The Planetary Producer: Part 2 - Europe

Do I dare ask permission to grab some very valuable library shots when the shoot is complete?

The Article - Back on the Road Again

This is part two of a little series we're doing for the benefit of those readers who anticipate assignments that go beyond the borders of the continental US. Part One - South America, (see issue _____), covered the challenges of filming in emerging Latino nations. This installment covers The Continent, which looks upon us, historically, as colonial upstarts. Socially speaking, we Americans are a little like emerging nation immigrants ourselves in Europe. Although we might be slinging the technically attractive Canon XL-1 digital camcorder with all the optional gadgets, we keep in mind that we'll be visiting London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Athens. What's an XL-1 compared to the Shakespeare, Pasteur, Breugel, VanGogh, Goethe and Aristotle? I figure we're best off acting very conservatively, speaking when spoken to and willing to acquiess to local authorities and customs within the limitations of budget and logistics.

The Lloyds example sets the pace. Access to this facility, one of the most secure and technically advanced in England. Getting admitted was a great honor. When the required shots are done, I ask if I can wander about and videotape at will. I'm given the nod. At each vantage point, I quietly ask those who will be in the shot if they mind me shooting some video for "commercial purposes." Everyone smiles, gives verbal permission on tape and lets me work. I leave Lloyds with stock clips worth thousands. And all for being conservative, thoughtful and polite.

The Diary - Day 3: Paris, France.

This is the day before Armistice Day in France, a national holiday and the Arc de Triomphe, one of our locations, is swarming with all the national media setting up satelite trucks and camera platforms for the arrival of Jaques Chirraq and Queen Elizabeth. Our aim is to set up an interview with a truck driver. The client wants the truck on the left, the driver in the center and the Arc on the right. It's nearing magic hour and I'm given 30 minutes to set up.

Whenever the national media are doing something, consider it a golden opportunity for peons of public relations. Our camera, the Canon XL-1, though small, looked sophisticated enough on its tripod to fit in with the BetaSP decks of Canal Plus. We chose a position about a hundred yards down the Champs Elysees, parked the truck in first lane and appropriated some of the crowd barriers that were stacked long the street. With the barriers, we made an off-camera corral for the camera, clients and interviewee that took yet another lane of traffic.

One of the best features of the XL-1 is its capability of interchangable lenses. We were equiped with the new 3 x 1 wide angle zoom, but the XL-1 can take any Canon EOS lens, widening the choice significantly if you already own an EOS system or have access to used EOS lenses.

Now, with the 3 x 1 lens, I had a great row of cars, truck and cycles, headlights reflecting beautifully on the cobblestones of the Champs, passing dramatically to camera right, beneath the Arc. I positioned the driver, hardwired him with a Tram pin mike and plugged the XLR connector into the XL-1's optional, ballanced audio input module. Bingo. Magic hour in Paris and the Arc gets blasted with a million watts of municipal lighting augmented by the national media's HMIs. We wrap after eight takes and the client is talking about enhancing dinner with a few bottles of Moet Chandon.

The Article - Boiling Down the Luggage

During the South American portion of this project I swore to boil down my travel gear down to two pieces of luggage and my laptop shoulder bag. Regretably, the luxurious Sampsonite Jumbo EZ Cart must be left behind. It is too large to fit into the trunks of the compact cars that our hosts use to take us around each location. An appropriate solution is the Switchback Plus bag from Eagle Creek (800-874-1048). This amazing bag conforms to FAA carry-on dimensions and features a zip-off backpack. The bag resembles the wheeled, long-handled bags that pilots and flight attendants use, but it also features a hidden pair of padded backpack straps and a fold-out apron to keep the dirt from the wheels from mussing your duds.

Carefully packed, the Switchback carried five changes of clothes and I was able to fit my ditty bag, eyewear, paperwork and laptop into the zip-off backpack. Eureka! I had managed to compress my luggage down to two bags. If only the XL-1's hard case was a few inches narrower, I could carry it onto every plane and avoid the baggage carousel completely.

The Diary - Day 5: Brussels

I have incredible weather luck when it comes to video production. In 20 years it has never rained, unintentionally, on an exterior scene when I'm ready to shoot. An example. I'm to film Wimbeldon great, Stan Smith at Hilton Head and a hurricane moves in the night before. The eyes of the hurricane passes over the location ten minutes before I'm ready to film Smith on the court. Smith, a religious man, credits the Almighty, and I agree. I have Almighty weather luck.

We are now three days into a European external location shoot where it has been raining for three weeks solid, and yet, every time I set up a shot, the rain stops and sometimes the sun shines. I decide to cover my bet by purchasing two lightweight solutions: a Brigg umbrella and a Barbour coat.

The Brigg ($69.00), available from TravelSmith (800-950-1600), is a British made, folding umbrella that opens to a full 36" from a compact 15" package and it's made to last. The Barbour (various prices around $350) is a legendary brand of waxed cotton, or "oilskin" overcoat, offered in various styles and lengths. Used by Royal Navy submariners in W.W. II, the Barbour combines warmth, water resistance and breathability. In warm weather, the waxed cotton is soft and flexible. When it rains, it sheds water like a duck. In cold, the wax hardens and no wind known to man can penetrate it. It also comes with lots of pockets that are big enough to store beta tapes, lenses and notebooks that otherwise get lost while frequently changing locations.

We're scheduled to shoot an interview in front of a well-known archetectural tourist attraction, associated with a recent worlds fair. It's raining like the Apocalypse, but it will take me awhile to set up the shot and I have faith in my weather luck. The interview subject requests the Brigg umbrella, so I use the Barbour coat, like a Dagguereotypical photographer, to cover the camera, tripod and me. I use a Sony radio mike to avoid messy cables in the mud and get everything set. The rain lets up for a few minutes. We get the shot. Should I consider my weather luck still 100%?

The Article - European Exteriors

Two suprise discoveries shooting in Europe.

One - our radio mikes, based on the UHF frequencies around 949 MHz get horrible, intermittent and frequent interferance everywhere but Athens, Greece. If you're going to use radio mikes in Europe, you'd better pack ones that operate VHF or plan to go hard-wired.

An excellent model, the Shure Diversity VHF (list $852) features two antennas and a technique of active duplex frequency transmission that uses two channels of communications and constantly switches to the clearest channel. We'll be using this mike on our next leg of the production in Asia.

Two - Archetects here maintain that they own the "public display" rights to their structures. Put plainly, this means that a building may have all the rights as an individual when being videotaped, including the necessities of a written release and the payment of royalties. Come to your own conclusions about how to achieve your production goals, but if you plan to include a modern, archetecturally unique structure in Europe, you may be subject to significant delays and expenses.

The Diary: Day 7 - Amsterdam

It's raining with no chance of a let-up. It looks like the bell at Lloyds of London is going to ring on my weather luck.

Our client wants to capture the canals of Amsterdam while doing an interview. The rain light creates an f-stop balance between the picturesque exteriors and the interior of our client's truck, where it's nice and dry. We decide to interview the driver of the truck while he drives a route through the most beautiful parts of Amsterdam. That's turning a lemon into lemonaide.

The Article - Exchange Rates

Today marks the 30th day of international video production for this project and I notice that with only one exception, Peru, every country we've visted is more expensive than the US. A coffee costs like $3.00 and it's not Starbucks. Hotel rooms are all over $200, the one in London being so small, I couldn't stick my tongue out without tasting the wall. Phoning back to the New York. office is like sipping water in the Sahara.

Going abroad for a client? Two tips: Have the client cover the hotel and meals directly. Usually, this is an opportunity for a decent mark-up and a modest 15% can mount up on a month
of Motel 6 siestas. But try and mark up a two-night hotel-meal-phone bill that broaches $900.
Give up the mark-up, simplify your bookkeeping and do the client a favor all at one time.

Second tip: Research your locations extensively by Internet to establish both the monetary exchange rate and the general cost of living. Hotel and restaurant prices can easily be found by chekcing the major chains and then comparing them with low cost pensions (which you won't use, but which establish a base price).

The Diary: Day 9 - Frankfurt

I love the German's sense of time. Arriving a day early, we are able to tour the city, find great locations and make notes as to when each location was prime for photography. Most European cities offer two sorts of videographic opportunities; old world and new world. In Frankfurt, for example, the old world is represented by the part of the town that was built by the Main River in the 1500's and a few remaining castle-like towers that were part of a Medieval ring wall.

The new part is represented by the modern skyline of buildings featuring prominent corporate empires like Deutchebank and Hoechst. Our client wants a combination of both worlds to underscore the theme of his production.

The Aritcle - Ask Questions

Curiosity is the greatest asset of the film maker. When you arrive at a likely location, start asking lots of questions. Strike up conversations. You're a fascinating person, a treat to meet in an otherwise boring day. Trade your interesting companionship for information.

Example: The 15th century town square of Frankfurt was a perfect location for an interview the next day. We noted when the schedules of noise elements - leaf blower guys, trolleys, etc. We noted the direction of the sun at various times of day. We checked with the police to see if we could shoot without permits. Then, we sat down and started to talk to people. It was our day off, after all. During the conversation, we learned that at noon the next day, two hundred technicians would be entering the square to set up the Christmas displays! Rework the schedule. Keep the Lloyd's bell silent.

The Diary: Day 11 - Athens

Our location is the site of the first Olympic Games in 1896. We are just ready to roll when the tour busses arrive. There is now way to get the shot but to wait, so we go to each tour coordinator and find out when the busses will leave. Patience. In twenty minutes there will be a half hour envelope of no busses. We order lunch early.

With the busses gone, the only people around are two postcard sellers who refuse to move out of our shot's background. Maybe they know this is the only angle, the only position that works, but I can't get the shot while they hang out. We ask them nice to move. They ignore us.

This is a "baksheesh" situation. Baksheesh means, "bribe" in Turkish. The client is so angry he won't pay the bribe and expects me to solve the problem cinematically. Our angle, compromising sun angle and background subject content, is critical. I try something that Dick Roberts, a Connecticut-based global documentarian suggested ages ago, "If they won't move, shoot 'em."

Going hand held, I start to film the two interlopers as if they had suddenly become the stars of the production. Close-ups, low angle shots, circumlocutions. Because we had three burley athletes assisting the crew, I had no fear that violence would be an option, and as Roberts had long ago predicted, "The buggers will usually get shy and move."

Well, the moved just a bit, but enough to frame my shot without them and we were done just before the next tour bus arrived. So far, the bell at Lloyds did not ring on my production,.

The Article - Changing Conditions

The weather changes to bright sun, very cool in the morning and hot during the day. Everyone on the shoot is stripping off layers of jackets and sweaters during the day, forgetting them on car fenders and tree limbs, necessitating a return to a previous setup.

For situations when you aren't sure weather it's going to be hot or cold, TravelSmith's Kenya convertible trousers (for men or women) are highly versatile pantwear and conversation starters to boot. These regular length trousers feature "zip-off" legs, converting the long trousers into a pair of shorts! These were especially usefull in Athens where the day started off at 52 degrees and went to 80.

Photographically, the equivalent to convertible trousers is a neutral density (or ND) filter. The Canon XL-1's 16x1 and 3x1 lenses feature such an ND filter as a simple switch. It allows the user to instantly adjust from a cloudy day or night photography to a bright sunny Athens noon.

If the camera is in one of the automatic modes, switching the ND filter on or off will cause the auto iris to reset the exposure, but if you are in one of the manual modes, the iris (and perhaps the white balance) must be reset by the operator.

In other cameras, the auto-iris mode rarely produces optimum results, with over and under exposures frequently produced. The XL-1 features a handy thumb-wheel that forces the camera to add or subtract fractions of f-stops from its own calculated result. In this way, the user can easily customize the auto iris results to her taste.

In Athens, for instance, a shot, featuring the white, marble Parthenon, overlooking the city, required careful adjustment. This can best be accomplished in manual mode by adjusting both the shutter angle and the f-stop, but we would recommend carrying a screw-on ½ ND filter with UV filtering in order to obtain the greatest latitude. At times, the built in choices of the XL-1 were narrowed down to just one combination of f-stop, gain, and shutter angle and that's just a few too short for me.

That wraps up our European leg of the production. Our next venue will be Asia with possible touch downs in India and Africa, but we're waiting for the client's plans to firm up. Until then, shoot straight and always fly with a loaded camera.