Nantucket

With Susan Bryant and our pared-down equipment load.

Yesterday's crazy last minute shoot on the island of Nantucket filming two remote interviews for PBS's FRONTLINE. There and back the same day!

There was no way we were going to be able to get my van on the ferry right before the July 4th holiday weekend, so I had to pare down what I would usually bring for such a shoot. I brought the minimum to make pretty pictures, deal with the numerous windows, AND fit it all in the cargo hatch of the passenger ferry.

I accounted it high time I get to sea…

I've been reading Moby Dick this summer. I keep encountering coincidences with it, like this trip to Nantucket where the Pequod sailed from at the beginning of the book. I brought my copy along, even though I knew there would be no time to read it (let alone eat lunch). So, in a way, the Pequod made it home, at least for a visit.

You can see FRONTLINE's updated film, Putin's Crisis, starting July 11th on your local PBS stations, and online.

Eruzione

Its 90 degrees + Fahrenheit and muggy outside, and you want me to film at an ice rink? Yes please!!

It was nice and cool in Larsen Skating Rink at Eruzione Center in Winthrop, MA.

Pro tip: The key to getting frozen tripod feet off of the ice without ripping the rubber off the bottoms is lots of hot water and a hammer.

Here I am on the ice with producer Jenni Cho and Mike Eruzione, the man who scored the game winning goal in the famous hockey game against the Russians in the 1980 Olympics known as "the miracle on ice."On the ice with Mike Eruzione, the man who scored the game winning goal in the famous hockey game against the Russians in the 1980 Olympics known as "the miracle on ice."

This was part of a spot promoting Winthrop, known to locals as Winthrop by the Sea. See the finished piece below.

Winthrop is a coastal town right next to Boston. With a rich history and beautiful coastline on a peninsula, the Town of Winthrop provides services to its residents and business owners via road maintenance, public safety services (Police & Fire), and other municipal services including Public Health, Inspectional Services, and staff support for volunteer committees. Winthrop has a small-town feel and tight-knit community with the convenience of being near a big city and Logan Airport. The Town has an “Open for Business” philosophy that has buy-in from the Council and the Town Staff. Winthrop is a great place to live and work and has something for everyone.

NOVA: Particles Unknown

Outnumbering atoms a billion to one, neutrinos are the universe’s most common yet most elusive and baffling particle. NOVA joins an international team of neutrino hunters as they try to capture an elusive fourth form of neutrino. Their results may force scientists to redraw their blueprint of the subatomic world, the Standard Model of physics, and change our understanding of how the universe works.

An episode of NOVA about neutrinos that I helped shoot in 2020 will finally start airing!

I shot the first and the last ones in the preview, plus a couple of others that I hope are in the show too.

When I was a kid my heroes were people like Carl Sagan, Jacques Cousteau, and whomever was on NOVA that week. When I didn't end up being a scientist and started working in television instead, I hoped that some day I could shoot for NOVA. Check!

Maybe the show will help to inspire another kid to try to become a scientist, and maybe they won't suck at calculus this time.

Watch the full episode here: NOVA: Particles Unknown

Obesity

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I just finished two more days of shooting for a documentary about the world's fattest man (the man in the middle used to weigh about 980 pounds).

I'm going to eat celery for the rest of the year now.  :O

It will be seen on the Reelz Channel in the US and I think Netflix.

Victor McElheny

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Shooting a very long (4 hour??), but fascinating interview with retired Boston Globe Science reporter, Victor McElheny for ITV and the Smithsonian Channel.

Corn Syrup Earth

A piece I did for Bell Media on corn syrup and its impact on our lives.

Interesting stuff!

Shooting for PBS's FRONTLINE

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Packing the Gear

I shot two interviews for PBS's FRONTLINE in July, 2014. The episode is called "Losing Iraq." It first aired on PBS on July 29th, 2014. It may re-air on a PBS station near you. You can also see it on the web here:

FRONTLINE: Losing Iraq

I have wanted to shoot for FRONTLINE for as long as I've been in this business, so it was a huge event for me!

My girlfriend and I were on vacation up in Quebec City when I got the call. We had a looooong talk, but basically it boiled down to "The Red Sox have asked me to pitch on Monday. We need to go home." We cut the vacation short so I could do the shoot. We did return to Canada later in the month for another 10 days to finish the vacation.

Sunday 7/6/2014 my sound tech Susan Bryant and I drove up to Deer Isle, Maine which is about a five hour drive, plus rest stops, lunch, and a visit to Radio Shack to get some more HDMI cables. We stayed at the Pilgrim's Inn where we would be shooting in the morning.

Monday morning, 7/7 we had to wait until 11 AM to start setting up because we were going to shoot in their dining room (formerly a barn I think). We didn't want the other Inn-mates around anyway. Susan convinced me to go for an hour walk first which was a great way to get psyched up.

The room had big windows on three sides, so I had to black those out with a bunch of black fabric (duvateen) I carry for that purpose.

They wanted a super blurry background, so I chose to at least have some different textures and shapes. The brick chimney, the wood stove, and the wood walls.

The interviewee was Thomas E. Ricks, veteran defense reporter:

The tights shots are from my C300, and the wide shots are from my 5D Mark iii, both with Canon L prime lenses with the irisis wide open. I rented a 17" Sony OLED so I could ride focus on both these cameras. The wide shot is generally used less often than the tight in the show. Mostly for a back up or cut away. The Sony 17" OLED monitor was soooooo pretty, I ended up buying one soon after.

When we were done, it took a while to FTP the audio files to the transcription service (tip: record MP3s as well as WAV files. MP3s take much lest time to FTP!). We returned to Boston around 2:AM. We got up at 6:00 AM (left around 6:45) to drive to Hyannis to catch the 9:00 ferry.

Even though we got there early, we were almost the last ones on the boat, but we made it! I was very relieved to finally be on board after dealing with the Boston traffic, etc. Once we were underway, I found a bench seat and slept on that for another hour or so.

When we got to the hotel / inn (White Elephant Village) where we were shooting, we found out that the first floor room we had originally reserved was right above the washing machines. That could have been very bad for audio! They gave us another suite on the second floor of a building with no elevator. Joy. After lugging lots of heavy gear up the stairs and sending the bell boy out to find us lunch, we got set up.

FRONTLINE uses a big key light to make the light on the subject soft, but they also want a very dark background.

Being on Nantucket, the room was all white so I had to set up some more black fabric (duvateen) to control the spill from the key light. Basically I turned it in to an enormous Chimera. I also hung a black sound blanket on a C-stand against the opposite wall to cut down on reflections (aka: negative fill).

The big white blob on the right is the key light i.e. a light being shot through a big piece of diffusion material).

Me in the corner with my cameras and monitors.

The interviewee was Peter Baker, of the New York Times:

After we were done and the producer had left, we quickly chucked every thing back in the truck and headed for the ferry home! I was really thrilled to be working on FRONTLINE!

Maybe I'll keep at this TV thing a little longer...

Victory fro-yo in the ferry parking lot! :)