On Set- Blackstone Veterans

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of producing a great piece on Blackstone and its Veterans Initiative- a commitment to hire 50,000 veterans within its portfolio of companies in the next 5 years.  They are 15 months in at this point and have already hired over 15,000.  

This video focused on the veterans and their stories, to give a personal face to the numbers.  This was a p3 production with Morgan Myer directing and shooting, me producing, and Justin Lacroix doing sound- a small 3 man crew.  We spent the week in NYC speaking with veterans at their places of employment - a Michaels store, the Hilton Central Park, a La Quinta Inn & Suites in Long Island, AlliedBarton and Blackstone headquarters.  

Some of the highlights...

Artichoke Pizza.  Morgan doubted me.  Then ate our whole pie.  One of my must haves in NYC.

Interview setup in the Hilton Central Park, one of the oldest hotels in NYC.

Damage from getting rear-ended while stopped 6 cars in from a light.  Took 2.5 hours for cops to show up, whom never did, but finally the third passing cop we flagged down actually stopped to write the report. Thankfully no one was harmed in the making of this photo.

Anything to get the shot.  Thankfully (again) this happened after our accident, not during.  Candidate for shittyrigs.com.

A discounted stay at the Waldorf Astoria.  Here are doors to one set of elevators.  

Waldorf lobby.  Different world.  Drinks here start at $18/per.  Yay, Priceline!

September 11th, filming on the Brooklyn Bridge for a few shots.  

 Morgan did an incredible job putting this together and took the best moments from our interviews and footage to tell a strong story about why these men and women deserve consideration for employment for a wide range of jobs.  One of the struggles veterans face in returning to the civilian workforce is explaining how the skills learned in active duty carry over to civilian jobs on a one-sheet resume.  The least we can do is give them the opportunity to do so.

On Set- Join Me Shoot

Another shoot with the talented gents at p3, this time teamed up with the also very talented Black Math guys.  The video was for JoinMe, an online video calling/collaboration service.  Morgan Myer was the DP for the spot directed by Jeremy Sahlman, and they rented my Red Epic which I operated.  

Morgan really stepped up his game on this one, with a perfectly even-lit cyc wall and great talent lighting to boot.

Now that's how you light a cyc.

Notice on the bottom left of the monitor the waveform with the solid green line going straight across from left to right.  This waveform monitor interprets the amount of light in the image from 0 (meaning total black) to 100 (meaning pure white).  Black Math wanted a clean white to be able key out if needed for the animation they were going to create over the video.  Having an evenly lit background is essential for this, and the waveform monitor notes how there is no variance in the lighting of the white background, which is not an easy thing to achieve on a 30'x40' wall.

Got to use some sweet cinema primes.

Nothing says Italy like a Vespa (apparently).

Our setup for the "French Cafe" scene.

A fun shoot with some really talented people.

On Set- Red Epic Helmet Cam

For a recent shoot (see the MTI-Connections video), I was again working with the talented guys at p3.  The idea for the video was to put the viewer into the eyes and body of an entrepreneur/inventor/designer.  To achieve this, p3 wanted a POV rig that would allow the main character in the video to move freely, use both hands and walk around unconstricted.  They also wanted to maintain a high standard of visual integrity and beauty in the shots, which ruled out simply using a GoPro, which would have made the POV rig much more simple, but compromised on image quality.  

So, we built a helmet rig for my Red Epic.

Brian taking a turn wearing the helmet cam

This was a bit of a beast, weighing in at over 15 lbs including the counter weights and battery on the back of the helmet and we had to constantly switch off wearing the rig to avoid major neck cramping.  But weight aside, the rig worked a dream.  We used my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens for 95% of the shots (using my 50mm 1.2 to fill in a few key sky shots), which was wide enough to give that POV feeling without much distortion.  

Morgan enjoying the beautiful weather on Casco Bay

We even had an excuse to go sailing with the rig for a few shots.  It was more than a little scary to have my camera hanging over the side of the boat, but we got the shots and no harm was done.  Yikes!

Me, CJ and our guide at EIMSKIP shipping dock.

Morgan rocking the rig in a field near Boothbay.

All in all it was a fun shoot with some new technical challenges (we burned through a few Noga Arms trying to keep the camera locked into position) and a lot of cool labs and settings to film in.  Here's the finished product, with some excellent graphics by Nathan Gillis.