Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Fisherman on Dock

Um I hope that the takeaway so far is wow it's a little chaotic when you guys were working on location because that's the truth we're trying to do a lot all at once we're trying to shoot video spot we're trying to shoot still photographs were trying to be as creative as we possibly can. We have a lot of little tools with a lot of little moving parts and buttons that are easy forget to press or buttons that you can press the wrong way and we have interfering radio signals so you saw some action? I mean, things did not go exactly the way that we had planned in every scenario we had water housing that a wrong exposure we have to make an adjustment. Probably the biggest strike of our morning was the rc helicopter went down before we got it in the air but that's part of the deal like that's how this stuff works we're not sure why we think it was maybe a radio signal interference. We have a lot of microphones and walkie talkies and cell phones going all at once but what you did see is as soo...

n as the helicopter went down we moved it out of out of the scene and we actually switched years dane and I brainstormed real quick and we tried to adapt and we flew the crane actually over the top of jim as he was kayaking so it's always about being opportunistic, trying to capitalize on what you have, bringing the right tools being prepared, and then when something goes wrong, it's, how do you adapt on the fly and try to still take advantage of your opportunity? Tried to leverage that situation so and it's always, I remind myself when I'm on production, when I'm shooting and that's, whether I'm alone or whether it's with the crew of guys like we have here on beaver lake, it's always you've got to just keep on charging forward what happened early in the day. It doesn't matter now, it's about our next series of shots, so we kind of have now we're going to get out of the water. Most of what we shot this morning was jim getting in the kayak, pushing himself out, casting his his fishing rod. And then we got of course, hooking up the fish, which was great that jim spends over fifty percent of his life looking fish, hooking, slant, land, fish, so but now we're out of the water, and we have we're trying to actually shoot a couple of kind of video details again, I have my trusty shot list in my pocket, so the first thing we're gonna do is we're going to go to this tight shot of jim's face. Which is the tight locked off and the ideas he's kind of gazing out at the lake. You know, the fog is rising, and jim is about to do some fish whispering before he heads it. Alright, so so anyhow, first shot is the tight shot of jim's face he's gonna be gazing out. We're going to first try to do it safe. We're gonna actually shoot on sticks, so dane has d eight hundred seventy two, two hundred on our sticks, we're going to do a locked off shots, you'll hear me coaching jim as he's looking out into the distance and then after we feel like we really nailed that shot, then we're going to switch to the slider and we're going to try to push in on gym, so we're going to do we're going to rack focus while we're moving the camera in towards jim's face, so we're going to spend a little bit of time on that first shot, then the next thing we're going to shoot is that victoria's shot of jim holding the fish that ate that he just caught in the water and he's going to catch a lot of a lot of heat from his his comrades in the fishing world because apparently holding a fiberglass fish isn't that cool. Then we're going to switch into the beer drinking sequence we're going to do a detail shot of actually opening the beer and then we're going to do the shot which I think jim is most excited about of actually taking a swig of beer out of it I mean it's warming up actually his rider did say that he'll only drink beer that's at least forty three degrees air cooler so we're probably going to have to have one of the one of the p a is bring down a colder beer or jim is going to walk off set and that's something that you have to deal with a lot when you bring in these high end guys like the best in the world yeah prima donnas he actually he wanted on lee green m and m's in his in his room at the house any one of the best view so but that's all right you whatever the compromises to bring in the world's best that's worth it because that that draws a crowd and we're guaranteed little catch a big fiberglass fish when you're bringing guys like that. So then we're going to do the beer opening shot which is really a detail and to remind you then we're going to pick up the audio on that tomorrow morning and then the final shot is jordan's here in jordan's gonna help me light we're using to pro photo before pax and we're going to do the still portrait which is going to be the other print ad for jackson kayaked advertised the cuda so that's a lot that's a lot for ninety minutes so we're going to dive right into it I think same thing with questions just keep them coming anything that you want to ask it's fair game send them in over the internet or if you're standing right here that beaver lake please just fire the questions my way so let's first shot jim I don't know if you saw the storyboard this morning you know, last night we looked at it and this is really helpful by the way guys actually sharing with the person that's going to be in the shot what we're trying to do can save a lot of time so this is really going to be a tight shot I would say sunglasses down and let's actually I would say how about your standing right about where that footprint is? Okay let's just see what this looks like okay, that looks good now this is so instantly what I'm seeing on the back of the camera it's not what the preconceived idea was but it looks really cool it's kind of a video portrait of jim you see this guy you can see in his eyes it's weird I don't see any fish but you can see fish reflecting off its eyeballs right now like that's part of being a fish whisper okay and our day actually getting a feed from this okay okay, perfect. Okay, great. I could be a little more over here just so we can hear right and how about all actually just stand on the corner of the doc so that I know it's hard to be serious when you're looking at me but one time I had to look up tio that's true that is true that's why all of my angles are usually up angle okay, so I think you're doing exactly that you're just gazing out there at that kayak on the dock you know, kind of a little bit of a squint maybe then he hands on your hips that just kind of put your shoulders and you all were soon is your face but it puts your shoulders up I yes yes that's good. Great. Okay, good. You're looking at that, doc okay, so I'm going to stop shaking danes camera and then we're gonna while we're getting this shot we have a locked off shot danes going pan right and left a little bit just so that we kind of reveal a little bit of jim's ear and then what you were going to move so that we get more water in the background great so let's try toes little is possible walking on the deck on the dock now we're going to tilt up so by tilting up we're just it's allowing us to massage and milk this shot a little longer when we get into the edit okay here we go so no shaking the doc for a minute goods he's tilting up we're just using the fluid head on our tripod we're clearing the doc we're going to redo that because we could feel the doc shaking a lot okay so here we go now you're looking good jim that's looking fantastic we're tilting up jim you're just looking out there thinking about your day on beaver lake and all the fish that are gonna be slayed alright that looks good and then I think the next thing so I think we nailed a couple of really nice shots there I don't always have the luxury of working with I'm like name where he's focused right now on operating the camera and I'm focused on making certain that the scene is unfolding correctly but you'll hear that there's a lot of dialogue between dane and I in terms of hey don't you feel like you actually got that shot no I think we should do it again okay there you go and I have to trust his judgment because I'm not actually focusing the camera so james dane senses we're going to do it again and and maybe you're giving us a chuckle as well just give us a little life in your face there yeah that's great and a little more hat brim yeah perfect that looks good kind of panning right and actually tilting up a little at the same time it's kind of nice when we reveal some of that orange p f d up to the hat that has been in the sun I comptel one of the prizes is we're gonna raffle off jim's hat signed in the sweatband area custom made at it's not a prize so then let's try let's do a rack focus dane may be where we just go really well start sharp and then we'll just go really soft and again we're just trying to create some diversity so that we have we have content that we can add it with so we go you can see that we're well go into into record mode and we're not sure how we'll use this imposed but once you've got the shot set up we're on the sticks gyms in the right position the light looks good the reality is it's pretty easy to later when it's easier to just do the rack focus record while were set up and then later we can decide if we're going to use it how about a little laugh and again, jim, you having a good time? You actually mean you're upset about your rider that the beer's warm but other than that you're having a good time great okay yeah, I see you laughing a little jim great. All right still laughing, jim and sometimes it feels uncomfortable but you know, it looks good when we bring that life into your face here on beaver lake you've always dreamed about fishing this body of water this is, you know, people have been talking about beaver lake for years. Yeah, okay, good. So there we go, I think that's so that's a safe shot you feeling in there with it? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I think we just got a safe version of that shot, so we're locked off what we talked about the other day in the classroom. It would be really nice to do a slider shot of that same shot we'll put him, you know, medium to long lens on the camera. Probably more like in eighty five is my guest and we're going to set up this slider so that we're pushing right in to jim's face, you know, the one thing we didn't do is the head on just I think we should do that can be put to shame before we switch. We're actually going to try that, have you? Actually, you wanted us to get in even tighter, yeah, jim, why don't you take a step towards us? Yeah, right about there and I think we go lower, all right? So again, a lot of this is it's all about the nuance of these subtle adjustments and then getting the tripod just ever so slightly we're trying to be an eye level if we're too high that it makes jim look small and for too lo than jim loves too dominant so the realities for this shot and we drew it in the storyboard we really want the camera at eye level and that way he's not intimidating in the shot or he's not overbearing where we're not making him feel small so dane's pretty almost at eye level here in this shot and we actually have a beautiful back ground that reflective water with kind of that dark the dark water with the reflecting white clouds it looks like we're actually looks like we planned this looks like it was intentional. Okay that's good jim that looks great. I think you're gonna put your shades on that's the move here and action nice that's good let's try that again and then this time real serious this is the game face and okay game face looking right into the camera and shades on look right yet serious, perfect. And how about and then a nod of the head perfect okay, on this one let's actually try that again and you're gonna be smiling the whole time uh uh here you go, you're looking at me you're laughing a little bit and shades on and then you're going to give us the nod great okay, good. Okay, I'm feeling pretty good about that, have you, dana move on perfect, you know what you can see here is the way we're shooting dane is actually on that shot was looking through the back of the camera and sometimes well actually turn the monitor to one side or the other so that I can actually be looking at the monitor at the same time is shooting where if we have clients will actually send a signal to a larger monitor, which we call a client monitor and that way, while danes focused on doing the actual shooting, I'm focused on kind of the big picture we're getting what we want and if we had a client on location been the client can actually also see what we're shooting at the same time. So but again, you can see there's a lot of wires here and there's a lot of stuff that can go wrong when you start plugging this amount of cabling and using little devices. So it's there's a moment in time on every shoot where you have to decide okay, do we just get rid of all of this and focus on shooting because the instant you start running into problems, you can burn a lot of time doing that so now we're going to do our second shot this is all really this is an alternate shot cut okay, okay, so this is actually an alternate shot now that we're working on for the same shot right now we're locked off now we're going to go to the slider we're going to really try to slide into his face we're going to push in just to create a little visual diversity so, jane, what can I do to help do we want to use this rig? We're gonna change to the eighty five mil perfect. Let me move this out. You can see that the way we've set up this slider so that it's really stable is we have to manfro tripods that we're using you can sometimes cheated if you're not going to use the entire length of the track and you can actually do it with a single man further tripod but we're trying to do something that's you know, very very specific and we wanted to be a clean slide all the way if you hand me the eighty five I can uh train that out. Okay, perfect. Can I just need to lower these legs? I just need a hand okay, way to go I love you they don't have stuff we want you to believe that everything happens fast but that's just not true like everything takes time so in budgeting time you know one of the things that we talked about the other day is it's really common that you underestimate how long a process like setting up a slider takes and you can see there's four of us on the dock setting this up and it's still going to take a few minutes if I were doing this alone, you can easily say it's going to take four times the amount of time so that's as your budgeting your time is your calculating how you're going to do these shots you've really got to account for the time that it takes to make this a reality all right in there yeah and we're lucky right now we have this overcast sky and it's kind of nice life it's just nice soft white there the sun had come out just twenty minutes before we started this segment so we set up the six by six six six by six scrim just in the event we needed to create the illusion of having clouds but the beauty is because we have the clouds above our heads it's acting is big natural soft box or big natural scrim and softening the light like typically if we had full sun over jim's head right now we have a deep shadow over his eyes and would be quite challenging to do the shot would be bouncing light in were abusing reflectors but, you know, while we have this cloud cover it's making our job much, much easier, okay, so we're in an eighty five millimeter lens let's go off on this one. I think this is off, so we're in eighty five millimeter lens and we're still shooting at twenty four frames per second, so a twenty four frames per second remember the calculation is times too, so fiftieth of a second, so we're actually two point eight, which is very shallow depth of field at fiftieth of a second four hundred, and what dane is doing is actually marking the lens so that we can we know what our starting point in our stopping point is for racking focus. So as we move forward on the slider, we know what our start point is. We want to keep jim in focused the whole time, so he's going to slowly be adjusting the focus while the slider move is taking place. And so, depending on the lenses that you're using, it requires a fair amount of trial and error, but dane's dan usually nails it on the first shot. We're just gonna do a couple of little test shots and see if we can get in near this focus here, and hundred drops eyes just a little bit. Jim, can you open beer bottles? How do you usually open your beer bottles? This isn't a trick question. I'm just scared like, do you always have? Do you have a bottle opener on you? No pliers. Okay. Can you do any other techniques? Like, you know, bottle on model, okay, no tooth opening technique. And I did that a lot when I was younger, but, uh, dentist doesn't like it got it. Okay. And so this is just planning for the beer shots, accuse shot. And so sometimes when you're talking to the guy that you're going to be filming or photographing every now and again, I'm like, blown away, they say, oh, yeah, I always opened that you're under my arm or, you know, in my mouth. And so I think on the storyboard, I envision it's probably a bottle opener, but if you had some great technique, maybe on the fiberglass fish tail and pop it open. Thank you. Ready todo. So, jim, I think you're looking straight into the camera and really up. Game face. You're looking out at the lake. Actually, you intend your gaze and out there and you're thinking about this fishing session, you're about to d'oh, okay, and here we go. Great you're just a little bit of a smile good okay let's try that again and this time I think you're going to be smiling more like this all about having fun this is fishing's fun okay here we go you having a good time you're laughing nice you having a good time this is fun you can't believe that your agent allowed you to do this all right perfect let's try that again okay? You're just thinking to yourself you're just hoping that the beer is cold because it's going to taste better nice you having a good time even force a couple laughs out on this one this is hard this man is used to being a fisherman not a not a standup laugher okay here we go jim you're just just forced out a couple of real laughs there we go yeah really laugh and force one out good. Fantastic. Great okay let's try that same thing where it's just really serious I think keep your body where it is but you're going to turn your head just slightly out yep just like that thing that's perfect. Good yep you're just looking out good, you know, great you're trying to decide if you're going catch fish today or not and then maybe we have you're gonna you're looking out that direction and corey's going q you to look straight into camera okay and here we ggo and go and look to camera fantastic perfect I'm gonna wait until later in the shot from determined okay you're looking out there and then when you look at the camera you're going smile and look to camera that was great. That was a really nice shot you feel good about that dame okay, so you just saw guys we did it basically two different ways first we shot it locked off and then we went to the slider motion and I hope you're noticing we never shoot once I mean, every time we shoot it's two or three variations of the same scene and that way we're assuring ourselves that we're actually going to get something that's usable at the end of the day so I think we got that shot and see what's next okay, this is the shot you've been looking forward to gym it's gonna be standing there with the fish and and I think one of the things that's what? I just just back from the taxidermist would you? I mean, I know you probably never done this shot where you have your your hand in the fish's mouth would you actually have your fishing rod or not really you'd just be where is this such a suspension of disbelief? Well, if I was sitting right would have the ride but this I give you this more like you're getting out of the mode after fishing all day okay? Okay, you're right I say we hold it this way then we'll try that other variation holding an outfront more okay. Okay, perfect then we'll do it the way let's do the authentic style um jordan, I wonder if I could get you to help with the let's actually get them mono pod maybe or one of those light stands and will push his boat out into the background just so it looks like you know we get that nice cool backdrop okay, when I die I like yep that's perfect. We might have to dunk that a few times. Yeah let's see what our frame looks like? Yeah, I think so we're going to go to a wider lens. Guys just said that we can frame this little matter and open a beer on the back of the fish that would actually pretty fun. So we're going to a slightly wider lens you guys so that we can actually get the kayak behind behind jim if we have too many shots that out of context words just jim's face or just the fish in front of jim we need to anchor it back to the fact that this is actually a kayaking shoot. If we have too many shots of just jim without eric jackson's kayak we're going to get a call from our client complaining complaining so it's like we want both with a kayak and we want fishermen in the shot I know we're gonna have to drain some water out of my farm, but fiberglass fish makes it feel real. Yes, it does. It does. All right, let me see. I might be able to do it from this angle. He's got bigger for me. Uh, this is a drop in. We're going to try to we're trying to find some nd neutral density on the other two lenses were just try and match that clean that because you will see a bit of color shifting. You can keep your end similar throughout. Throughout all your lenses. You'll have to do lesson post for color. Okay, so now we've got nd where? Fifty millimeter one point four lens. And we're still shooting at twenty four frames per second. There's no reason at this point tax, you're going too slow motion. I mean, this is it's really going to be a quick bite? You're going to see jim. And this is, I think, fun at the end of the day when we show this shot it's, your laugh and your, you know, kind of laughing out loud. Okay. All right, so we're actually gonna all right going to maurine d so that we can keep the skin tones more similar. And for me I'm always sitting here thinking about okay so what happens after that what's our next shot some kind of of course focused on what we're doing now but also thinking about our next move because it's constantly you don't wantto have downtime so the next move just so it's in the back of my head is jim actually taking a drink of actual probably do it backwards we're going to shoot him opening the beer first and we'll probably do that two or three times and then we'll shoot the drinking the beer so I'm kind of always just mapping out what's the next shot wait do you have a little bit of the pro photo in the background there do we want to take the time for that out? Okay let's see jordan what if if you grab the pack all grab the head yeah that's fine that's totally out of it so we're trying to we're trying to be trying to plan ahead by just getting this still lights set up but of course sometimes like a little advance planning causes actually more cleanup work but we're at least set up we have our pro photo heads on the stands and then that's a simple adjustment to move them back out let's see how we looking on jordan I would say push the boat jordan maybe let's even push the boat maybe if we can get kind of on that you know are you on in the boat on that well, you know the frame's better over here doesn't end of jim's okay I think that's actually yeah right there jordan suite yeah okay I think right now jordan you're out of the shot wow, that looks like our storyboard if you're at home right now and you can see this on the web it literally looks like we're shooting our storyboard which is fantastic. Okay, now I stained it looks fantastic jim that looks good and I'm gonna coach you for a really laugh on this one and then you're having the time of your life I'm beaver lake I think it's maybe he's just bly maybe you khun grab the fish from jim and dunk it real quick and hand it to him just so we get that authenticity of the water dripping off and then maybe you coaching from here just sure looking this crowd okay, perfect so I don't know if you guys heard what danger said but we want to make sure his eye line is looking across the frame versus off the frame to that ways I'm talking to jim jim is actually going to be looking at me versus looking at the other side of the frame so that's what we're trying to accomplish here how's it going there but I thought we lost the fish man okay all right let's just try a dan you ready to roll okay jim you're looking at me you're showing the fish to the camera yeah laughing good nice big goldfish pretended savvy and then you're like that's a that's a nine pounder great let's let's try that again let's don't get in the water blood you can just sit right near that pro photo pack or jim's got it that's even better perfect okay actually that was pretty good let's try that again with like pull it outside the waters in the mouth and then you're just going one two three and then smile and like flip the water out and what kind of weight until just be a little careful of that pro photo pack way need to get better just focus but looks good in the background okay okay okay and here we go one two three lap and nice good okay laughing holding it now in front of you perfect good looking right at camera nice fantastic wait just a little slight tilt up okay let's do the same thing will dunk it in the water and then uh we'll have you kind of lifted up is there you just pulled it off your boat okay and okay let's focus and then we'll okay okay good your smile and your looking at is showing off the fish nice jim that's fantastic that I'm a nice, fun quick moment let's actually that's pretty good how about hold that so you're actually kissing it that way nice that's perfect okay I feel like I just I think we do one seventy two hundred just punching on theo get talked about this great great good we're going to change lenses were going to go to a wide a longer lens so we can actually get that was kind of a medium shot now we're going to go tight and we'll probably do both you holding the fish up smiling and then also given the fish kiss but it looks good this looks exactly like what we were trying to capture in terms of storyboards thank you. One of the things danes doing right now is because we're changing lenses he's actually keeping the lens on the camera until we're actually ready to do the lens swap what you don't want to do is open up your camera and then have all of the dust flying in on your sensor so we're gonna wait until the changes there we go so very only a short duration of time is the lens off of your camera just a much more efficient way tio to change lenses and keep your sensor clean all at once. All right so jordan is getting the boat back out positioned the kayak position behind jim nice background detail and you'll notice when we did that wide shot dane framed the lens framed the shot such that you don't actually see the weight on the dock that's holding the boat behind holding the boat onto the dock so it's like we're always paying attention to every detail you know where where is where is the wait? Where is the boat what's the background look like what are the angles of the boat going through the frame in the background so that's really important have consciously be paying attention to that stuff okay, so so I think what we do gym probably the first one just put it up, put it up in front of your face to smile and you know, lifted as high as you can and then we'll probably do that a few times and then we'll go to the kissing kissing the fish again yeah let's wait, let me see if wait until name is uh well yeah, I think you're kind of I wouldn't even don't get on this one I think we'll just just because focus is pretty critical so okay, I think here we go your smile and you're gonna bring the fish up even higher nice perfect a little lower their eager little lower a little lower perfect right there smile and good great. How about let's? Just focus on the fish, bring it up a little higher, jim right about there good, perfect, maybe hold it right there and let's pan left and right just till I share the fish good can nice nice nice nice when you have his eyes just over yeah jim bring down the fish a little bit let's dry should we take his glasses off just see eye contact let's actually lose your glasses just hang him down just we can see your eyes over that fish okay now that helps a lot that looks good but the fish up yeah that's a good that's a good height and you've got a big old smile you having a good time and that's at seventy millimeters right there you know I could punch in tighter no I go is that as loose as we can get on a I think it's slightly looser yeah just like that perfect okay, perfect okay jim you're smiling yeah hold hold that fish up there good and they were paying a little bit just kind of left right good nice good jim you're smiling good great you're holding up this big fish you just caught great. Fantastic good, good. Okay, now how about bringing the fish down to your waist big old smile on him have you hold it up the same way you're looking right at camera smiling okay, good let's try that again drop it down and you just start by looking up a camera then I would say bring the fish up and just bring it up in front of ok one two big old smile your laugh and bring the fish up good, great, nice okay, keep the fish up for a second and just don't drop it, okay? Drop the fish big smile, huge smile good. That was really good with the kayak back there. That was a great shot like that was probably the winning shot of that scenario. So I'm tempted to say that we got that cool, so we have a great we have a two shot option of him holding the fishies like holding it, smiling at camera kind of wide. Then we've punched into the tight shot of that same scenario. We got some camera movement, so we're really trying to just stack the shots. I mean, we just shot mohr of that scenario than we'd even anticipated in the storyboards. So at this point, we're going to try to move on and start shooting the opening the beer bottle detail, which I think we said was a sixty millimeter lens, sixty millimeter or fifty millimeter lens, and then from there we're going to go into actually taking the drink of beer before we switch into still mode, but this might be a good time to take any questions if there are any questions from either the audience here or if anyone on the web has questions about any thing that we're doing, I mean, whether it's, the technical or whether it's kind of the methodology to the way that I'm communicating with jim this is a really good opportunity as we're doing lens changes and trying to figure out our next shot we can I'm happy to feel those questions all right? We had a question come in from confucius jones cory who asked his corey have any tips for working with first time talent or actors who aren't so comfortable in front of the camera yeah that's that's a great that's a really good question you know the reality of the beauty of working with a guy like jim is he's on camera all the time he's a professional fisherman angle or andy's talent on television so it makes it nice because he knows oftentimes better than I do what we need to know what we're trying to accomplish on camera but the fact is I work with a lot of models or athletes or really people and the best advice that I can provide us communicate well it's really hard when you're behind the camera and you're trying to manipulate your aperture and your shutter speed to actually have an intelligent comment like it's hard to do two things at once it's hard to actually be technically manipulating your camera to shoot a great photograph were setting up to shoot a nice video sequence and communicating with your talent and so you can see that when jane and I are working together it's a really benefit because danes focused on he's actually working on the technical side and I'm working on communicating with jim, but if it's just me the way that I handled that is I would actually say to jim, hey, jim it's going to take me a couple of minutes to just figure out the technical of what I'm doing figure out the exposure I'm going to ignore you for a couple of minutes, but at least by saying that to jim, he understands that's what's going to happen and it's not an awkward silence instead it's ok and all actually say to someone, hey, jim, if you want to send text messages or read e mail for a couple of minutes, go for it, but can you just stay where you're standing and that allows me to mess around with the camera change? One's is figure out my exposure think about my shot, you know, oftentimes I'll tell the talent and realized a town the models of the people that I'm working with a I need a couple of minutes to just get my head back in the game or I need to really think about what I'm doing next and once they know that it's going to be quiet, then I can take out a pen and I can start making notes I can take a step back, get a breath of fresh air, take a drink of water and sort of regroup because it's very difficult when you're shooting sometimes you just get sort of sucked into the vortex of your really wrapped up in the moment and it's very difficult to stay focused on one capturing the shot that's at hand but then also moving on to creating more visual diversity so communication is key how do you, um keep the energy up? You know, we've been out here all day he's been doing a lot of back and forth like for your talent what's the way to just get him to refresh and kind of be excited and get enthusiastic about I think I think if I could hear the question correctly, it's, how do I keep the energy level high both for myself but also for the people that I'm photographing your filming? And I think you know, the first key to that equation is it helps if you're really excited about what you're doing like if you love what you're doing, it never feels like work it's fun I mean that's the first time I've spent time with jim, I'm really engaged with what he's doing last night we got to sit around and drink some beers and talk about fishing a little bit and so it's you know, part of it is I'm trying to capture something that's engaging and and when I get into it if my mind is engaged in the project it's a lot easier to be excited when it starts to feel like work. I'm not enjoying the process that's when it's a lot harder, I mean, with my wife and I just had a six, we have a six week old baby, and so getting real sleep helps is beneficial, so I'm feeling a little less arrested because of that. But the reality is, if it's in engaging topic, um, it's a lot easier to stay motivated. The other thing that all often times do as I like to work with the best light in the morning and the best light at the end of the day, will sometimes take a real break in the middle of the day. You get up at four in the morning, shoot the sun rising, were done by ten in the morning, and then take a few hours off midday and then go back into shooting late in the afternoon and again, it depends on the style of shooting that you're doing, but that works quite well, actually, and then people literally all sometimes take a nap midday. If you're doing this huge long days with sunrise and sunset shoots, don't take a couple more questions, wait doing sure, how about one more question? One more question, this is from two thumbs fresh productions in scotland, and they asked does cory love the good shots and past the notes to the editor or for speed does he skipped this yeah we don't it's pretty rare when we're crew this small minutes if it's just dane and I or dane and I and sean are dead and I'm blind it's pretty rare that will actually log in the field were very rarely taking notes um if we're doing heavy interview work we might actually take some notes about different things that the subject is saying but my the general method that the story in the standard formula is well actually just shoot when we're in the field and then later when we get back to the studio it just takes time we have to look at every clip on and then we start you know, basically build bins and the best content goes into the good bin and the rest of it doesn't make it into the timeline so we don't do it in the field just too time consuming are you taking mental notes? You know? The third take was no I mean, I'm definitely I'm noticing when the best shots air happening but certainly we shoot too much in a day to remember oh, that fourth take was great if we have problems I tend to remember that pretty well if wow we're starting to have an issue with you know the microphone will kind of make a mental note of that but no, we rarely are taking notes in the field I mean, the real key is I just want to make sure that we nailed it and you probably saw it with dane and I will say to one another we just got it was that good that was great and so often times editors will go to the last take because oftentimes that last take her second toe last take in a sequence we're in a siri's of shots, those air the best takes so that's how you save a lot of time editing don't start at the front, started the back and work your way through each scenario and it's the second to last my take is often times it's not the very last shot it's the second to last shot you really nail it and then you do this the last shot because you just want to make sure you have insurance and so it's one of those two shots usually is the best one if you're repeating the scenario over and over nice tip corey, that will save you some time ok, we're going to do a quick battery change or we could get think good once you take a look if you like okay, so while I was answering questions, dane was starting to frame up the shot and again we're doing this just so that the experience online isn't too boring sometimes doing camera work is like watching paint dry so we're trying to make this as efficient as possible I'm rocking that death a little hurt doc okay so this is really shallow depth of field and we're we're still at half nine here like weaken waken stop it down even more that's pretty sweet yeah that's I think that looks great let's try I mean why don't we do it with the with his p f d and focus or out of focus in the background and then maybe we'll do one where we just cheated and stick his hands out into space and it's just clean water in the background okay okay so focus is really critical here I mean it's very shallow depth of field so jim we're going to kind of try to keep that hand is stable as you can and then you'll just bring the bottle opener and pop it open and then bring it out of frame once the cat falls off so you'll clear the frame yeah you can just let it drop yeah or do whatever comes naturally is for us the cap okay you call it day in when you're ready okay and go for yeah e now cool let's cheat that let me see if I think we might have to open rio beers because it kind of does have a little pop that comes off let me see what that looks like it yeah let's do a fresh yeah that I get dibs on the next beer oh, I get the warm one oh yeah so so I jim I think everything about that was perfect justus soon as it's cleared just bring into your mouth and take a swig okay? You know, I think I do want to cheat this dance so it's clean so good and turn you turn your tourist there just a little like that okay? You want completely clean? No, I mean I think I just think you can't still be stacked against his body but I like that their separation between he and yeah like that yeah, I like that here maybe even bring them beer bottle little lower so we get against white go go to the top for a second oh yeah that's cool that's great. Okay, jim said that see that's a good spot alright, jimmy gotta nail this this bottle pop in here all right? Yeah and go for it every man's got a nail it can be a little slow this is this is why beer companies do so well every time you do a shot like this, you have to open another beer so we're actually burning through beer right now jim told us last night that he used to have a beer sponsor so we have the right guy he knows that open open a beer. So if I get it by the keg. Okay, well, opening kegs is a little bit different. You can move in just a little somewhere in there. I know what you want. That's getting anything. You like that? Perfect. I'll be a little less tilting that way. Okay. All right. Do it. And I said I was a good one. Okay, how many was that? Was that are in total beer supply on the duck. Okay, well, good day. Nailed it so way. Want to get a lead? Should we do a super tight, like, just let's put the fate cap back on, and we'll just do like you as close as we can. Okay? Perfect. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So this macro lens guys, it allows us to shoot one toe one so we can get really close. You know, if it's a penny, we can make the penny the actual size of a penny on the sensor. And so, you know, this beer cap it's, a nice little detail to be able to cut into. We did kind of blow is still pretty tight when you see the top third of the bottle in the first shot. And lake in the background and then this last shot it's literally the bottle cap is filling you know half of the frame and you just see the bottle opener so we're just as much as we can cut two we want multiple shots from each scene if at all possible to help build the story of you know how jackson kayak believes in kayaking, fishing and beer and we've got the right model for this okay? You got what you do it just naturally bring it up and take a bottle cap because when he moves that bottle out we're giving ourselves an edit point so as the editor you're gonna wait until the bottle clears the frame and it's on to the next shot coming in close and focuses supercritical when you're using a macro lens so it's you know takes a lot of time to get to the point where danes ready to roll so that's why it's kind of taking a little bit of time we're making certain it's in focus and then we're trying to make sure that the action that date that uh jim is doing is perfect so it's coordinated it's like a little dance here okay, that was great. Okay, so we're going through the shots here um the next thing that we want to do is jim's favorite shot cool and it's drinking beer that's that's uh that's perfect probably need all three of them I feel like it would be nice if we could get maybe we do a tight since we have the macro on where just hits his lips and it takes the kind of forty five degrees and then maybe we'll do a slightly wider shot if we can get the boat behind them when you go on location don't bring for floor spreaders all right? You put the give me a fake drink here I just want to see what we got cory you wanted forty five yeah, I think that's pretty nice yeah that's nice. I like that cool and jim will probably have you actually bring it up to your mouth and take a take a sip and I think yeah I think that's great nice clean background okay and let's do it on three gym one two and three that's great maybe let's even frame jim farther yeah, like that's we seymour bottle okay and jim let's go for it one two and three that just says angle in on beaver lake that's great. That looks like the one more time there we go, go for do it who that was the winner the model filled that gap in the white sky that was a super nice shot dang that that we just nailed jim how often you get paid to drink beer on camera pretty much every year lucky man, lucky man okay, so what do you think they maybe we do one kind of medium shot with the boat in the background and drinking the beer so maybe we could do with sixty thanks, jordan, so we're getting the shots sometimes it's a little meticulous that's sort of one after the other, but we're definitely getting some good stuff and the key is we're staying on point by actually looking at the shot list so and you guys can see that we're actually really I like to call it milking each of these scenarios, you know, that was a beautiful shot that dane just did with jim drinking the beer and it was something that we really hadn't budgeted to do it's not something we story boarded so it's really just taking advantage of the situation and trying teo trying to make the most of it? I mean, it's pretty rare that we're ahead of the clock, but I think so that we can move through a lot of content for creative live we're trying to stay ahead of the clock and show you as much variety is possible we're switching lens is here in a moment and think about whatever questions you have because we're going to have another switch that's going to take some time after we do this last video shot of the dead and we're going to switch modes and go into still photography shooting mode so we'll probably shoot for a few minutes, take a few questions and then go back into shooting mode but on a still camera jim if you don't mind I think I'm gonna drink a beer with you here cheers this actually it turns out the drinking beer sometimes makes your photography and filmmaking better I'm not saying that you have to the fact name there is a third beer if you need it makes fishing better makes photography and filmmaking better fishing him in boy maybe we need to bring in a beer pelican case on the next shoot let's see jordan let's push that out a little more the tale of the boat stern yeah, that is jordan maybe we'll try to get it to the to the other side actually so one so what just happened you guys is dane dane is looking through the camera and he saw that he just reframed the shot to see what it looked like if jim was right justified instead of left and the reflection in the water was super beautiful and the point is by actually just adjusting the camera you know looking left looking right tilting up, tilting down, panning right and left sometimes you discover a shot that you hadn't anticipated and in fact it's so infinitely better shot than what we had originally framed and so the idea of being don't get lazy and just settle on the original framing it's work the situation keep on trying to adjust your framing until you finally get the best framing that you can possibly get out of that situation and you can see it's taking some energy and then we're moving the mode it's going to burn more time but that's ok if it equates to a better shot that's what you want todo jim just give you the that leg's good nose in a little closer to the weight or bring the weight over towards you a bit more jordan just and then just maybe take six six six in just a year okay halfway back between what you just did that looks like that um jordan maybe kick the boat just a tiny bit likes turn back towards your a little bit you're nothing the other way I kind of more this way yeah yes the angle is towards that orange boat way out there that's that's right there is perfect. Okay it's maybe just freezing ah, that looks good nice gym so you just smile and go and take a drink your beer nice and how about your kind of looking out that way when you do it okay and go and take a drink your beer that's called living the dream maybe bloodshot shake the doc for one second and one more time and go for it that says america that looks good jim let's let's push the uh let's push the stern of the boat out a little further you're gonna need a fresh beer then yeah don't waste any of that okay man you're doing good okay here we go just like that you're looking looking across the lake and take a drink your beer that looks good jim back up a little bit take a quarter step backwards about just towards this way actually side little little more this way great right there and jordan can you pull the boat that's nice when he's against that black background they were blending into it it is so beautiful maybe a little farther jordan and push it out home home over this way up toward shore yep that's great. Okay soon as jordan pops out of there let's just do it and take a swing your mir that is beautiful let's do one more and go for it and action I think we got something there you want to do anything else then? Okay. Cool. So I think way shot the video content that was on our shot lister on our storyboards for this afternoon so now we're going to switch into still photography mode and the still storyboard from riches jim with his boat in the background very much like what we were just doing with the kayak and the drinking the beer but we're going to light it with the pro photos but while we're switching years into still photo mode, a couple of questions, all right, let's do that. Cory and I just want to give a shout out before we start asking questions to jim salmon, who is the star of the kayak fishing show. He has been amazing, so check him out online if you guys don't know about him already. All right, I have the first question. Cory is from ryan, j sheets, and ryan asked, what do you do about the reflection of the crew or the tent in the glasses? Are you doing that in post? Are you thinking about that as you guys are shooting? You know, we're not seeing a ton of reflection actually in his glasses, if it was, if it's really obvious, we'd probably lose his glasses. I mean, doing post production is very time consuming and could be incredibly expensive, you know, removing frame by frame, a reflection in glasses. So in general, my answer would be as if we were really having an issue with the reflection in jim's glasses, we would probably actually just lose the glasses and do all these shots without this is kind of a quick and dirty style of production just so that we can show you how we approach the situations. Andi, we didn't notice it now when we get into post production tomorrow, maybe we'll see the reflection and they'll have to eat my words, but it didn't seem to be an issue for us today, okay? Are you gonna let us know? Cory, if that happens, probably not. Okay, that's what I thought. All right, another question from johnny d if you can talk in address, background sounds and what you do for the background noise sure, yeah, that I'll tell you that can be a major headache when you're working on location. It turns out that at this location we're not recording sound, we don't care about the sound. This is all just b roll that we're going to lay over the top of a music track and then jim's voice over, so the reality is we're not worried about it today that's why we don't have microphones on the cameras or we don't have an audio engineer with us, but if we were trying to record sound the truth is that that's a real challenge on location. I mean, what you can't calculate for predict is what people are going to do be doing mowing their lawns, kids out, playing on the lake and so on location and sometimes there's not much you can do, you have to kind of hold on, wait or you have a couple of twenty dollar bills that are ready to, like, peel out and asked people to stop doing what they're doing. One of my favorite stories were one shooting in new york city and justice we started to do an interview was very early in the morning, we're indoors in a jackhammer fired up, and so we sent someone and was very important to interview, so we sent somebody outside with one hundred dollars, they went down to the guy that was operating the jack cameras and assistant and said, why don't you guys get yourself some coffee and breakfast? And then one hundred bucks? And sure enough, the jack camera disappeared for about an hour and we nailed the interview, but with that jackhammer going in the background, it would have been a major problem. The other solution, when you have noise that you can't control is if it makes sense show where that noise is coming from, so show the noise source. So, for example, if there's kids playing in the background, if we establish that there's kids visually, then you accept your brain that you're going to hear that sound of kids playing in the background now, that might not work for our storyboards for what we're trying to capture, but that's one of the techniques that you can use teo to do that awesome. So another good tip from cory take some benjamins with you on set to bribe people, right? Corinne? All right, next question we have here is from another question from confucius jones, who asked, have you ever wrapped a shoot and gone into edit, then realize you missed the shot you needed? And if so, how did you handle that? I'd be lying to you if I didn't say that happens a lot that we get into the edit, you realize, wow, we just didn't nail that shot or something was wrong with this shot and that's why I keep on saying overshoot right now, I mean, we're shooting mohr takes on these scenes than we were then we have to and we're trying to work them to a wide shot, a medium shot. We're trying to really massage each of these situations so that we get the most out of it, and the reason we're doing that is because then in the aftermath it gives us more to work with the blue one shot we can fill in with another shot, so but there are certain when you make certain technical errors in the field, there is no going back there's, no fixing it and that's just the nature of the beast you're trying to do a lot all at once. Things go wrong occasionally, mrs shot occasionally shot's out of focus in a worst case scenario, if you've really missed the shot that's important, then we end up and I knocked on what it doesn't happen often, but we end up going out on reshooting if at all possible, but certain shots are not possible to reshoot perfect. Well, this one, maybe help us a segway into shooting stills. Quite a few people have been talking about this, including r b photo, you know, blending stills and video. Do you do a still shot in a video segment for most setups? And I'm just wondering, cory, how much? How much of your productions are both stills and video? Are you getting maur into having things that one hundred percent video? Do you always bring stills in? I know we talked about this before, but I'm just kind of wondering what the just give us a refresher on. I would say that it's probably close to fifty fifty right now that almost half of the jobs that we're doing include both still in motion the way we set up this creative lie. Of course, I didn't want to try to capture still in motion of every scene, or we would have just spent too much time doing it, so we selected two scenes where would capture still in motion the first scene, of course, was the fish in the water and it was identical. We didn't light it in a unique way for still, our video is identical for both and that's very common were more and more at least half of our assignments. Half of the projects that I'll work on a client is asking for final delivery bubbles of still content and video content from the same shoot this last shot, the final still image. This is very different. We did do sort of a video portrait of jim while he was drinking a beer and holding the fish, but now we're going to go into shooting the still photograph of the same situation, but we're lighting it. We brought in to pro photo packs were using a medium schmira soft boxes are key, and then we're using just a reflector with another head as our rimmer back light and so two distinctly different looks. We never did this look for one of our video portrait, but I think if the question really in regards to is the future still in video, I think it absolutely is we feel this draw that if you're a client, you want mohr bang for your buck and if a crew or if you as an individual, can go into that situation and actually capture compelling still content and compelling video content then you're winning, you're ahead. I mean, you used to be two different crews that would arrive to do that. Now it could be the same person with the same tools. And, you know, I think that's part of our future in the storytelling world.