We’re gearing up for the third season of The High Bar (the show I’m Director and Technical Director for) and we managed to get a few minutes alone with Gary Oldman while he was promoting “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” to discuss his career and process.
And by a few minutes, I do mean a few minutes. He was on a crazy schedule and we got into the room 30 minutes before he showed up and then had exactly 15 minutes of his time. Obviously in this type of schedule you can’t go over on setup time, yet we still had to get three cameras set up as well as audio and lighting. Oh, and we only had three crew members.
So what we ended up doing was keeping it simple. Content is king on a shoot like this and we needed to make sure we got it all. We devoted two crew members to setting up camera and audio (and double checking that it worked) and then one other crew member set up the lights. We had a minor gear issues with the lights (of course), and had to roll with just two kino divas. Fortunately we could boom them out on c-stands and use them both as hair lights/keys. The look isn’t quite as polished as I would have liked, but at least there’s some shape.
Another issue, Gary came in and decided to favor his left shoulder early in the interview, which unfortunately killed our OTS shots. We couldn’t stop mid-shoot and ask him to shift sides, so we rolled with it.
At the end of the day we got our interview with an A-list actor, and we managed to keep him on schedule, which in turn made the publicist happy. For an up and coming show like ours it’s incredibly important to keep these relationships working and to show we can follow the rules. But we also got a really great interview out of it!
Enjoy!
3 weeks ago
Awesome news that we’re finally allowed to announce. The High Bar will begin airing on your TV (assuming you live in the greater Seattle area) starting in 2012. We’ll be carried both on local PBS affiliate KBTC and the UW channel starting in early February.
Not only is this a great validation on the work we’ve already done, but being associated with a television channel should allow us to get even bigger guests for the new year.
Happy Holidays!
1 month ago
I did a shoot today for an aerospace company. But I’m not allowed to talk about it.
Aliens.
2 months ago
creativeLIVE is a pretty cool company. They do live instructional classes featuring all kinds of talented artists. The most recent one was with world-renowned photographer Matthew Jordan Smith and I came on as a camera operator.
The feel of these shoots are a mix between event and documentary. There’s three operators working the shoot and a director guiding you in the ear. Which is why it seems like an event shoot. However, you also have to anticipate the instructor, where he’s going, when he’s going to reference something else, and even when someone else on the shoot is going to talk. It’s actually pretty fun, and Matthew Jordan Smith was both gracious and entertaining to watch.
If you like the concept, or want to learn more, they’re actually free to watch on the day of the streaming, so check them out!
2 months ago
A while back I came on board as a technical director for an interview show called “The High Bar”. Go ahead and take a minute to check it out at: thehighbar.tv
It’s a pretty great show, right? Warren Etheredge is the host and he avoids those “tell me something funny that happened on set” questions and instead really asks the deeper more interesting ones. We also get all types of guests. Sure there’s an entertainment lean with directors, actors, etc. But also we get chefs, authors, journalists and a whole slew of interesting people.
From a technical standpoint we don’t work on a set (yet), so we have to come in and get our cameras and lights set up as quickly as possible while set dressing everything as best as we can. This can be an issue when the show is supposed to not be dated and the entire bar is dressed up for Halloween (check to see if you can find the episode). It can also be an issue when the bar is getting ready for the day and some machine in the back turns on and flips a breaker (only happened once), and an open bar can also cause several audio issues.
I have to be aware of all of these things as I’ve just been given the additional role of Director for the show. I’m excited and honored to be part of such an entertaining and educational production, and I hope I can help to bring it to greater heights in the future.
So, uh, you should watch it to help with that.
3 months ago
I produced, directed, shot and edited a video for Williams-Sonoma recently. The product was a pot rack that was handcrafted in a factory local to Seattle. One of the great things about making handcrafted videos is you get an insider look at something most people never see or even think about. Like now I know how to hand stress metal.
Not much of a real filmmaking lesson here, just a reminder that continuing your education is both vital and an unspoken benefit to this profession.
Also, I got a free pot rack out of the shoot.
4 months ago
I was a gaffer for a short film over the weekend down in Olympia. It was a pretty tight shoot with a limited budget and a small crew, so one thing that really saved us time was that we ended up staying in one of the locations.
It did help that the location was a hotel room. But being able to wake up and just start shooting saved us a ton of time. Especially for me, I’m generally an early riser and when I have idle hands I just start working. So I talked with the DP ahead of time and figured out the next days lighting setup, then while everyone else was sleeping (in the adjoining hotel room) I set up all the lights and got our first shot set up. It probably saved us a good 60-90 minutes (including load in time), and when you’re dealing with low budgets that’s a huge benefit.
4 months ago
