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BH: Prepping the Camera Package

I woke up early yesterday to drop Lillian off at the acting production office, a converted yoga studio (with the happy shiny murals intact) on 9th Street. She has leapt feet first into production coordinating, staying late Wednesday and yesterday to get in the last few phone calls.

After showering and breakfasting, I went back to the '9th Street Studios' building for my second scheduled meeting with d.p. Matt Jacobson. Again, he wasn't there. I got to re-read The Camera Assistant's Handbook while waiting. He finally did show up, full of apologies. He'd been all over the place, working frantically to ensure that we have enough film and equipment to shoot the movie. Now that we had met, it was time for me to join in the mad scramble. We drove a few blocks up the street to Oldfather Studios, the building that houses the Film Department at the University of Kansas where both Matt and director Kevin Willmott have offices.

My first task was to build a Magliner type cart from some rather incomplete instructions. Using the pictures in The Camera Assistant's Handbook and some elbow grease, I "passed the first test." Next, Matt showed me how to load an Arri BL thousand foot mag. If that sounds like gibberish, try doing it.

A mag, short for magazine, is the big round container that attaches to the camera to feed the fresh film into the gate and take up the exposed film. In order to prevent light from hitting the film except for what you're filming, you have load and unload (download) the film in a light-proof bag. That means you're doing it blind, and in the case of the BL4 mags, you're also cutting the film blind. After realizing what a difficult task that can be, Matt ordered a special pair of scissors.

The scissors cost $160, but here's why they are a bargain. The film has to be cut square and along the sprocket holes. Not an easy task when you can't see what you're doing. These scissors are specially designed for the task, and have little pins that line up with the sprocket holes. They also gave Matt the right to brag to everyone in the production that he bought a hundred-and-sixty dollar pair of scissors.

(UPDATE 8/27/2006: The scissors have yet to arrive; supposedly they are back-ordered. So we've been cutting the film blind the whole shoot.)

I got in a bunch of practice with dummy rolls both inside and outside the changing bag and then it was on to prepping the camera package.

Matt showed me how to assemble the Arri BL4s camera (as well as the tripod and fluid head). It's a fair sight more complicated than the Aaton XTR. We checked the video tap, which is both fragile and deceptively positioned on the camera to look just like a handle.

Editor Sean Blake and AD Patrick Rea

The video tap is going to be important, because the first cut of the film is going to be from VHS recordings made on-set. The film will have weekly 'dailies,' but the editor, Sean Blake, wants to be able to request additional coverage before locations have changed and actors have been wrapped.

Late in the day Mark Yeazel, the 1st AC, made it in from Kansas City. He, Matt and I went out for pizza. After discussing the camera package and shoot plans, we geeked out about recent and not-so recent movies. I can tell downtime on set is going to be fun.

When we got back, Matt left us to assemble the secondary camera, an Arri III, and make a list of expendables. Mark showed me how to load the "9P" mags (more on 9P later) for the Arri III and we cleaned them all out with canned air. We tested the video tap and feed on the III. We'll probably oil the III today; the BL4s doesn't require oiling. By the time we had dissassmbled both cameras and put everything in its right box, it was 10pm.

Still jetlagged, when I got home I fell into bed and slept like a baby.

About J. Ott

John Ott is a writer, filmmaker and futurist. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.