Water Work

Last month Brett and I went up to Gainesville to do some water work for an At&T Olympics spot.  I spent a day prepping and a day shooting Ryan Lochte in the Pool. 

They ended up using a hand full of really cool shots from the Alexa at 60fps.  They added a ton of CG fish and colored the heck out of it and made it look really, really nice.

The grip department had a tough job on this shoot.  They had to black out an entire Olympic pool.  Black rubber mat on the bottom (with vents for the drains and jets), black 20x's on the sides and a monster, two story black curtain on a construction crane.  The curtain was (if I remember correctly) 80'x60'x15'.  All hanging on a double stack truss rig with a black plastic top.  The whole thing had to hold up in heavy wind and rain and be moveable so we could make it dark and then make it light depending on the shot.  Really nice rig, my hat goes off to them.






I'm really happy with the final spot and look forward to doing more under water work in the future.

Jamaica, my second home...

I sometimes go a year or two without going to Jamaica.  I sometimes go there ten times per year.  This looks like it's going to be a ten times per year kind of year.

I went down to shoot a commercial for Lime (Jamaica's version of At&T).  It was a 4 day shoot crammed into 2 days.  I used 100% local Jamaican crew and they did a fantastic job. 

There is a new rule (new to me at least).  About twice per year (usually Christmas and Summer) certain cities have embargo's where they prevent people from taking a lot of excess baggage and or any large or heavy baggage.  My experience up until this year was that did not include media (camera) equipment.  When I went to check in for my flight to Kingston (about 3 and a half hours early) I was informed that I could not fly my steadicam into Kingston.  My only option was to fly to Montego Bay (3 hours from Kingston with good traffic).  That added 3 hours to my trip down and 3 hours to my trip home making the whole job feel pretty long with a lot of driving. 

Part of what we get paid to do in the movie business is to improvise, think on our feet and basically get the job done.  This was a good example of why it's important to get to the airport early when you are traveling, particularly when you are traveling internationally.

Here is a rough cut of the spot, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, especially considering I had no prep, no knowledge of the equipment or locations or crew and we shot 9 locations in 2 days.

Busy!!!!

I haven't had a lot of down time for the last few months. After 'Ring the Bell' I went to Sarasota to do steadicam on 'Spring Breakers', the Harmony Korine movie. I got to do a big night time steadicam oner, gun fight for the end of the movie. Harmony and Benoit Debie (the DP) were both really great to work with and really creative.

Then it was a series of commercials and then off to Jamaica for two weeks of Sandals Resorts:

After Sandals I did a few more higher end commercials (a lot of 35mm film this year)and a live Tony Bennett 'Duets' concert for a week. Tony is 86 years old and still does over 200 days a year performing. Tony is bad to the bone!

I finally had time to shoot some 'Burn Notice 2nd unit' (now on it's 6th season) and got to do some pretty cool stuff with a semi and 3 suburbans, including hanging under the semi while it drove down the street while the suburbans were trying to force it off the road:

I just found the links on line for two of the commercials I did for Acura.  They were shot in 35mm and are actually 4 commercials spliced into 2.  The shots themselves were not that difficult but trying to match the two commercials so that each frame was as close to exactly the same size as it's matching frame but on totally different sets was pretty tricky.  I think the finished spots are really cool:




Worked on 'The Glades' Friday, shooting some more 'Burn Notice' on Monday and then Brett and I leave from set at wrap and head up to Gainesville for a few days to do under water work on a commercial for the Olympics.  It looks like Summer is going to be as busy as Spring.

Ring The Bell

So I just finished ‘Ring the Bell’ in Deland Florida. I was originally told the Director wanted to shoot ‘Clint Eastwood’ hours (like ten hour days) and immediately knew I was in for painful 16 hour days. It was a lower budget movie and a faith based film. Basically a friend had asked me to do the film and I was going to help out my friend.

Well I expected torture and it wound up being the best experience I’ve ever had on a motion picture set. It was so good in fact that I should probably retire now as I will likely never have a better experience on a set or get better shots.

It would be really hard to describe what it felt like to work on that set but I could give some examples of things that made it so good… First we had a crew that was very good at what they did. While the movies total budget was low, they paid pretty much commercial rates to the crew. So we had a talented team and everybody was happy to be there. We also worked not 16, not 12, not even 10 hour days. I think our average day was about 8.5 hours. We also made an effort to wrap early on the last day of each week so the crew could spend time with their families. Instead of having one caterer, we had a different restaurant cater our lunch every day. The weather was amazing, the script, cast and the director were great, and the producers were the nicest people you will ever meet. What made the producers so great? There are so many things that did that let you know they actually cared about you and the movie, not just the bottom line it’s hard to pick one. But when was the last time you filled out your time card on a Thursday, included Friday (knowing full well you would work less than your guaranteed minimum hours) and got your check (for the week you were still working) that Friday at breakfast!

Great movie, great people, great experience… Thank You may I have another!

Step Up 4

Trailer for SU4. 

Looking back on it now, there are some awesome shots and insane dancing.  Really looking forward to seeing my work in 3D!

Powerade

Brett and I had the opportunity to shoot some footage for Ellen Kuras for a Powerade commercial. All shot on 5D's it came out pretty darn cool. We had another really unique project we worked on in February that will be finished post soon.

It also looks like another project I worked on last year may have made it into the Tribeca film festival. More on that soon.

Finally, I'm up in central Florida for a month working on a lower budget feature doing 'A' camera/Steadicam. Cool little script and a cool crew. Should be a good time.

Lots of big stuff in the works this year, stay tuned!

A darn good year...

It was an amazing year to work in the motion picture industry in South Florida.

We had 4 television shows, a 30 million dollar feature, a low budget feature and a bunch of commercials and music videos all shooting at once. I've been working here in Florida since 1993 and my father since the late 60's. It has to my knowledge never been busier in town.

I had the great fortune to work on all 4 television shows at various times as the 2nd unit DP, shoot a ton of great commercials and music videos and do 'A' camera/steadicam on 'Step Up 4' which was shot in 3D. I basically worked all year.

And that would have been WAY more than enough to call it a 'good year'.

However, I got to work on a project for the last month of the year that really put 2011 over the top. Unfortunately, I can not say the name of the job, where it shot, post any pictures of any of the locations or really say anything about it. I think I can get away with saying I was a VERY long way from home. I also think I can say that I got to see and do in one month things that most people would never get to see and do in ten life times. I put in over 80,000 kilometers of travel in 33 days and yes, I got the frequent flyer miles.

I think (I'll have to double check) I can post pictures after the show airs (I have over 5000 of them). The picture above is me during some of the very little down time we had at an unnamed water park in an unnamed country. The job and pretty much everything about 2011 was amazing!

2012 already looks like it's going to be gang busters with a pilot and a feature solidly in the works. I can't wait to start posting about 2012!!!

Have a great holiday season!