Way too much crap

I was in the same pack rat dilemma. I'm a one man band that has to go to a location, unseen, yet hurry up and setup a magazine style interview. Its fun and challenging, but hell, when you have to go to set up, break down, move to another interview site, it got tiring. There had to be a different way.

Over the Christmas holiday when work was slow, I took my mannequin head named Sheila and gear, and shot over 50 lighting setups. I tried to see what looks I could get away with using the least amount of gear. Would a bounced LED off a reflector disk give me the same soft look as a led pushing through a RoadRags silk? Could I get away with one c-stand and use smaller light stands with grip gear? Should I use smaller soft bags vs pelicans?

I ended up leaving my Source 4 for back ground light and patterns, began using smaller battery lights like the Luma Cube, or other camera lights and place them in strategic locations with clamps or gorilla pod tripods. With the small depth of focus with a lot of cams, you don't need as much in the background like in the past.

Once I figured what I could get away with, I had to convince myself to stay committed to it and give it a shot. That was the toughest part, "What if I need this?....or that?" I solved some of that by bringing it but leave it in my backseat in case I needed...lol Depending where the shoot is located of course.
 
Josh Bass said:
Amen. Unfortunately can't justify a spare cam body yet, but there's a backup/workaround for almost everything else.
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I would be a nervous wreck without a spare body on every shoot. A second C100 wouldn't fit in my backpack but I bring the 80D on every shoot. Won't look quite as good as the C100, but in a pinch, uses the same lenses, same DOF and FOV, I could feed audio in via my Røde video wireless mics. I travel all over the world, just in the past few years, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, all over Europe, all of the U.S., showing up with only one camera would be insane.
 
The Fog said:
I was in the same pack rat dilemma. I'm a one man band that has to go to a location, unseen, yet hurry up and setup a magazine style interview. Its fun and challenging, but hell, when you have to go to set up, break down, move to another interview site, it got tiring. There had to be a different way.

Over the Christmas holiday when work was slow, I took my mannequin head named Sheila and gear, and shot over 50 lighting setups. I tried to see what looks I could get away with using the least amount of gear. Would a bounced LED off a reflector disk give me the same soft look as a led pushing through a RoadRags silk? Could I get away with one c-stand and use smaller light stands with grip gear? Should I use smaller soft bags vs pelicans?

I ended up leaving my Source 4 for back ground light and patterns, began using smaller battery lights like the Luma Cube, or other camera lights and place them in strategic locations with clamps or gorilla pod tripods. With the small depth of focus with a lot of cams, you don't need as much in the background like in the past.

Once I figured what I could get away with, I had to convince myself to stay committed to it and give it a shot. That was the toughest part, "What if I need this?....or that?" I solved some of that by bringing it but leave it in my backseat in case I needed...lol Depending where the shoot is located of course.
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Have any "old way" versus "new way" screen caps of your subjects you could post?
 
I really dont travel much...never outside the state and rarely to different cities. although the cam body is the heart of it all, its also the thing I'd expect to have the fewest issues with, based on my experience. Again, maybe some day I'll have a backup. Right now I'd have to use girlfriend's 5Dm2, and my cheapo Tascam DR07, both super un fun and getting further from the slimmed down package we're aiming for.
 
Josh Bass said:
I really dont travel much...never outside the state and rarely to different cities. although the cam body is the heart of it all, its also the thing I'd expect to have the fewest issues with, based on my experience. Again, maybe some day I'll have a backup. Right now I'd have to use girlfriend's 5Dm2, and my cheapo Tascam DR07, both super un fun and getting further from the slimmed down package we're aiming for.
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I don't know Josh, I shot a three camera shoot last week. I rented a C100 from Lensrentals.com, used mine and used the 80D just as a third angle wide shot. The rented C100, the LCD screen ended up all floppy, like something internally broke, still waiting to hear what went wrong. Luckily for us, the screen kept working but what if that camera had gone out completely? We were lucky that we had two more cameras, we could have gotten through the rest of the shoot but if that were our only camera, we would have been hosed. I would drag the 5D MKII and recorder with you. Clients don't understand, "my camera broke". They do understand, "our main camera broke, but because we are pros, our plan B is to finish this super important, once in a lifetime shoot using our backup camera we brought to the shoot because your shoot is that important to us."

Single camera breaks, shoot is abandoned reeks of amateur hour, kiss that client and possibly your reputation goodbye. Same with microphones, recorders, at least. What would be the least you could have for when your A list gear stops working on an important shoot? Gotta have a plan B, always need it. You can probably get by if one of your two or three or more lights goes down. But camera, lens, mics, recorders, audio cables, gotta have a viable plan of action if they just stop working or are damaged. Even if your tripod goes down, you can finish a shoot handheld. I had a tripod go down on a shoot once. We finished shooting interviews by me resting the camera on a cabinet and adjusting the angle using a piece of clothing. It looked stupid but it worked. Your clients hire you because you are the man with the plan.
 
That sucks - I've never had a camera break (using our own kit) and often only take one with me,
I travel light for corporate interviews in Central London:
Cam, tripod, 2 x Photon Beard LED Fresnels/stands and radio mic's (plus spare lav and spare batteries for all kit)
here's an ungraded grab from shoot on thursday with this kit
Af101.jpg
 
TubEfingers said:
That sucks - I've never had a camera break (using our own kit) and often only take one with me,
I travel light for corporate interviews in Central London:
Cam, tripod, 2 x Photon Beard LED Fresnels/stands and radio mic's (plus spare lav and spare batteries for all kit)
here's an ungraded grab from shoot on thursday with this kit
View attachment 120896
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You're lucky to shoot in a location where the overcast acts as a nice giant scrim and you can see detail out the windows. The shoot we did last week was in Palm Desert. Clients wanted to see the golf course out the window, I measured and it was 9.5 stops brighter than inside with our LED panels at full bore. I told them that's what NDing windows was invented for, but that takes extra time, personel and money to do. As usual, there was no time, no extra money and no personel to gel the windows.
 
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puredrifting said:
I would be a nervous wreck without a spare body on every shoot. A second C100 wouldn't fit in my backpack but I bring the 80D on every shoot. Won't look quite as good as the C100, but in a pinch, uses the same lenses, same DOF and FOV, I could feed audio in via my Røde video wireless mics. I travel all over the world, just in the past few years, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, all over Europe, all of the U.S., showing up with only one camera would be insane.
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Yeah, but you shoot behind-the-scenes videos. Worst case scenario you have to borrow the film's Alexa in order to film your behind-the-scenes. If it's a pro film shoot they've gotta have a backup Alexa sitting around. Might even be an Alexa 65.

Of course you'll need a DIT and an AC to handle that camera. Actually, it's not that great in low light, so you may need a grip, well, a few grips, gaffers, and PAs, along with a couple truckloads of lighting, and, okay, an Assistant Director to manage the crew, and well, these people are all going to get hungry, so you'll need craft services,...anyway...behind-the-scenes video will turn out great.



I always bring a backup camera as well.

I suppose worst case scenario for those who don't bring a backup camera is using their smart phone camera; if you have a way to capture good audio, and can light it decently and stabilize it, it could end up looking decent depending on what you're shooting. I mean, assuming you can't get a camera from a co-worker or Walmart in time.
 
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I would probably call a local rental house and have them bring something to me, in town. I haaaaaaate working with DSLRs for video. ****, rather buy a used AF100 and one lens or something.

A neat trick for shooting out windows, depending on how much background you see, is to have a 4 foot roll of ND gel and put it on a c stand arm, just unravel some like toilet paper and let it hang freely. You can hang clamps or something off it to keep the AC draft from blowing it, and it doesn't take much time to set up.
 
I remember back in the dark ages of shooting on "un-reliable" tape cameras that actually had moving parts and we would carry two or three back-up bodies with us. Oh wait, we didn't.

What has changed in the last decade? I had a friend rent my F55 last year, just to have a spare sitting on standby "just in case". Multi-million dollar movies and national commercials I understand, but... Yeah, 10-20 years ago it was a lot harder to afford to buy a second camera just to have a spare sitting around "just in case" something may happen to the main body and now you can have a quality cam for dirt cheap just sitting in a bag "just in case", but are the new, solid state cams really that unreliable that guys are nervous to go out on a shoot with only one camera?
 
I totally get having back ups of everything. But that is for jobs where the budget can accommodate that redundancy.

If you are working jobs that are below a certain budget, it may not always be realistic to have back ups. In such scenarios, it's important for the client to know, sign off on it, and have it in writing.

Again, having back ups is always a good idea, for all the reasons already mentioned. But if you are doing solo type work, those budgets can be slim. The most important is to work within the budget and to make sure that there is transparency between client, expectations, risks, etc. but personally, in my 5 short years of pro work, I've never had gear crap out on me. But I'm sure it'll happen one day. And when that day comes, I'll either have a back up, or I'll be protected by my agreement with my client, who was told about the risks of not having a back up and did not want to pay for it.

The bad situation arises when expectations are not met, and that usually means a lack of communication or vague agreements.
 
If that's the case then pretty much zero of my projects ever have anything close to a budget for a backup. If I ever get to where the C100 is the old cam and it's not worth selling, maybe that becomes the backup. I certainly crew on a lot of projects way bigger than the stuff I shoot myself where there's only one cam body. I guess those DPs are all fools too.
 
I never even thought of asking them to pay for it, when this aspect of the discussion came up. I would think you'd have to bring it for free, pray you don't have to use it.
 
Run&Gun said:
I remember back in the dark ages of shooting on "un-reliable" tape cameras that actually had moving parts and we would carry two or three back-up bodies with us. Oh wait, we didn't.

What has changed in the last decade? I had a friend rent my F55 last year, just to have a spare sitting on standby "just in case". Multi-million dollar movies and national commercials I understand, but... Yeah, 10-20 years ago it was a lot harder to afford to buy a second camera just to have a spare sitting around "just in case" something may happen to the main body and now you can have a quality cam for dirt cheap just sitting in a bag "just in case", but are the new, solid state cams really that unreliable that guys are nervous to go out on a shoot with only one camera?
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In the past five years, I had an FS700 go out on me (rental camera), a friends C300 locked up and wouldn't power down without removing the battery, then it showed an error upon reboot and I had my Blade (or I guess it was the drive actually, not the Blade itself) go down on a shoot at Fox. It's rare, but if it happens, I don't want to be the one to have to tell the client, "Sorry, shoot is down for two hours while we call the rental company" or if I am in the Sahara as I was last year, "Sorry, we are done shooting for a few days until they can fly in a replacement camera from France or Italy". I also shoot with A listers sometimes, and even a ten minute delay because of the camera would be a nightmare when you have publicists and managers breathing down your neck. We always need talent for an hour and they begrudgingly give them to us for twenty minutes, tapping their feet the whole time because we are the promo crew, not the show crew.

Guess it's different for everyone but even if I was a wedding shooter, I would have backups of everything crucial because weddings just happen, they don't wait around for camera malfunctions. Same as a doc shooter, if I am spending a day with a family, shooting day in the life of footage in the middle of Texas or Nebraska, in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, I had better have a plan B if my main camera goes down. 80D is cheap insurance.

Thinking back to the tape days, I did have Betacams, Varicam and the F900 all go out on me. That too was rare, but not unheard of. Didn't carry a spare back then, true, but I was also shooting almost exlcusively in or near the rental houses in Burbank and Glendale, (was working at a production company with our own stages) could have a replacement camera in less than 30 minutes. Did one shoot in St. Louis where we brought two DSR-500 DVCAMs and one went down. Rental house (Bexel) was in Burbank, it was a quick trip so we just made due with a single camera.
 
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Fair enough. I guess its buying an extra batt for the 5d (only have 1), and bringing the mixer to use with the little tascam (doenst have xlrs so would need series of adapters to plug right in, plus noise/preamp issues). so much for slimming down.
 
Knock-on-wood, the only camera that I can think of that was completely F'd(on arrival) or completely died in the middle of a day was the F900(all rental house cams). I loved the image, but honestly, they were fragile cameras. We had so many problems out of them. I have had Betacams and my Tape Vari "lock-up" for a while because of humidity, but a spare wouldn't have saved the day, because it would have been in the same situation/environment.
 
THis conversation branched out into a number of subtopics.

RE extra crew members:
On EVERY production the producer is asking about trying to fly solo yet we never end up doing so. All it takes is a few minutes of listening to the producers what needs to get accomplished and extra few minutes of describing (from experience) what it takes to pull it off for the producer to happily add a PA, vehicle and a grip/AC. Even if you are working on your own production - thus you are spending your own money - if you've done enough of those you will know that cutting yourself short of necessary crew screws YOU up (so you ponny up for the extra crew as this is NOT about saving money but getting the s--- done).

RE back-up:
Yes. I had cameras and lights go down on me on a few occasions. The reason why they go down is because they are not build the way they used to. We are using pro-summer cameras (i hope you don't think the c100 or c300 is really build to the same standards as Alexa...). There are some components that you don't need back-up for. I bring an extra 575 HMI (that i keep in the car) but not 200 HMI because i use 200 HMI for lighting "extras" and not essentials.

RE one light:
What i find distinguishes pros from amateurs is the knowledge that you light NOT just the subject but a whole scene. You set up one light to illuminate your subject but then 4 extra lights to light your background. Sometimes you can be so lucky to use one large source to illuminate the background but it happens rarely because the location doesn't allow for it.
 
Sometimes a "One Light Look" may be accomplished with a single window, lamp, or other light source, while others it may require a dozen, or more, sources. On a lucky occasion a window may be perfect, but the seemingly simple directive to "Keep it Sunny" can require extensive G&E & Crew.
 
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