NAGOYA, JAPAN.... AGAIN

After we finished up the shoot in the states, Tony and I headed to Nagoya, Japan for a final week of shooting. Here are a few snapshots. This is my second time in Japan but i feel the first trip didn't even count since it was so short! I'm making the most of it this time and I am taking off own my own little trip once we are done! Nagoya, Castle.

Nagoya fruit stand.

fresh wasabi = awesomeness.... no serious, you havent had wasabi till you have had fresh wasabi.

#1 - Dave, the most entertaining sound guys / AC ever. #2 - I wish i ate octopus so I could have gone to this place. They had a rotating octopus character type thing outside... only in Japan.

"PLAY MONEY" USA PRODUCTION

I spent the last two weeks working with Anthony Gilmore shooting what is hopefully the last big portion of the feature doc Play Money. We shot in Portland, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, LA and Chicago. It was a nice little tour of the US but now we're off to Japan for the final week of shooting! Here are a few photos from the last two weeks! We started the shoot off by filming on Mt. Hood. One of our subjects is a amateur photographer and he took us on a quest to find good photos!

Somewhere in the woods of Washington State.

As we got higher up in the mountains we got into some serious snow, it got a little scary.

We ate a lot of Mexican food on the trip and this taco truck was by far the best!

Anthony after a fulfilling meal!

We drove from Portland to Santa Cruz... long but beautiful drive.

One of the many surprises along the way!

Shooting with my portable dolly. Capitola, CA.

Capitola at sunset. I shot this from a cafe while drinking some espresso, man sometimes I wonder why I live on the east coast!

Venice Beach, CA. Believe it or not, this was my first time in LA. No thanks!

I didn't take many photos in LA, but I had to take this one.

After a week and a half on the west coast, shooting in Chicago in February was painful! Shooting on the 7d in front of the Chicago Board of Trade.

LIFE AS DAD PRODUCTION PT. 2

I was originally hoping to shoot more stills during the production, but after my 24 hour delay in Detroit (read below!) the schedule got pretty tight. Here are a few stills that I was able to shoot.

"LIFE AS DAD" PRODUCTION

During the week of Thanksgiving I headed to Nagoya, Japan to work with director Tony Gilmore on a short documentary. The film, tentatively titled "Life As Dad," is about Craig Morrey, an American father stuck in an extremely difficult position. His son Spencer has an extreme case of CB, which requires 24 hour medical care. Due to a custody battle and international child abduction laws, Craig is stranded raising his disable son alone in a foreign country. We spent 4 days (it was suppose to be 5 but I got stuck in Detroit for 24 hours after missing my connecting flight by 2 minutes) following Craig and Spencer around the town of Okazaki and the city of Nagoya. We shot in various hospitals, on trains, in restaurants and at his home. The entire project was shot cinéma vérité style and will be told mostly through audio interviews.

We decided to shoot the project on the Canon 7d (and some with my Canon 5d mkII). We used a zoom H4 for sound and luckily had the privilege of a sound guy (thanks Dave!). We didn't record sound on every take, but when we did we employed the old school "double" system…. aka Camera speed, sound speed, action!… although since its a doc, we never really called action.

In order to keep all the material organized, we continuously dump files to a laptop, being careful to make sure the correct audio and video files went into the same folder. Our producer Tammy Chu handled all the media and did an amazing job in the field (She lives in Seoul so if you ever need a producer there, let me know!)

Gear wise we used the 7d with a number of lenses including the 17-35mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, 200 f2.8 and two image stabilizing lenses, the 17-55 IS f2.8 and the 70-200 IS f2.8. The IS really helped when it came to shooting handheld, especially due to the rolling shutter issues with the camera. I also used a Zacuto Z-Finder. I had mixed reactions about the viewfinder, but I did find it impossible to film outside in daylight without it.

Another piece of gear I had was a small "Suitcase" dolly that I built. Its the typical skater dolly design, the only real difference is I built it to fit perfectly into my suitcase. That way all we had to do was find some PVC pipes and we were good to go.

Over the course of 4 days we shot about 300gigs of raw footage, that when converted to ProRes comes close to 1TB of data! I brought a little bit of the footage home with me, I'm hoping to cut together a short montage when I have a second.

The shoot went about as smooth as possible. Whenever dealing with sensitive subjects, I always feel weird saying we had a "great shoot" but I think we were able to capture some really powerful moments that in the long run will hopefully help Craig and Spencer. Keep an eye out some updates and footage!

Craig and Spencer.

First day of shooting.

I have had to wear some funny press passes in the past, but nothing compared to this! Its a terrible picture of me, but I just had to share. Next to me was our local producer Satimo.

Right as I was shooting here, I actually had someone come over to read my sign and make sure I had permission, like they couldn't see it across the room.

Sunset outside the hospital.

"Downtown" Okazaki.

The crew, from left to right (Satomi, David, Tammy and Tony).

Okazaki Train Station

When i decided to sit on the floor to shoot of a moving train, I think people really started to wonder about me.

I love trains! and I love shooting trains!

Working the 7d and the 70-200 IS f2.8

Okazaki train station at night.

And here are just a few snap shoots of downtown Nagoya....

...and another one.

...and one last final shot.