April 21, 2017 marked the start of the first film project I’ve crewed on for a while. It’s was for a script I only had the quickest of glances at before Robert Filion brought me on, originally as Boom Mic operater, though I wound up spending more time on behind the scenes photography and all manner of gear hauling.

Into the Pool! Gold enough for you. #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

The locations were all interesting. The cast and crew were well treated and from what I’ve seen this is going to be a very nice looking film indeed. I guess my favorite part of the process turned out once again to be turning random places into create location spaces. For instance a nice tree on a manicured lawn becomes a dreamy park picknic, or the side woods of an abandoned developement becoming a Elven forests. This time out I had a few new tools in the camera bag, BOTH of which are now a must have for capturing the magic that is the film making process. Firstly, the Ricoh Theta S 360 camera. Just pop over to Amazon and order yours right now. These things are so neat. She the attached images to experience the emersion! Next, the Karma Grip for my GoPro Hero Black. Really, just….how the heck did I ever do without this gear. Apart from the 4 hour charge time and the fact that it won’t let me use the camera battery to extend the usage time when it’s in the mount, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about this amazing peice of gear. Literally from now on all of my hiking and how to videos are just going to be so much easier to watch. THANK YOU GoPro! The fine folks at BrightHouseFinancial.com were kind enough to allow me to step away from my work there for the Friday and Monday even though my contract isn’t due to be up there until May 15th. That made this little project a guilt free joy to work on. So, I got to run around the set of a cool project taking random photo and video of people who probably didn’t realize why I was constantly shoving a camera in their face. Most folks tolerate this intrusion to their extra’s chat conversations fairly well but I still felt a bit like a creepy some of the shots. Hey, I suffer for my art so others have to suffer for theirs from time to time as well right? It’s only fair. I actually found that my new iPhone 7’s camera turned out to be a great tool for taking behind the scenes snaps and even portraits. In one case one of the portait shots was printed out for a prop framed photo in the scene and it really looked great. Usually when I let folks take a peek at the results they are instantly impressed by the new “Portrait” mode. Ironically, I wasan’t even hip to it until a co-worker pointed it out to me a at lunch one day.

To boot, I got to work with one of my best friends. Yes, you know him. You love him. He’s CRAZY Todd! Additionally, some of the talent on this film really put an impression on me. The story turned out to be very compelling and as Robert W. Filion shot it, well you know it’s going to look fantastic. How’s this for an uncommon name? “Your Lips Kiss Well But They Lie Better.” Seeing a production with proper funding and enough help in the crew department was quite a treat indeed. This is not your father’s Mutantville. Some of you will get the in joke but most won’t. On the one hand it makes me wish I could fund and produce something on this level. On the other it makes me happy to be still in the game in some capcity. I don’t want or need to be King of the World cause heavy lies the crown and all. I am completely fullfilled to forege ahead being an artist at whatever level I may be at. I get to do this stuff and be a part of the process in addition to getting to write music and play it with cool people. Life is pretty cool sometimes. This was a cool weekend!

Todd drops the boom! #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA