Yesterday was my first shoot with the go to team. It took place in Atlanta, GA at the Atlanta Falcons training facility. I rode alon g with Nick Modisett and met up with Tom Wells (DP) and Kevin Juston (Audio Op). We were to set up an interview with Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan and Fox Analyst Terry Bradshaw. The location was an old locke room that the team wasn’t using anymore, but it was used often for media interviews and such. Tom Wells was the DP and had brought some extra things to spice up the old looking locker room. We arrived at 8am or so and had about 4 hours to set up for a half hour interview. First on the order was to figure out talent placement and where the cameras were going. Nick brought his camera and gear to make this a two camera shoot, one camera on each person. We were shooting in HD using a Panasonic AJ-HDX900 and a Panasonic Varicam. We also had a Panasonic HVX to be the third camera, getting a wide shot of the set.
I was basically a fourth person on set, acting as a grip and sitting in the talent chairs so that Tom could adjust the lights. He gave me the job of putting small recessed lights that he had bought at a hardware store in each one of the lockers. The light would be pointed up to illuminate the inside of the lockers themselves. I put halogen bulbs into the lights, and after wiring them together I would hide the white power cable from each light using black gaffing tape. The fluorescent room lights were shut off and the lockers really glowed. They really didn’t look like lockers anymore. We only had two lights on each talent. And the rest of the time was spent tweaking the background behind each talent position.
Along with the recessed lights he bought at the hardware store, Tom bought a lot of chain, and chicken wire. The chains were hung in the background of the talent, hanging down and around in different ways. Lights with different colors were added to the chains to add some color. The cameras were zoomed in and the iris was opened up to throw the background out of focus making the chain behind the talents head not appear as clearly, but with the colors thrown on them, you almost couldn't tell they were chains, and definitely not a locker room. All of the sudden the images we saw in the monitor of the cameras looked awesome and just what you would see on TV. Duh, that what were were doing.
Often times I had the chance to observe this and when I wasn’t working on a little project I was sitting in as talent for lighting tweaks.
Finally Terry Bradshaw shows up and we all say hello. It was strange for me because this guy I never met before walks in and somehow I think to myself, “I’ve seen this guy before” It just took a moment to register. Terry got ready and sat in his chair. Tom did a few more lighting tweaks and so I sat in for Matt Ryan sitting across from Terry. All I could do was stare at Terry while he thumbed through some notes. After awhile he looked up at me, and asked me “So Matt how is this year coming along”, I say,” Good” Then after a few questions he asked ”So do you get into some of this S&M chain stuff we got going on here?”
The Fox producer had seen we had a fourth guy and asked if maybe we could get some roaming creative shots with the third little camera. We had originally were going to use it as a stationary wide shot, but I guess he wanted to get extra footage during the interview to use as cutaways and promos. Since I was around Tom gave me the opportunity to run that camera. I was stoked because I had not expected to run a camera for awhile, I was really going to focus on Audio. Tom gave me some direction on what shots to get and what they would be looking for and I was set.
Finally Matt Ryan walked in and we were ready to start. We got started really soon so I started rolling. The interview lasted about 29 min and I got a bunch of wide shots and then some creative ones for the editor to cut to in between the headshots of the interview.
At the end I couldn't believe I had the opportunity to run a camera for such a high end client. The Interview looked pretty awesome, I guess Fox is one of those networks that allows a lot of creativity in their stuff. What was amazing it that we really didn’t use as many lights as I thought we would have and the materials for the background was basically just chains hanging. It was a great lesson in making the most out of a otherwise bland space.
This was definitely one of the cooler shoots I’ve been on and I know that not all of them will be like this. It’s always cool to be able to see what goes into high end projects like this.
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