a five foot plate. They’re great for quick moves where objects are close to the lens. We used it to review someone. But on another shoot during the shoot we used it to creep toward some folks.
Day 5 of 4
Did you catch that. Look at the headline again. Get it?!
(Roscoe’s performance shot. Not as cool as ripples but still real nice.)
(These shots depict his time after his near death accident.)
(I love this shot. Simple but elegant. As has been our practice, we didn’t shift focus to follow the wheels as they turned away. Things just go out of focus. Very nice aesthetic choice.)
A new AD today. Katey replaced Kerry on our extra day. She and Kerry were fantastic ADs. They knew their jobs and pushed.
Company move… This time, we’re off to Tustin (or Costa Mesa). Street and accident scenes. Here we shot a series of shots depicting the accident Roscoe had when he actually died briefly. (I’m reminded of the Holy Grail bit… “You’re dead” “I got better!”.) Here, a couple of pairs of PAR cans with red and blue party gels. A couple clean for headlights. And the 9-light and Ruby 7 to light up the surroundings.
(Very scary!!! Dolly arm all the way up, a three foot extender, and a very heavy camera and lens! It survived, but I was white knuckles the whole time.)
(Our last shot. We placed a stop sign on a C-stand and moved it into place. A couple of guys pushed the car forward and it came to a stop with a couple of sandbags. Cool as it rolls into frame on the windshield.)
I’m usually as patient as Job. But sometimes! Tonight was tough. So much of tonight was found – both the director and I hadn’t visited the location prior to shooting. It was in the director’s head and even on paper, but both don’t really tell me what the shot is. Much of the night when like this… Crew asks what to do and I have no idea. The director is off having to deal with some other issue with the band. I try to set up something, he comes back and it’s wrong. Change everything. Back to one. I think much of is was a planning issue. We didn’t have much time for pre-production planning. So much of the time was spend just getting everyone to agree on making the video. Then there’s the fact that it’s late at night, cold, and time is very limited due in part to our performer not at the location on time. The list goes on and the nerves get frayed with each reason. As much as I implored the fact that the DP shouldn’t touch equipment – tonight I did in order to move things along quickly. The shots we got were acceptable but not terrific – too many compromises. It felt like capturing content and not substance. It happens, I know. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna be happy about it.
I have no doubt that the video will be fabulous and I’ll think it’s the best think I’ve done yet. But for now, I’m more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!
Again, I want to thank the crew for a bang-up job under some occasionally adverse conditions and I want to thank the director and producer for all their efforts at making this music video possible. So many fires that no one saw them put out! Great job everyone.
One last note. This is the first shoot were I used my iPod to record my shoot notes. I’m listening to the final recordings right now. Very useful. The best part is that when I’m done, I can simply burn then to a CD and keep them with the project’s folder. And finally…
…your moment of Zen.
