Ones and Zeros Vs. Common Sense

Onset Vernacular vs. Common Sense

Shoot First — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:56:07 +0000

Let me start by saying I am not a grammer nazi, a third grader could quite easily spot missing comas, missused semi colons, and more spelling errors then a hand written jail house pen pal letter. That said it’s important I get something off my chest. The language used by grown men and women on the sets of photo shoots is out of control. It’s passive agression at it’s worst, it is truly and simply the ramblings of a crazy person off their medication.
For those of you reading this that haven’t had the pleasure of being on set I’m sure you have the equivalent at your work place in some form or another. I imagine of happens all the time, people needing one thing desperatly but only able to mutter something about how the “feel” or they “wish” it could be.
It would be helpful at this point to provide some examples of what troubles me o so deaply. Just about any time anyone for any reason says, “I feel like X should be Xier”. It could be something reasonable like, “I feel like the clothing needs to be tightier”. A simple styling request is turned into a blathering suggestion involving feelings. But why, why is the fact of clothes tightness so tiyed into feeling and emotion? I think it’s actually simple, by saying you feeeeel some way about something you can not be shot done as easily. “O if you feel that way well I gues we should try it, tighten that shit UP”! However if you make a suggestion and just phrase it as such it is easily pushed aside as typicaly noone wants to hurt someones feelings on set.

Back from Miami Back in Action

Shoot First — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:38:31 +0000

To get off the plane and find myself instantly back where (honestly) I belong was as astounding as it always is, whether I’ve been gone for a month or four days I always feel at home in the northeast.

Well thats enough emotion down to the dirty…Miami ended well in a matter of speaking. I somehow found myself with 2 hours until my flight took off at an Argentinean Grill with two mac book pros, and Prescot a fantastic photo assistant uploading files to client drives while stuffing sweat bread (cow brains), blood sausage (yes) and flank steak (FANTASTIC) into my face! So as the story goes what ends well…is effing over!

So onto the present. This morning I was introduced the world of the moving picture. Being onset with a digital cine camera is much actually very similar to the work I usually do. The whole experience was very comforting in a way, knowing I had acquired at least some of the skills necessary to work on these types of jobs while being a still capture tech. I am perfectly and resoundingly aware that this job was as low stress as a it gets, a beauty test with one of the nicest Italian/French photographers I have met. It was literally the best way to be introduced to this new kind of workflow.

It was exciting be around, what many believe to be, the future off film. It was also exciting to get to use the new Panasonic HVX170! This camera was a blast. Of course compared the the red it is little more then a toy, but that is like comparing a Aston Martin to a Ford Focus, there just is no comparison. But none the less the little camera held it’s own. It can shoot up to 1o80i at 24p (frames per second) but I just kept it at 720p/24p, after all it is the same. For something so small and light, under 10 lbs, it is incredible. I’m hoping to get to edit some of the footage today so maybe I’ll make a little posting of it later…

Well thats all for now, into the future with the RED raw workflow!

GREETINGS FROM….

Shoot First — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:36:01 +0000

MIAMI!

It’s sunny and warm and yes the postcard bellow is actual size…Not everything here is huge which is not actually a known stereotype of Miami but is especially true of my hotel room (maybe some photos tomorrow)

Being on location somewhere far far away from your comfort zone is well, terrifying. New cities mean a whole host of new things that can go wrong. Your computer might not have the right software installed or it may be installed incorrectly (unregistered or as just a trial version), you may pack the wrong kind of external hard drive power brick (really dorky yes but it could be considered the digital tech equivalent of mistakenly packing your girlfriend’s underwear…for yourself), let’s see ooo or you could completely forget to charge your batteries and after hiking through the California wilderness realize the camera won’t run on hopes and dreams.

So what do you do? Well before your trip, and this is not going to be news to anyone who is halfway in their right mind, always test every single piece of gear you are bringing. From each laptop, to the cameras, to the power strip, yes the power strip. I arrived in Miami only to realize my power strip didn’t work… That’s right it failed to be a strip of power. So faced with having to plug in a million and one electrical devices I did what any resourceful and quick thinking tech would do…I took it apart. And then when, for some strange and unexplainable reason, that didn’t work I went begging to the front desk, and in return I was given one of these

So now I am happily charging away while typing this on a 23” Apple Cinema Display, and running 2 external Lacie Studio hard drives. It just goes to show you always test everything, even if you look like an idiot unplugging and replugging an epson printer from all 8 of the different sockets in a power strip…

At least I’m at MiLK (or was)

Shoot First — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:41:50 +0000

So when I arrived at the office this morning at 7:15, after the windiest five miles of bike riding EVER, I thought ok so at least today we’ll shoot a lot you know really get the shit done…. Well that was then and this is now, 12:51 and not a single actually frame. The talent got here one half of one hour early at 9:30 and yet here we are. I understand, she’s a celebrity…kind of. Remember the Species movies? No? That’s cool, but she was in those. And so as a result her hair and makeup take roughly ten hours. No worries.

These situations are often made worse by snotty equipment crews and self important studio managers. But not here, at mill it’s just the right amount of hip indifference mixed with indie profesionalism.

Well now it’s 2:30 and we are 3 shots into a 12 shot day? With a goal of ending at 6….

We made it through the day, and now it seems I am watching my best friends wedding….on tbs.

Goodnight

= endlessly sorry…

Shoot First — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:29:20 +0000

I know it’s been a while and I know what you’re thinking…

I’m a jerk and you are incredible, Internet, listen I’ll be better I promise I PROMISE! I can be the contributor you require, no that you deserve.

We can do this together Internet.

TOGETHER!

= tired post

Shoot First — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:58:37 +0000

Coffee, originally uploaded by rizio.

I’m tired I had a 6 am call time this morning. What? You’ve had earlier… How’s that? I’m a nerd…a bucket of wuss.

Well that may be true, now bring me this latte!

I love….

Shoot First — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:53:08 +0000

, originally uploaded by Shoot_First.

I love bikes…

I took these a loooong time ago in sunny Boston and had forgotten about them entirely. Well here is a small selection.

On another completely different note I’d like to talk briefly about on set manners. It’s important as a tech or assistant to have incredible manners while on set, like princely fuckin’ manners, especially when it comes to the food table. For example DO NOT EVER reach over someone else for food and then drop some of the food on their plate, ever. “My God” you say who could do such a thing, well it was me… I thought it was the assistant who I was quite friendly with, BUT it turned out to be the model, a very attractive and apparently gracious girl. She brushed it off as no big deal as I cowered and apologized roughly thirty-two times. And while it was, in the grand scheme not life of even limb threatening, it was a reminder to NEVER EVER forget your manners even on set, even on a shoot for Modern Bride.

I am the negligent walrus….

Shoot First — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:18:01 +0000

I know I know it’s finally happened, like we all knew it would. I wrote a few posts, I was having a good time doing it and then it was like the Internet ceased to exist, or I lost interest in it, neither or which thankfully happen to be true.

So Happy New Year.

Last Saturday I went to see the William Eggleston retrospective “Democratic Camera” at the Whitney Museum of American Art and I have to say I was overcome. The muted colors and often, but not always, mundane subjects found me searching for ways to describe how I felt about a basketball hoop with a plywood backboard. It was the classic Eggleston story, beauty in simplicity, in the everyday.

It was fantastic to rediscover the man who literally wrote the Guide.

I was of course struck so romantically with inspiration… Flickr

One quick thing…

Shoot First — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:55:29 +0000

So we’re all postmodernistas her right? Nothing new under the sun, out the window with authorship and on and on and on. Well if there is anything that is almost the epitome of the unnew it is probably stop motion movies BUT I bring you this.

So what?

I am always interested in new stuff, new shiny stuff, and why not even it isn’t truly “new”? I like living my life through a lens and a memory card, through inkjet and dye sublimation. However, I love living through the lens of another person, sites like flickr and vimeo and every single blog post ever written enable me, us, to observe others preforming (and observing) the same tasks we preform (and observe) every single day. This unendingly monotonous stream of content, the repeating of repetition, it is quite frankly, the cat’s pajamas and without it I’m not sure the sun would continue to rise (over and over again).

Sooo This Internet…

Shoot First — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 02:42:58 +0000

Due to being on vacation I have had a lack of tech(ing) going on BUT I was on NotCot the other day and found this, enjoy.

This blog won’t turn into another, “HEY LOOK AT ALL THIS COOL STUFF I FOUND ON THE INTERWEB OMG OMG OMG!!1″ blog I promise, it will stay digital tech and photo centered. In the meantime a little vimeo never killed anyone…yet