Fortune Hunters Day 1

Alright I promised some photo action and words about the show, so here they are. I will likely spread this out over a couple of posts.
Fortune Hunters is the name of the show and you can see in a previous post what the story is about. This is really about the shooting experience.
Day 1
I was a bit anxious going into this as the equipment is always called by nick names that may or may not have gone out of my brain. And if you don’t know what you are getting it can be a bit embarrassing. So our first day of shooting was at the Kau Kau Barbeque in the international District. (PC Way to say China Town) This is a really cool little spot with BBQ ducks and chickens hanging in the window and supposedly the BBQ Pork is the best in the city. They also have this 35 year old fish in an aquarium that is the size of a small dog.

There was an Asian Themed street fair taking place that day and they wanted to capture the ambiance after we shot the interior of the Restaurant. (Picture courtesy Jpoon.photosite.com)
I show up at the appointed time, I took the bus in to avoid driving and parking, tool belt in hand and found the location. I was taken to the truck where I was introduced to the Best Boy, Norbert. We talked a bit, myself explaining that I had been in the business back in the 80s but it had been 15 years since I shot anything of consequence. He immediately warmed up and we discovered we had mutual friends and that he actually lived 5 blocks from my house. WE unloaded the truck of what we needed and moved carts down the alley to the location, the streets being closed for the fair. The shooting went great and it was a relatively short day that ended in beers at some little café. The camera crew had to go shoot the crowd stuff but we were able to wrap the truck and chill out. The day was hot.

A grip truck is a thing to behold. This image is taken from Day 4 in front of the Barca on Capitol hill. The trucks and equipment are designed to load and unload with relative ease. A good truck will allow an experienced grip to rig just about anything that the film might require. And the gear is an engineering marvel. And this one was well equipped. Our light were pretty simple, HMI for daylight 2 800 watt jokers, 2 400 watt Bug lights and 2 1200 pars for moonlight. Tungsten were Baby Babys, Tweenies and a baby Junior and a good set of Kinoflows which are these great Florescent lights that can fit on a C Stand and are color corrected for Day or Tungsten. We were instructed not to break into any of the expendables as that would cost the company money but Thom, the director, brought 2 boxes of various gels and paper. All in all that was a great start and I managed to get enough respect from those I was working with to be accepted as one of the crew albeit a bit rusty.
More to come