Tag Archives: crew

Filming Crews and Their Serious Gear

We came upon a few filming crews while we were in the Maasai Mara.  There were professional photographers but more of the video teams.  National Geographic had a crew out working and there were others filming too.  You would sometimes find vehicles that were scouting crews for the filming.  The thing I found funny was that they often had signs saying that they were filming crews and not to follow them.  I might never have paid attention to them until I knew that they were filming crews and might well have good intel about where animals were!

Modified vehicles which allow the camera operator to sit outside the vehicle and shoot looked like just the sort of thing I would like to have.  They weren’t always in use, though.  I did see one operator sitting inside the vehicle with his feet up while checking stuff on his phone.  Looking at the very pricey lenses attached to the camera rigs was almost as fun as looking at the animals.  Nat Geo also had a vehicle with a gimbal mount out on the front of the vehicle.  It would have been fun to see that in use!

One thing that occurred to me as I watched these teams at work was the volume of material that they would collect that would be culled down to make a TV show.  Sure, this would be a vast amount of data to store and sort but how different this must be from the days of wet film.  Those crews shooting things like the early Big Cat Diaries must have been carrying a ton of stock and then had to manage all of it through processing and cataloging.  That must have been a very time consuming and expensive proposition.

Rowing Crews In Training

It was a nice evening after work and Nancy was on a trip that meant she would be home later than me so I figured I would go and hang out at Log Boom Park and see what was going on at the top of Lake Washington.  It might be wildlife and it might be floatplanes so I have a chance of something.  I actually ended up seeing a bunch of crews in training.  I don’t know whether they are from the university or a local club but there were plenty of them.

They appeared one time in the distance and then paused before heading back down the lake.  A while later they reappeared and did the same thing again.  They were a fair distance away although I did wonder whether they would be in the path of the floatplanes that were taking off.  However, they were probably too far for them to be in conflict.  I will have to check out when the regattas are due to take place as I would like to see it with more planning unlike last year when we saw some races by accident.

Filming a Car Scene in Vancouver

Walking through the streets of Vancouver one weekend, we came up to an intersection.  There was a Porsche sitting on a trailer with two people in it.  It quickly became apparent that they were doing some filming.  The woman was an actor and the man was filming here.  There was a vehicle pulling the trailer with some of the production staff sitting on it.  Initially I was focused on what they were doing but then I started to look around.

The whole convoy was all related to the filming.  There was a motorcycle escort supporting them and other vehicles from the production team.  Everything on the street was controlled.  You often feel when watching street scenes that they are filming in an open environment but a lot of the time it is totally controlled.  Only us and the other pedestrians could be considered random variables in the whole process.  The light stayed red for a while with the cameraman trying a variety of positions and then the lights changed and the whole ground headed off to the next block.  We went on our way too.

Friendly Crews

The taxiway at Hyakuri jinks around the shrine and consequently the towers we were on.  This is probably an inconvenience the crews but this didn’t stop them from being friendly.  The kids on the tower next to me waved at the crews and always got a wave back.  I joined in too and waved whether the kids were there or not.  I don’t think I ever failed to get a response!

Crewing a Recce Jet

I was on the wrong tower at Hyakuri when the crews came out on the recce ramp to crew up.  Rather than get down and move around and potentially miss it, I accepted that shooting through the trees would have to do.  The ground crew did their work efficiently and the flightcrew walked around the jet before jumping in.  Soon they were powered up and coming towards us.  This was early in the day and the beginning of a fun day out!

Row Faster, He’s Gaining on Us

One evening after work I headed down to Kenmore.  It is a short distance from my office and, sitting at the top of Lake Washington, it has a nice waterfront park including a pier.  I walked out on the pier to see the arrivals of the Kenmore floatplanes at the end of their workday.  They are not the only arrivals, though.  Various boats were out on the lake including some rowing crews carrying out their training.  One of the crews was heading in when a floatplane came in to land.  I suspect they had plenty of space but the plane did seem to adjust its course a bit to avoid them.  Taxiing in after touchdown (landing seems to be the wrong word) they did seem to be chasing the crew down a bit!