Week Two (and Three and Four)

So sorry for my long absence. My lack of internet accessibility at my house here has brought me out to the local Starbucks on this Sunday morning where I will try and play catch up while my daughter ( who wears too much lip gloss) listens to her Ipod. The show is going well. It is a dolly intensive show, though, so I have little time during the day away from set. We do a lot of stand ups and sit downs which are my favorite (see Azurgrip's previous post). The dolly I'm using (my usual Hustler 4) has a sweeeet arm on it, although it is a little slow on the down for my taste. Quite frankly, my track is a problem. I have to use skates on every shot or it ain't happening. It's fairly new American track which makes me call into question the quality of their track in general. It's bowed. it's got ripples where the inserts were welded into the ends, the joints don' t match up. It looks like it was made by a bunch of blind half-wits. But, we're getting through it. When I lay it, I basically have to forget level and just concentrate on getting the bumps out of the joints, mostly by laying it in a gentle arc by eye. Luckily this is a rom-com, shot mostly in the city, so most locations are level anyway and there aren't any extreme or rural locations. I just go ahead and level it using the "Whiskey Stick" (4-foot level) and then refine it by eye to get the bumps out.










Now, to answer a question from my previous post where I described using your roundy gear to get you around in some tight spots, I have drawn a crude diagram on a Starbucks napkin. The camera is on the left, going from "1" to "3" and the actor on the right, walking from "A" to "C." As the actor approaches, the dolly backs up in roundy and then roundy's to the right as the actor passes, effectively performing the camera operator's pan for him, and ends up in an over -the- shoulder. I hope this helps make it clearer. I will try to get the picture as large as I can, but as we know, this seems to be my weak point in all of this.



Meanwhile, stay safe and stay tuned. I know I'm a little slow getting back these days but I'll get in when I can. If you haven't already, check out Blood,Sweat and Tedium or The Hills Burning(in my links section) Both have had some really great posts recently.



D