For those of you who were wondering exactly what I was shooting Bali – here it is:  A Mountain Dew Commercial with Indian Mega Star Hrithik Roshan and a fantastic team of people led by Director Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films that has been ranked as the Number One production house in India.   I have to say that between the stunning location, the plethora of gear, and the vibe of the crew, this was one of the most enjoyable shooting experiences I’ve had in awhile.   But that’s not to say it was easy by any stretch of the imagination to get people from 7 countries and very specific gear to one remote location at once … and pray for good weather during the "rainy season!" which led to one of the DP’s most feared "X" factors:  those unpredictable clouds that form suddenly over islands even when the horizon is blue… and completely block the sun.    

As you can imagine we had to rely heavily on natural light – there simply was no room on the edge of that cliff to put any cinema lights..

Mountain Dew Bali – Nirvana from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

The toys:

3 Red Epic camera shot at 5K between 24-96 fps.  And at 2K up to nearly 300 fps.

1 Phantom Camera at 1,000 frames per second (if I remember correctly)

Several HDSLRs and GoPRoHero 3 camera.

1 Angenieux 24~290mm T2.6 Optimo my weapon of choice in terms of lensing for this spot.

1 Set of Ultra Primes

2 Trusty O’Connor heads (paid off in spades on the boat to have such a high quality fluid head.)

1 Gates underwater housing for the Epic  (Excellent)

1 Mamiya Leaf Credo 80 Megapixel back to shoot background and detail plates for some VFX shots.

Some vivid memories:

Flying an Epic with Utltra Primes over the open water with some nice gusts here and there!  

Operating an Optimo at 290mm on a boat with a Phantom Flex at 1000 fps with waves pounding us, and trying to time our star’s entry and having him hit a specific point in 1-2 takes while also nailing focus at T2.6… kinda nuts, but we pulled it off.   Thanks to an amazing focus puller 

Having the makeup crew run out to do touch ups at the edge of a perilous hill BEFORE the RC helicopter had landed (and was on it’s way straight towards them…)

Setting up scaffolding atop a hill for some wire and green screen work, building scaffolding for lights… only to have the clouds pull in last minute.. and clear up just in time for the light to have flipped completely on the wrong side… we found a fix.

The plan was to shoot with our star from 6 meters over the water with the Phantom and Epic (underwater.)  Only a highly trained Olympic-type diver can jump from the 20 meter plus dive – a less skilled diver could come away with the risk of serious internal injuries if they land incorrectly..  Black and blue marks are common on even skilled divers due to the incredible impact (remember water is 800 times more dense than air…learned that in Scuba diving school 😉  Therefore we had our stunt team do the actual jumps, we had our star dive from 6+ meters.  And then we also harnessed our star from a stunt cable crane to green screen that one shot of his face with the background that we shot plates of.   Not your "walk in the ballpark" shoot to say the least.

Operating a Phantom with one hand, and an Epic with other simultaneously!  (I was the DP and only camera operator…) was thrilling and frightening at the same time. But at least now I can say I’ve done it.

and last but FAR from least (I just know people on this blog like to read about gear first…)

The crew:

One extremely talented remote helicopter crew –  pilot Guy Alexander and opertor Justin McMillanfrom from Australia.

Fearless stunt man Nicholas Daines  who really DID jump from the top of that cliff (60+ feet!)  more than a dozen times and is a Brit stranded in LA like myself (minus the Brit part..)  Tip picked up from him:  wear Speedos when jumping from great heights into water.. not the looser surfing bathing suits… can lead to bleading at that height in the worst area for men…  

Underwater Housing from David Cheung  from ScubaCam Singapore.

Thanks to Sunitha, Vivek, Rosman, Sunu, Ray the amazing camera and electric crew,  David from ScubaCam Singapore, Murfi at BaliAqua.  Thanks to my good friend a DP Mark Lindsay for helping me out with all of the lighting / equipment challenges we faces with the limited availability in Bali given that we had to have flicker-free lights for the High Speed photography with the Phantom.

Below is a quick promo video that has several behind the scenes clips.  

The most important thing I learned on this job:  We take so much for granted in big film places like NYC or LA in terms of the access to gear that we have… getting 18K HMIs (that were on electronic Ballasts and flciker free for the high speed Phanatom Camera – so we ended up going Tungsten)  etc. proved impossible on this job, and the producers pulled off an incredible feat of getting all of this specialized gear to a remote location from literally around the world.  The most amazing part though was the crew: used to working in this difficult conditions, without the "top gear" out there at their disposal but always finding a way to make it happen – and beautifully so.  It was nothing short of inspiring…  definitely had a bit of that positive, happy Karma rub off on me!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.   About everything.   The business.   Our "craft" and the economics and sustainability of what we do as creatives in this ever changing world.   But that’s for a later post perhaps, and I always tend to think too much anyway…

Sometimes the best things in life are simple.   Trying to keep things simple or "basic" in our technology-driven times seems to be getting more difficult every year, if not by the minute.

In this case it was a "Cheap Camera" challenge that lead me to shoot with a Canon A2E, a Lens Baby lens, and two rolls of film – the subject of the video below.  

A chance meeting with Kai and the folks at DigitalRev was made possible by a tweet, during what was originally meant to be a short connection between flights in Hong Kong that I decided to turn into a 3 day visit on my way back home from a job in Bali.

I can tell you it was terribly refreshing to shoot film.   We had no plan.  No script,  no storyboards or teams of folks working on a crew.   We didn’t even know where to go, nor have anything set up to shoot.    This was my last day in Hong Kong and the only deadline was a flight at 11:45 p.m. that very evening.  That gave us a healthy 4 hours to shoot 72 exposures on good old celluloid.    No LCDs to "chimp" with (a term we use to describe the act of looking at a rear LCD and jumping up and down and showing your friends as you see a nice photo…)   

I was somewhat nervous because I didn’t have the cushion of being able to track my progress on a rear LCD, to delete and hide the "bad" and potentially embarrassing pictures and to gain false comfort in confirming that I had "good" ones and that I could move on to the next one.   Having a camera crew follow your every move never tends to help you relax either.

Yet I have to say this was one of the most relaxing shoots I’ve had in a long, long time.   I frankly didn’t care how the pictures turned out.   Well my ego did a bit – I didn’t want to embarrass myself too much.   But stopping amidst the chaos of the city, and waiting for the shot, was therapeutic in a way digital photography generally isn’t.   For one of the shots, I actually stood in place for more than 10 minutes.   I slowed my breathing, braced myself, and relaxed.   And waited.  For a picture that might never come.  And it felt good.

It was just so refreshing to stop.   To pause.  To Wait.  To not know the outcome of a shutter press.  To NOT get that instant gratification.    As scary as "not knowing" can be – there’s something terribly peaceful about it, if you come to accept it.   For me photography has always been that one discipline that I could take part in to escape for a few hours and somehow come to calmly embrace the uncertain.   If only I could be more adept at doing that in life.

Somehow, for the first time in awhile, the end result – the resulting "still photograph" was beautifully overshadowed by the pleasure I felt with the simple act of "taking my time."   Being that I was halfway across the world, there were no phone calls, e-mails, tweets, or texts coming in to distract me either.

The immediacy of the LCD has changed the craft of photography.   It’s made it so much easier to learn quickly, to grow and to take much greater chances and push the envelope much further.   Digital has in many ways replaced the word "craft" with "accessible" or perhaps the better word is "democratization."    And that’s both good and bad depending on what side of the coin you find yourself  on (professional vs. enthusiast.)  

Yet so many of us have lost something too.   A little bit of the "magic" of photography – has left us.   There’s nothing quite like seeing a print come to life in the developer tray in the darkroom.    Also, a certain type of discipline is instilled in you when you are faced with a 36 exposure roll and the cost associated with it, not to mention the cost of getting it processed and printed.    These days I more often that not read 999 on the still camera’s LCD when a large CF Card is in place.  Where’s the challenge in that?

There’s no "delete" button in film… no way to erase your mistakes…  no "do over" button.   Your masterpieces and more often than not their very opposites are a matter of record for all to see the moment you press that shutter.  And that makes you take things a bit more seriously.   If forces you to study the craft, as repeating mistakes is literally:  expensive.   Digital technology has somehow slightly cheapened the value of an image… hasn’t it?   The marvel of technology has a bad tendency to lead to a bit of laziness, impatience, and a reticence to do "work for" something… generally speaking.   And let’s not get started on what it’s done to our attention spans!   I think rats on crack have greater attention spans than many of us do  today, and that’s scary to say the least.   It affects the length of what we write (how many of you made it this far?)  how we converse with one another (texting vs calling,) and how we shoot and edit our film/tv shows etc.   And generally (I’m sorry to say) not for the better.

As the world continues to move faster and faster, as processors, resolutions, dynamic ranges, and terabytes keep increasing at an exponential rate,  sometimes I think we could all do with a roll of 36 exposures.   

 If you’re wondering where this diatribe started… the video below is to blame.   I must say that like how they choose to make you wait until the end to see the final frames… just as I did.    And if you’ve made it this far:  thanks for indulging me!

I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time the first month and a half of the year has flown by this quickly.   There’s nothing to worry about in terms of the blog or with me (some of you have e-mailed.)   It’s simply been quiet but for good reason – I’ve been wonderfully busy!  I also took a little break from technology for the winter holidays for a few weeks and that break got compounded when several projects came up back to back at the start of this year.   Now March is in our sights and… YIKES that was fast!

I’m currently writing from Hong Kong’s international terminal on my way back to LAX after a commercial shoot in Bali. 

Yes Bali!  I can’t wait to spill the beans on the shoot that involved the location above… 3 RED Epics,  A Phantom Camera, a Remote Control Helicopter crew, a stunt crane,  Scuba diving and crew and cast members from SEVEN countries… as usual, I have to wait for the spot to air first of course.

People often ask me how I and other bloggers manage to keep the blog up to date and to continue on with a hectic work and travel schedule.   Most of the time we somehow find the time, but this year has been the exception so far, at least for me.   It’s especially tough when you’re involved in pre-production overseas, notably in Asia where the hours are almost upside down relative to LA, and they’re a day ahead due to the international dateline (which means you’re always behind, and have less time to prep!)   

Also, as I’m sure many of your can relate to, the longer the blog goes without a fresh post, the bigger the writer’s block! And the bigger the elephant in the room becomes 😉

I do have a lot of blog posts in my mind and those will be rolling out soon.  We have a cool series of tutorials on Time Lapse that we just completed that I hope to post soon.

I thought I’d take the opportunity with this blog post to make a silly, but necessary announcement.    For some odd reason, most people still think that I live in, and am based in New York City.   Clearly I’ve done a bad PR job of making it clear that I live in and am based out of Los Angeles (and for nearly 4 years come May) although I still work out of NYC regularly.   I mention this because, close to half of the crew & cast members I meet in LA still think I’m NY based – so what the heck…  Why not announce it again. (I did make the initial announcement post 4 years ago!) 

Other than that I’ve also made a decision to change the focus of this blog a little bit.   While I’ll still be reviewing gear from time to time – notably first hand accounts – I’m going to be focusing more on the craft of film making as a whole, and general trends.    We’ve all seen a plethora of good gear review blogs pop up, and while you can still expect to get some first hand sneak peeks at new gear on this blog, I want to offer something a little bit different here.     I’d like to share more of my experiences on set, on other sets with other directors, DPs, crew members and actors.   My goal with this blog has always been to write pieces that I myself would want to read and hopefully you will enjoy what I choose to write about in the near future.

Well, it’s time to board my 13 hour flight back.   Then after a day off,  I shoot on the tarmac of LAX with my good pal Jon Carr for 4 days which should also be a blast.

More to come…