Phil Badger, Gaffer

Screen grabs from "Dating Rules From My Future Self"

2012-01-11T16:38:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty happy with how the lighting worked out in this webseries sponsored by Biore and Ford. "Dating Rules From My Future Self." These are just grabs off the Youtube video, from the first few episodes. I'll add more as the later episodes are released.

"White Space" feature

2012-01-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

This is a new feature film DP'ed by the wonderful Tom Clancy. A few stills from it:

Almost forgot to mention -- this was shot on FILM! Yes, FILM! 35mm FILM!

Official trailer for a new web series

2012-01-11T12:26:00.001-08:00

I realized I haven't posted here in a while. I've done some commercials, a feature, and now a new web series. Here is the official trailer for it:

And the first episode. It looks pretty darned good, especially once they all move into the house.

To see it in a regular-sized window, up to 720p, go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt6YGIfVdOM

A web series

2011-05-20T12:31:00.001-07:00

So I almost forgot, we did this web series back in February. It was a tough shoot, lots of locations, long hours, no rigging crew, that sort of thing. "New Media" rates.

Anyway, it's out now, and I'm looking through it, and it looks GREAT. At least from my point of view. Apparently the clients were extremely happy with it. The D.P. was the incomparable Jas Shelton.

http://www.alloytv.com/thetalentshow/index.vm?title=episode-four

This link is for episode four, but it's clear how you can scroll back through the episodes if you're so inclined.

These are just some frame grabs off my computer screen. I'm gonna try to chase down some better frames.

2011-05-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

I realized I've been neglecting this blog, because we just did some spots for Domino's Pizza, and I realized I never posted anything about the LAST spots we did for Dominos, in September of 2010. The picture above is from the ones we did last year, where they brought unsuspecting people into these fake offices out in the middle of spinach fields (in one case) and tomato fields (in another).

This was my first time gaffing with the Arrimax 18k, which is the brightest light you can imagine. And heavy! They weigh a ton, but if you just need a hell of a lot of light, these are for you!

We rigged a bunch of them to these trusses to bash the light into the fake offices so it would balance somewhat to the outdoors when the walls suddenly popped up and the people realized they were out in a field.

These last Dominos spots were in one of their stores. We got to smell the pizza cooking all day long. Which you might think would be a good thing ..... but .... after many many hours of it ..... it's not so much.

Sears "Turf Wars"

2011-05-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

Had a good time doing these spots. Dates kept moving around due to weather concerns, and the day we finally shot it was perfect, not a cloud anywhere.

Okay, I cannot figure out why Blogger is cropping the sides of the Youtube image. It works great in "preview".

Just pretend you're watching on an old 4:3 television!

"A Little Less Conversation"

2010-12-30T16:28:00.001-08:00

Another very enjoyable project was "A Little Less Conversation" directed by Sasha Freedman and starring Jane Pickett. I love this shot, it says a lot about the story.

A coupla things

2010-12-30T16:11:00.001-08:00

Figured I'd throw in a few links to a few of the things I've worked on lately that I actually feel good about. These are both kinda small projects, but they were creatively very enjoyable.

This was a short called "Porcelain Unicorn," which was shot by Adam Biddle and directed by Keegan Wilcox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCAs_CyopMQ&

(I originated embedded this, but Blogger for some reason crops the frame so the aspect ratio is really messed up)

From RSA's press release:

Today, Ridley Scott announced Porcelain Unicorn from American director Keegan Wilcox as the winning short film in Philips’ Tell It Your Way film-making contest.

The contest, which received over 600 entries from around the world, invited aspiring filmmakers to create an original short film using the same six-line dialogue as the Cannes Lions award-winning Parallel Lines short films directed by RSA talents Carl Erik Rinsch, Greg Fay, Johnny Hardstaff, Jake Scott and Hi-Sim.

Commenting on his choice of winner, Sir Ridley Scott said: “I chose Porcelain Unicorn to be the winning film as it had a very strong narrative; a very complete story that was well told and executed.”

This was a great short script. Shooting it was a bit grueling, but rewarding nonetheless.

Then I did a music video for a group called Jenny and Johnny. It was directed by the still photographer Autumn de Wilde. These were some really great people, and "working" on this was like spending the day at a park or something. Can't find the finished video, maybe they haven't finished it up yet.

There are others .... looking for them ....

Meeting new people

2010-08-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

Just worked on a couple of short films with some new DP's. I have to say, and I don't mean to brag, but there's a moment where these guys realize that I'm really good at what I do, and their attitude shifts toward me. It's a very gratifying feeling, to suddenly feel trusted and that they think of me as truly a collaborator rather than someone who's just working for them. One of them got a couple of commercials while we were working --- out of the country. Can't take me with him. Story of my life these days! Seems everything shoots everywhere but Los Angeles these days.

Who needs reality?

2010-06-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest passion: CG lighting. All of these images were done in Maya, with Mental Ray as the render engine.

This is fun stuff. The lights can be invisible, you can decide what they illuminate and what they don't, and there are absolutely no physical restrictions against what you can do!

2010

2010-01-26T12:55:00.000-08:00

Well here it is a whole new year. I haven't posted much on this blog at all, in months, because, well, 2009 was so disastrously slow. Our Union says it's the worst work slow-down in their history, and they've been around since the 1930's. Good times.

I did a few things, some big green-screen shoots (which honestly are kind of boring as far as lighting goes, but I don't mind! There just isn't much to write about regarding them). A few spots here and there. Worked on a Dell commercial for a wonderful cameraman in November. He has a film in Sundance right now and is hanging out in Park City probably as I write this.

Hopefully 2010 will be far better than 2009! I hear it's picking up already, so I'm hoping to get busy very soon.

Just a few random jobs

2009-04-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Above, Cox Communications spots. We spent a few days doing several of these.

Above, a job for Tinactin. I'm not sure what you'd call this, except it was for the web, and it was all green-screen. Is this what they mean by "viral" marketing? Probably. Here's the finished show, with its own website:

http://www.meettheburns.com

It's different! Kinda trippy.

Well, this was different

2009-04-19T01:09:00.000-07:00

You just never know what you'll end up doing sometimes. This was actually enjoyable. I can't take credit for the moving lights in the concert stuff, that was all done at the Nokia theater with their regular dimmer board op, and their existing lights they had on hand. We did add a few things mainly to have a consistent key. The classroom stuff was ridiculously simple, which was good, because we didn't have much time to cover the heck out of that. Lots of steadicam.

Resume? What's a resume?

2009-01-28T09:40:00.001-08:00

So I was sorta up for a job where I actually had to send in a resume. I cannot remember the last time I had to actually write a resume, so it was kind of interesting to put one together. Since it's just deadly slow right now in our business (and I didn't get the job, a feature where production brought in their own guy), I thought I'd post the same information here, then I can link to it if I need to send one again. Why not? So here goes:

A gaffer for over ten years, Phil Badger's numerous credits include television commercials, music videos, feature films, and television. Local 728.

Narrative Television (recent):

“Boldly Going Nowhere”, 2008, pilot for Fox, single camera, Stage 10, 20th Century Fox

“The Sarah Silverman Program”, seasons 1-3 (and pilot), single camera, two stages and location shooting, CBS Radford (2008), Hollywood Center Studios (2007), Sunset Gower (2006)

Commercials include:
Konica/Minolta
McDonalds
Sprint
Wendy’s
Avis
Quizno’s
Verizon
EA Sports
Lennox
Coffeemate
Crest toothpaste
Alaska Airlines
Southwest Airlines
Crispix
Chili’s Restaurants
Mattel
NEC
Southwest Airlines
Roundtable Pizza
Clorox
Washington Mutual
Shell/Mastercard

And many others, for production companies such as Ridley Scott Associates, Tool of North America, Oil Factory, Japanese Monster …

Music Videos include:
Tenacious D, Foo Fighters, Reba McIntyre, She Daisy, Brooks & Dunn, Alabama
And many others ….

Features and "other":
“American Hustle” with Katt Williams, feature film
“Jesus is Magic” with Sarah Silverman, feature film
“The Bachelor” seasons 1 and 3 (Reality show for ABC)
“Natural Selection” aka “The Monster Hunter” feature film
“Scrapple” feature film
“Purgatory County” feature film
“Snake Tales” feature film

"Art and Copy" gets into Sundance

2008-12-07T23:49:00.000-08:00

So a buddy of mine, Doug Pray, an extremely talented and accomplished documentary filmmaker, just got his latest doc, "Art and Copy", into Sundance for 2009. It's not his first time, but it's always really cool to get in. And this film I actually worked a few days on, although I sure can't claim any credit for anything whatsoever. I helped out for a couple of days here in Los Angeles and a couple in Portland. I lugged a few Kinos around and took some nice stills. I really enjoyed the time I put in on it, especially meeting Lee Clow, the guru of Apple's advertising for many years now. Just a great, inspiring guy. My friend Michael Nadeau is one of the producers, and my old friend Timothy J. Sexton helped with the writing. Peter Nelson was the DP and his work on it is absolutely beautiful. The guy has an amazing eye, and he knows how to pick out a really fantastic restaurant.

Here's a shot I took of Lee Clow running down the beach.

Video, or actual digital cinematography?

2008-12-07T23:33:00.001-08:00

So I finally had a shoot with the much vaunted RED camera. This thing seems to finally be what "digital cinematography" is supposed to be. I was never a huge fan of "video" and while even the latest HD manifestations of "video" were compelling, they're still kind of a pain in the butt. Being the slave to the DIT station is one thing that I really don't like about HD, and try to find a monitor you can trust that isn't in the DIT tent! But the RED seems to be to film cameras what the DSLR is to the SLR'sin the still-photography world. And the monitor on the camera is pretty trustworthy, making it far easier to light. Also, it shoots RAW, so it's more like film, in that you can go back to trusting your eye more than the DIT monitor. I'm pretty sold on this thing.

Here's the thing, dangling in space (as a bungy-cam) read for hand-held mode. Seems like a lot of people want "The Office" look these days.

The last time I was here ....

2008-11-08T00:21:00.001-08:00

The last time I worked on the Fox lot, we did this:

Which is still one of my favorite lighting setups ever (from a Wendy's commercial). What's funny is every time I step out of the stage we're in right now, I'm exactly in that same spot. Often, some other show is setting up to shoot there as well. Walking up the street, when nobody else is there, and looking up at the fake buildings, I get a deep sense of familiarity, a very primal one, and I realize it's from seeing this view over and over again, in movies and on TV, since I was a little kid. It can give one a sense of walking through a dream. Very strange.

We just completed our first week of shooting. We do three more days tomorrow, then we're done with this pilot.

I just discovered it's listed now on imdb.com.

"Boldly Going ....."

2008-10-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here, and there's a reason for that: it's been slow. After our last show, I remember thinking "gosh, I sure don't want to work for a while." Well, it was "be careful what you wish for time." Things pretty much just went dead for a while. Finally they're picking up again.

Here's our new home for a little while, Stage 10 on the Fox lot. It's a pilot for Fox, and I'm sure I'm not supposed to talk about it. Although I did notice that it's on imdb.com already. At any rate, we're spending two weeks pre-lighting it, then we're shooting for seven days. It's all on stage, which will be nice, actually. I used to love location work, but the more I do it around Los Angeles, the less I like it. Stages and backlots were built for a lot of very good reasons.

Right before this started, we did a commercial for Amica insurance. It was a fine job, one of those commercials which made me wish I did commercials all the time.

LA Times "Hollywood Backlot" covers our show

2008-08-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well this is interesting. The LA Times just covered the Sarah Silverman Program. I had no idea. I remember a photographer being there those days, but didn't know why he was there, and he was very well behaved and stayed out of the way.

Anyway, behind the scenes, courtesy of the LA Times:

When the show is over .....

2008-07-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

So the show is finally over. We wrapped a week early, at least as far as we were concerned, because, well, for some reason they wanted us out of the stage as early as possible. So instead of having our wrap week, where we go in and take 10 hour days as sort of a "wind down" from the job, I had to bring in guys to wrap while we were still shooting. Which was fine, it's just we all kind of felt we had our wrap week stolen from us. :) But at times like this I'm happy about it because I really just wanted to be at home for a while and rest up, rather than have to go in for another week of what is, frankly, extremely boring work.

The wrap party is tonight, Wednesday. Why a Wednesday? Well to save money, of course! Facilities are SO much cheaper to rent on week days! (they've done this every year).

I know, complain complain ..... The thing about people in our line of work is that we complain when there's not enough work, and we complain when there's too much work. The whole "feast and famine" thing. Rarely does it balance out to a satisfying level. Beats working in a florescent-lit cubicle!

Something called a "sizzle reel"

2008-07-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, I think the name for these things is kind of overly-cute, right up there with calling lighting "spicy" or "sexy", but this is what they call a "sizzle reel" for the show. In this case last year's show. I didn't know it existed until a couple of days ago, but I just found out after having seen an edit of the one for this year, which I thought was hilarious as all heck. This one? Probably not as hilarious, IMO, and only seems to cover a couple of episodes, but what it does do is show you a much better idea of the actual picture quality that we strive to achieve, seeing as how this particular cut was mastered in HD and is from the DP's own web site.

Like I've mentioned before, by the time the show ends up on Comedy Central it doesn't look ..... well, I don't know what they do to it, but it doens't look ANYTHING like it's supposed to. It's just kind of weird, in this day and age, to shoot a show on HD, and then air it looking as though it's been dubbed to VHS and back again. I don't get it.

Anyway, here's last year's "sizzle":

http://kameraman.com/films/Sizzle_HD_RBcut/SilvermanSizzleS2.htm

Grip Trix

2008-07-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

So we used this "Grip Trix" cart for a few scenes during the last couple of weeks. This thing is awesome. It's electric, runs virtually silently, is smooth as a camera dolly, and can accelerate like a rabbit. It can hit a really kinetically-appealing top speed (not sure what it is, but it's pretty darned quick). We used it to chase someone down a street, then into a driveway and down a sidewalk. Indoors we used it on a go-cart track, and even used it to tow a go-cart. It's a great device.

The only thing it doesn't have is a way to plug in any sort of lighting equipment. So you have to provide our own power on-board the thing. For the outdoors, we strapped on one of those cool little Honda 2000 watt putt-putts (noisy, especially when you strap it down against a metal vehicle), but ti worked out great because the scene was basically MOS. It powered up a 800W joker-bug and a 400W joker-bug. Indoors we were using a battery-operated 125W Arri pocket par with a small chimera on it, but halfway through the day the ballast on that suddenly started smoking and simply burned up. For no apparent reason of course. So we switched to a couple of small Panel-Lites mounted one on top of the other and that worked fine. It was the first time I've ever had trouble with an Arri pocket par.

Anyway, I thought it was a really cool device, this Grip Trix thing. The driver who came out with it was extremely conscientious and knowlegable and kept doing something where he would ascertain the weight of those onboard, where they were sitting, and adjust something in the vehicle accordingly. I never asked what it was but it seemed to be some kind of hydraulic suspension device to compensate for discrepancies in weight distribution over the vehicle. I could be completely wrong on that, though. :)

If you go to their website, you'll see two vehicles. We used the first one, the "Camera Dolly". I have more pictures from the go-cart track, but I probably can't post them yet, so as not to give away plot elements of the episode. Oh yeah, that again.

Apple Orchards and Rattlesnakes

2008-06-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

So weeks 3 and 4 took us to some different locations, a few of which I'd never been to before. One was a grove of fake apple trees set up in the middle of a real lemon grove near Piru. Another was a beautiful mountainside above Chatsworth which was inhabited by quite a few rattlesnakes (the director almost stepped on one during the scout). Other than that it was fairly uneventful, except for my having to "set free" a couple of members of my crew. That was probably the most stressful part of the whole shoot. Like many of these dramas, there's never a great time to pull the trigger. Do you wait until they've had lunch? Or do you wait until the end of the day? Give them one more chance? Ugh. Other than that things went pretty well, to the point where tonight, as I write this, I'm having a hard time coming up with anything to write about! What's on my mind tonight is trying to figure out the best way to light something with battery power for an upcoming scene. The little lights are easy, but we might want something a little bigger. Or do we run a 2K Honda gennie in the enormous warehouse where we'll be shooting? Do we go LED, Kino, or small HMI?

Sarah Silverman Program, weeks 1 - 2

2008-05-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

So we just shot the first two weeks on the Sarah Silverman Program, season 2B. We all thought it was Season 3, but Comedy Central has somehow decided that this is actually, somehow, an extension of Season 2. Whatever, at least I don't have to fill out my start paperwork again.

It's tricky to find a photo I can publish here. Most of them give away details about the plot elements of the shows, and those are a no-no, at least until the show airs. So here's a nice generic one of the gang in Romanski's, and Sarah being touched up by Martina Kohl, makeup artist.

We got off to a rocky start, when on the first day of shooting, one of the actors failed to show up. For three hours. Once the decision was made to shoot an entirely different scene, with actors whose alarm clocks actually had worked that morning, we of course then had to wait for them to get into the proper makeup and wardrobe. By the time we started shooting, we were already way behind. And this after I told the new members of my crew that the hours we worked "really weren't that bad". Nevertheless, we eventually made it up, although we had another unusually long day or two in there (there was one particularly bad one in a shopping mall where the main actor in the scene was violently ill all day). But other than that, things are pretty smooth. Maybe we've all finally figured out what we're doing.

Okay, here's another photo. This was during that godawful day at the shopping mall, which was open for business. Bill, our sound mixer, had no idea this little girl was hamming it up right behind him in the Old Navy store, waving and grinning at all of us.

"I'll be wight black!"

2008-04-20T22:22:00.001-07:00

That's a line from the episode where Sarah Silverman goes out in blackface to prove that Jewish people have it harder than blacks in America (the joke of which, of course, is that they don't). Anyway, we're "wight black" ourselves, gearing up for shooting seven more episodes of "The Sarah Silverman Program" starting tomorrow (April 21st). It's Deja-Vu all over again, as we watch the same sets go up (with a few modifications) and light them pretty much the same way we did last year (with a few modifications). This time we're at CBS/Radford, which so far has been a pretty positive experience except for a few of their little rules which I'm not at liberty to go into. One of the best things about CBS/Radford is the great shopping right outside the gates, which include a Trader Joe's, a cigar shop, a pinkberry, and a fantastic sushi restaurant. The Argentinian place is pretty good, too. And did I mention the commissary? Okay, tomorrow we start with the caterer, who is fantastic, so .... did I mention I gained a few pounds last year on this job? I'm determined not to this year. Yup. Sure am.

Miley and her Dad

2008-03-09T22:39:00.001-07:00

I hesitate to even post this, because this girl is so famous right now that all of us had to undergo background checks to work the job. We'd shot her father before -- promos for his show on CMT -- and this time his superstar daughter came along, for promos for the CMT music awards, which they are hosting. I'm glad to say she seems like a fine and charming human being (Young woman? Kid?) who has her act together, and seems about as normal as anyone could be in her situation. Her Dad seems like a genuinely nice guy as well. Our whole studio filled up with two other interview sets, and "behind the scenes" folks. It made for an easy day, as we really only did one setup, and spent the rest of the time waiting for them, and eating craft service. One of those easy jobs we'd all like to have a few more of, but not too many or else we'd get bored (and soft).

"Hey, it's that guy from ______________"

2008-03-09T22:27:00.000-07:00

Barry Bostwick has one of those IMDB.com resumes that seems to go on forever. Yup, he's Brad Majors from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, if you care to scroll down that far. For us, he was "The Voice". A funny commercial for Optimum Voice, produced by RSA. Daylight interiors, pretty standard package of HMIs and a few Image 80's, in a beautiful Altadena house.

This set really WAS a zoo.

2008-02-11T13:28:00.001-08:00

Lately I've been meaning to take my son, who's 5, to the zoo. But I ended up going there myself to do this job for Panda Express. No, they don't have pandas at the LA Zoo - the real Pandas were shot in Memphis -- but we shot the Panda P.O.V.'s and the over-the-shoulder shots here in LA, starting nice and early on a shockingly chilly morning in late January.

The photo? Well, that's a woman in a Panda-bear suit. A tiny woman, actually, in what was a disturbingly realistic panda suit. We were all deeply impressed with this suit. I wish I knew who'd made it, so I could give them credit here.

The photo's from my cell phone, thus the quality (or lack thereof).

None Dare Speak its Name!

2008-02-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

So this was a fine commercial, only none of us really wanted to speak the name of the product. I mean, try it, say it out loud: "Gas-X" Just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? Makes a fella proud! Seriously, it should be a funny spot. How can intestinal gas NOT be funny? During the scout, a genuine fart was deliberately emitted on set. I won't say by whom (it wasn't me). And yes, it was funny.

We actually used a translight outside the window at this location, something I'd never done before. And they don't make skypans in HMI's, so to light it I used a couple of Alpha 4K's, which ended up working extremely well. I do love the Alpha 4K, and am dying to try the 18K version of it, but haven't had the chance yet (or the budget, that baby's expensive!)

This is LA. Nobody walks to work!

2008-02-05T18:29:00.001-08:00

I am fortunate to live live half a block from "The 18th Street Coffeehouse"in Santa Monica. I've often seen shoots of various sizes there, often when I'm stumbling down for a cup of much-needed coffee only to find blinding 18K's blocking the path, and the place closed. Ah, but I knew some day my time would come to shoot there, and I could leisurely walk to work for the first time ever. Well that day finally came when Rhet Bear landed a couple of jobs with R.S.A., one of which was a short film for Liberty Mutual which was to be shot in ... my coffee shop. The joy was tempered by the deal, being of low money and long hours, but that was in turn balanced by a well-paying commercialf or Gas-X the following week.

I don't think I've ever been on a job where there were so many extras crammed into such a small space. It made working kinda difficult -- nothing like trying to check a light when there are two or three people standing in the beam -- but everybody was cool and we got out of there after a mere 14 hours.

January - back to work

2008-02-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

The first job of the year was due to a call from the DP Mark Petersen, a terrific guy and a very talented DP who I hadn't heard from in quite some time. It was a big for "a bank" as they put it, and the production company was out of Washington D.C. Great people, and we had a fine time, and even got to experience the glory that is Pico Rivera on our first day of shooting. I was actually impressed with the wetlands and waterways and recreation areas in Pico Rivera, until two weeks later when I met a 2nd A.D. who used to be a Deputy Sheriff over there, and he said they "found a lot of bodies" in those waterways. Nice! Our 2nd day was in a lovely house in South Pasdena, and all went well except our generator just wouldn't start in the morning. That's only the 2nd time that's ever happened to me, and it wasn't really a problem, as they got a replacement out pronto, and we were able to put the fantastic grip crew (led by Key Grip Geoff Knoller) to work lighting our first set up which was a day exterior. A couple of 400W HMI Jo-Leikos and a whole lot of grip stuff and all was well. Another odd thing was one of the grips on the first day was a fellow who lived in my house before my wife and I moved in! Small world.

Oh, the happy holidays

2007-12-29T00:49:00.000-08:00

So for me, in this line of work, the "holidays" always seems like a forced layoff. It's like you're expected to be laid off AND spend more money than at any other time of year. Good times. Oh well, that's being freelance I suppose. Now this year we have the Writers Strike to help things along and bring plenty of good tidings for the longest nights of the year.

Is that negative enough? Maybe I just suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I'm a gaffer, damnit, I want some LIGHT.

Seriously, this December wasn't too bad. We had a nice commercial shoot for a new product from Frito Lay that I'm not supposed to talk about. So I won't talk about it. (nor am I allowed to post any photos -- bummer!) But it was one of those commercials that made me realize why so many people like to do commercials. If that makes any sense. The only bad thing about it is that it was pouring down rain the first day of the shoot, and to get into my car at the end of the night I had to literally walk through about fifteen inches of water. My car had turned into an island in a sea of rainwater. And from there we had to go scout for a music video that was mercifully cancelled the next day. Walking around in a Hancock Park mansion with extremely wet feet, late at night. Just a weird day.

The next day we shot on a bus, which is never much fun, as this time I was crammed in between the a.d. and a box of props, barely able to squeeze my arm over to take a light reading in the fluctuating light of Chandler Street. Breathing in the fumes of the a.d.'s breath as he loudly did his thing. I swear to god this particular a.d. has gotten me sick more than anybody I know. Every time I work with him it seems he's "getting over" a cold which I then have to get over a few days later. Two married men should not be trading germs that much. It's disturbing.

Everybody's hoping the Writers Strike will end soon, but it's looking pretty darned grim at this point. We're supposed to do ten more Sarah Silverman episodes, but it's kinda on hold until this thing is resolved. Here's keeping the old fingers crossed for lotsa commercials in the near future ...

More spots, and a doc

2007-10-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Ah, autumn in Los Angeles. Today, Malibu is on fire.

Quite a contrast to Portland, where I just spent a few days working on a documentary for director Doug Pray and DP Peter Nelson. Rainy, cool, cloudy, with autumn leaves blowing around the city ... it was great. It was nice to see a city actually doing something about energy, climate change, and other problems. LA just keeps building condos and turning on more lights and running more cars.

Prior to this, more commercials. DP Rhet Bear did some European McDonalds spots ...

After that, we did some spots for PETA. These had some pretty great scripts, great dark humor. I'd post a photo, but I'm not sure if that's okay with them yet. Wouldn't want to spill the beans.

After that, I worked with DP Jas Shelton on some spots for Shell/Mastercard. Jas is such a sweetheart to work with -- he compliments me so much I can't help but think he's being sarcastic. Hmm, maybe ...

Did I mention that wrap parties

2007-10-21T13:25:00.001-07:00

can be fun?

Press for our show

2007-10-21T13:17:00.000-07:00

Digital Video Magazine wrote a story about Rhet Bear and the shooting of the second season of the Sarah Silverman Program here.

Very cool! I can't complain -- oh wait, I can complain -- because they published one of my photos and attributed it to our 1st a.c. Hiro Fukada. Maybe I shouldn't have used the camera that I bought from Hiro to take the photo:

Rhet says it's his fault, but he's just being a good guy. You'd think the magazine would check these things. Seriously, I don't really care because it's great PR for Rhet.

The Sarah Silverman Program - Season Two

2007-09-04T20:38:00.001-07:00

So I was just going through all the photos I took during these months of shooting, and I realized I can barely show any of them, for fear of giving away plot points to the shows, which won't air until .... well, I don't know when they're going to air, to tell you the truth.   Anyway, this one I took in the set of Sarah's living room right before we shot a scene, and it seems pretty innocuous -- just her and her dog.
This time we shot at Hollywood Center Studios, rather than Sunset Gower, and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more.   Also, we were able to bring in our own caterer there, and by God if Antonio of Cafe on Location wasn't the best damn caterer I've ever had on a show ....
For us, the good news was that the restaurant location, which was a pain in the butt to work in before (hot, cramped, on a busy corner with lots of traffic) was built on a stage.   Sweet!   We still managed to hang enough lights to heat the place up while we were rolling, but there was blessed air conditioning and plenty of room.
There were some good stories to come out of these six new episodes, but I'm not sure what I can put on a blog and still protect the innocent/guilty parties.   I'll just keep my mouth shut for now I suppose ....
We'll be doing more episodes in the spring, ten more supposedly.   The DP for all of these is Rhet Bear.

Katt Williams Pimp Chronicles 2 The Movie

2007-07-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

We spent a couple of weeks shooting the live-action segments of Pimp Chronicles 2 The Movie

It was a fairly low-budget experience, but was a uniquely interesting time. Katt Williams and his co-stars are really funny, and the demands of the job weren't too trying, so we could rather enjoy the comedy as it unfolded. Or maybe it just seems that way so long after the fact ...... (I'm writing this several months later). The lighting package was mostly a basic daylight exterior/interior package -- HMI's, Jo-Leikos (Joker-Bug/Leiko combos), Kinos and the like. A lot of company moves.

Coming soon ...

2007-04-27T10:53:00.000-07:00

We got word that we'll be doing more episodes of "The Sarah Silverman Program". We already did the pilot and the first six episodes. We also did her feature film "Jesus is Magic". She's always really great to work with and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

My view from inside the DIT tent:

Diabetes PSA - Ad Council

2007-04-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

This was kind of an average job, for me at least, with a lot of running around. All on location. We did have to shot on a city bus, at night, for which I learned that the flourescent tubes in these buses run on DC, so there are no flicker issues. Thanks to my electrician Gary Lowrance for contacting the right people to confirm that.

Dale Watson music video

2007-04-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

A little bit of Austin in Los Angeles -- working on this music video for Dale Watson with a great group of Austin and ex-Austin folks. If you've never lived in Austin, it's difficult to describe the Zeitgeist of the place -- it's friendly, fun, laid-back, but hard-working. Nicest people I've ever met in my life are in Austin, then there's the music, the heat, and the beer. At any rate, this was a pretty cool job, shot in black-and-white, yes actually on black and white negative film, and while I still haven't seen the finished video, I'd have to say the stills look pretty cool.

OK-GO -- a two-day lockdown

2007-04-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

I got a call from a fellow I hadn't seen in a while asking if I'd like to gaff a music video. The rate wasn't that great, but the days fell conveniently into a blank spot in my schedule, so I accepted. Then I asked who the band was, and was glad I had accepted, because it was for OK-GO, who made themselves famous with that treadmill video on YouTube. This was to be their new video, and it was a great deal of fun to be a part of it. Even though, for me, it was pretty boring, since it was all ONE SHOT. For two days we watched this parade of people come through, and the Art Department did an amazing job of sewing together these costumes for all of them, as well as affixing the same material to every single prop that was in the video.

This photo is of the band, with their masks off, along with the girl who did the jump-roping as well as the "ball-walking" and some other stunts.

I wish I'd taken more photos, but stills really wouldn't do it justice anyway. It's all about the movement. You can see the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAQZ_uui1SY

Right now you can also see it at the Virgin Record store at Hollywood and Highland, as part of their rotating music video display. I happened to see it while working there on a small job last week. It looked way better on their screens than it does on the Internet.

More January jobs

2007-04-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

We've done several jobs for Roundtable Pizza. They're usually very fun spots, although sometimes a bit stressful, because we often do several in a short period of time. This one was very funny, and again we ended up in a studio using a translite -- at the last minute, because the location in which we were going to shoot it fell through. It made the job completely different from my end, but it worked out fine.

It's hard to go wrong with a midget in a cup-cake suit:

AFTER THIS we had a job for Konica/Minolta, and their "Biz Hub" which is a really large copy machine/scanner/faxer thingymajob. I'm not even sure of everything this object does, but I guess it does almost everything. Anyway, this time we were in an extremely inconvenient location ten floors up in a West Hollywood office building.

And yes, it's the same actor from the Avis job (it was a good month for him, too, I suppose).

2007 started well

2007-04-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

The year started well, with January being quite busy. One of the more interesting jobs was this one for Avis, where we had to light a recreation of an Avis store on a soundstage at Sunset Gower Studios.

We had a translight behind the actor playing the customer, which had to look "real", i.e. a bit overexposed. It was also kept a bit out-of-focus.

Here's a wider view of the whole set:

And here's the reverse shot (this, like the first photo, is a still from the dailies):