The Right Cinematographer

Boat Operations for National Tv Ad

Jamin Conn — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:10:44 +0000

In December 2012 I was a part of a set of commercial shoots in alaska in which we worked out of vans( discrete mobile ~ FBI style). I built wireless sdi links between vehicles so producers and the agency could follow along and see what was happening on a 17″ monitor while the director and camera operators traveled in the picture can with the talent. We also worked on a boat out of kodiak shooting some elements in a wheel house, on the back of the fishing boat, boat2boat establishing shots, shooting upwind with optical flats in the matte box for all the salty oceanspray, trash bags and airline clear carriage bags over the camera for relief from the waves coming over the sides of the boat(several operators got pretty wet once). We shot on the c300s. In years of camera Assisting, this was actually my first time using the camera since its come out. We were lucky enough to get a half prep day before hand to play with the cameras and learn what they were all about. It was a great chance to see what they could do. We shot on optimo DP zooms and a fugi zoom. Optimo 40-120, optimo 19-90, fugi zoom. All the glass really made that image really sing! The wireless units we used were the boxx systems. We had a good stack of dionic batteries(12), but with the use of dc on the 17″ monitors, we had a real situation on our hands.
Sea salt- with the ocean element, a. Real struggle we had to deal with(especially shooting upwind), we had to co to happy clean the optical flat(covered in sea water). A good wipe with pancro saturated cloth lifted the salt and allowed us to Osborn it in cloth or paper. A college, April, noted that the use of a trashed rag to get the bulk off was good before using the clean rag with the pancro. Reusing rag or paper proved to be foolish to me. I had to use fresh paper on every wipe to get a good wipe. In the end, flagging worked when we had the eyebrow up. When we shot upwind, it was accepted that drops formed right behind the fresh glass. There was no relief there.
On the boat, we didnt transmit. We chose to go hard wired to the monitors(director at camera, client in kitchen). We had a good challenge keeping our cables safe. The client kept closing the hatches and doors on our bnc cables.
The transmitter we used transmitted all formats. We chose sdi. We ran sdi from both cameras into a decimator (this was my first time using one) the decimator is a small box that scales and presents 4 inputs into 1 sdi & hdmi output. This was upstream of the monitors and transmitter and allowed the video village guys to see all angles on one monitor(very handy). The decimator is priced at $1400 currently. I’m impressed.

Alaska stock footage for reality

Jamin Conn — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:00:02 +0000

In December, I finalized a purchase of stock footage for a show I assisted cameras for this summer. The stock footage opened the show for the first 8;10 sec of the show. The footage was all shot in alaska and showcased Alaskas mountains, sunset, and vegetation. When we shot the show, they instructed us to shoot all grunge stock around the community. In the pilot cut, I noticed there was t any of the stock we shot. All the stock we used was mine and sold to production just before the airing of the show. FTP was used to deliver the footage to California after a wire transfer was complete and paperwork was submitted.

Cold weather day-playing for tidal show

Jamin Conn — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:45:38 +0000

A seasoned camera op and I went out one day this November to shoot for a cable show focused on tidal movement recently. We went out with my jib, an ex3 and a 5d. It was the first good snow of the year and we were interviewing specialists about the subject of tidal movement. I was a little more experienced in working with the inner workings of the ex camera where as our other camera op is a seasoned jib operator( one of the best we have here in alaska). We did a floating camera angle on the jib and an entry on the interview flying down from above. The other camera did a loose head feel (figure 8 dynamic framing). We interviewed two specialists and got out of there just as we started to loose the light. All day, throughout the interviews we had golden hour as Alaskas sun hamgs low on the horizon all winter long.
Slider- we had a cheep slider on set with a few c-stands. It was really nice for pickup shots and for some pretty shots of the bay. We also ran the 5d on the slider for the duration of the interview(alternate angle). Got some great stuff there.
Batteries are a real issue out there in the cold but that was nothing for us Alaskans. We work in that stuff all winter long.
Keep your batteries close- keep them inside your jackets. I have a fishing vest that I use to keep pouches of batteries under my jackets. When a battery gets cold, you can loose more than 50% of its charge. The best way to use a camera in the cold is to keep the battery warm as long as possible but keep the camera cold. When mobilizing, we often keep a window open or bag the cameras. A cold camera in a warm moist room will attract the moisture and cause condemnation on the cold camera. To counter this, put the camera in a bag and allow the bag to act as a vapor barrier for the duration of the acclimatizing period. Allowing the bag to have an atmosphere allows the camera to acclimatize slowly. Sucking the air out allows for a rapid change in temperature( less air insulation). This is mandatory for all acclimatizing.
We used production’s cards so there would be a clean split at the end of the day.

Search & Rescue helicopter cam op

Jamin Conn — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:30:44 +0000

This summer I spent a moth up in one of Alaskas largest rural communities manning a camera for a national tv show following our countries search and rescue helicopter crews on post on the north slope of alaska. It was an oportunity like I could never imagine. Being embedded with the coastguard, we were on call 24/7 for SAR CASES(search and rescue). When ever the helicopter went up with an extra seat, we were to be on it.
We were operating splintered from the main unit(kodiak) and were operating with a small crew of 2 and then 3 crew members. I went up as a sub replacement for the helicopter camera operator. I had two sone ex3 cameras and 2 5d mk2 cameras. Interviews were shot on a canon 100mm prime, all in-helicopter footage was shot on a 16-55mm on the 5d. Timelapses were shot on the ex3 and the 60d(ml). We also did some underwater footage on the 60d and gopro in waterproof bags.
Shooting underwater in the arctic was a fun new thing I hadn’t done before. I took the dry suite out in the arctic surf and floated around and used the underwater bag with the 60d to get some pretty great stuff. My one issue was that I didn’t have a good monitoring system. While submerging the camera, I diem have goggles to get my own eyes below the surface to monitor the feed presented on the monitor. Barrow hosts some pretty beautiful jellyfish and having access to them but unable to monitor the image while shooting was a real problem. Cups have got some great stuff if only I could see my feed. All in all, I’ll be getting one of those bags for future operation.

Alaskan Boxing Reality Show

Jamin Conn — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:55:46 +0000

This summer I got worked a week on a crew that came up from California with Anchorages Thursday night fights. I was one of two camera ACs, and I was working with 4 camera operators running some ex3 cameras. We had 12″ led monitors, a slider for b-roll, an audio op with gen-lock/tc. We often splintered off with a van for stock footage and occasionally all worked together at the fights. We went in and out of many locations as we were out in homes and businesses gathering footage of the boxers in their per-fit environments. We shot many scenes in homes all around the community with little time In between shoots. The card management was t too bad. We had charley sears back at the production office offloading footage daily. In the end, the ended up buying stock footage from me for establishing the show on the front end. It was a good show. Lots of fun. It airs on tru-tv under the name “alaska brawlers” in dec 2012.

Embedded with a Operas Alaskan Army Wives Reality show

Jamin Conn — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:15:06 +0000

This summer, I worked with a production company on a new tv show for the opera Winfrey network. I’ve since noticed the show is a big hit and has been advertised heavily on her network and even on the CNN channel. The show followed a group of women who live in alaska with husbands serving in the military in Afghanistan. We followed them through their day2day lives and captured the drama the ensued. The show was shot on tape- Panasonic hdx900(2/3″ sensor) with 2 cameras. We had two ACs to go along with the cameras. We occasionally ran more cameras(producer cam) alongside the main cameras. Many of our shoots happened in airports, public places, in homes, businesses and all over the place. The name of the game was mobility. We jumped in and out of vans on an hourly basis. As ACs we managed our batteries on a regular basis, ran kinoflow lights, rigged vehicles for gopro cameras and led light panels, shot car2car on many occasions. Timelapses were shot on a Panasonic ag-af100 (micro 4/3 sensor). The audio ops on the job gave us genlock and tc. For the producer cams, we would punch in and record the tc readout on the side of the production camera. For syncing the gopros, we could clap sync with audio on the front or back end of a car scene. The gopro rigging was exceptionally fun on this job. Lots of suction cups and arms all over the front of the vehicles. The show brought me in part way into the production and I finished out the show 2 months later.

Operation Taco drop alaska

Jamin Conn — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 22:25:47 +0000

This summer we did a fun shoot with tacobell I bethel alaska. We worked on the red epic camera and several dslr cameras(5d mk2) the job was a 2 day shoot in bethel alaska. We flew out there with a 1day prep and two days of shooting. The gig was a helicopter airlift of 10,000 tacos into bethel via a truck landing on a drop zone outside the local community center. We rigged the truck and the helicopter with gopros and did coverage of a fake takeoff and then also the landing. The gear came with complete setups for slot r cameras. The gopros had custom designed lenses – zoom, macro, wide and fixed long lenses. The gopros also came with a fancy tether/ trigger system that would allow them to all power off a ptap connection and be remotely triggered via a button on the cable. – really fancy. We didnt use it but it was really great to field test the gear on the prep day.
A position I played that was unique on that job – I was the most gopro savy assistant and ended up managing the gopros for the duration of the project. Unbeknownst to us, the gopros were already fitted with the rereleased protunes software. It was my first time using the software and now that software is standard on all gopros.
I’ve never been so sick of eating tacos before. Great gig/ had fun

Sleeping Lady

Jamin Conn — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:22:24 +0000

Mount Susitna sunset timelapse

Jib Operation for Reality TV show Hero Shots

Jamin Conn — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:16:57 +0000

Jan 7th, 2012, operated JimmiJib – logan, Kevin & Jamin.

-8F

Palmer

Stay tuned for in-depth samples. (due to the nature of the project, we can’t go sharing them on our own)

ABC Disney On-Site Audio Operator

Jamin Conn — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:03:13 +0000

Working with local freelancers, we produced this for ABC NewYork on site at the scene of the crime in anchorage.

Audio Package – Field Mixer / Boom Shotgun / Lectrosonic Lav.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/06/samantha-koenig-missing-a_n_1258565.html#s668054&title=Samantha_Koenig_Twitter