LUND--Movie making is a complex business in the best of circumstances. This statement would seem laughably self-evident, but the more one becomes involved in this insane business the more evident the complexity of the undertaking becomes. Before I left Wooster for Sweden I helped my friends Adam and Rhio Ginther and their fledging production company Nightmare Pictures film a zombie movie (soon to be released). Even on the set of The Rising Dead, as close to a no-budget movie as is possible (one's time, gasoline and tape still cost money even if the actors are unpaid and the equipment borrowed) I became thankful that, at least for now, I am not involved in making fiction cinema. I may have to crawl through swamps, interview people in other languages, carry thousands of dollars of equipment in unstable, crime-ridden places and remember to take my malaria pills but at least I don't have to deal with actors.
On the other hand, not dealing with actors or any other willing hands means I have to do the whole thing pretty much by myself and that is a mixed bag. The more you do on your own the more there is to worry about, the more there is to forget or to simply be unable to accomplish. I simply cannot film, take stills and, for example, hold a microphone boom alone so, often, I have to keep the microphone on the camera and not as close as I would like to the interviewee. Of course to say I made the last film all on my own is, in point of fact, absurd. SARA funded it, John Gilberg made my plane reservations, Dr. Jake Kuttothara drove me to the airport, Mike Butcher helped me with technical equipment issues and picked me up at the airport, Leonidas Maravilla drove me all over El Salvador and carried my still-camera bag when I was shooting video and my video bag when I shot stills and on and on. In the editing process Jesse Ewing designed the DVD cover and Jeff Pasek composed the instrumental soundtrack. Still, if I hadn't had Jesse I would have made the cover myself and I at least tried my hand for a while attempting to compose music in GarageBand. If you have a DVD of Robert Rodriguez's "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" watch the extra short film, "Ten Minute Film School." Rodriguez in no way makes movies all by himself. On the other hand he is now shooting digitally and personally does a lot of the editing, music and filming, involved in every step and thus in control of every step.
So this is my situation, in the end it is me that is responsible in every way for the finished outcome of my documentaries. I get all the credit (except where other credit is due and duly given) and I take all the blame as well if there is any to be apportioned. I would like, very much in the future to have, sometimes anyway, another person to work with. Someone to talk out problems and simply to talk to at the end of the day. In El Salvador I ate a lot of lonely meals with nothing but my notebook to keep me company or to hash out the day's and the next day's shooting. It would be a boon to have someone to help carry the equipment, have a second camera running and a second pair of eyes. But that is not for now. Which brings me to my dilemma. Those who know me know I spend a lot of time obsessing about packing. Frankly I think it is a form of personal therapy, a meditation exercise with practical applications. I envision my backpack, my camera bags, the contents of my pockets both before the plane flight and afterwards. I think of what I will need in, one hopes, any situation I will find myself, what I can and cannot manage to carry and how it will all work together. I have been trying to figure out, then, what cameras I will take.
Before I was doing much video this was still an issue but a much smaller one. In my old Domke bag I am able to fit my Leica M6 with its 50mm Summicron, 15mm Voigtlander and 135mm Hector, my Nikon D1x with a 17-35mm 2.8 zoom and a Tamron 28-300 zoom (that, although has taken some excellent pictures I am not happy with) a big Metz flash and a 55mm MicroNikkor manual focus lens. This bag, however, is quite heavy with all of that but not unmanageable. On the El Salvador project I decided I could not take the big Nikon, however; not with the addition of the video camera, a shoulder mounted Panasonic DVC 60 with a Røde NTG-2 shotgun mike on top. Instead I took the M6 with the Summicron and a Leica Mda with the Heliar SuperWide as well as an old Canon Powershot digital pocket camera and a Sony palmcorder. This worked quite well all in all. The advantage I had there, however, was that the year before I had already taken numerous color stills with the Nikon D1x. I already had several hundred digital stills in the bag.
With this upcoming Ukraine film I have none. I have decided, however, to take only the Leica M6 with its three lenses. In the main, I do my best work with it and I need to concentrate on filming more than stills. I need, because I am doing this essentially by myself, to simplify the things I carry. I think that trying to manage a rangefinder loaded with black and white film, a digital SLR set to color and a full-size video camera would not only be to darn heavy to carry but would also, ultimately, detract from the finished project by giving me too many options, too many things to use, too many modes of shooting to manage and switch between.
Of course I could be wrong and there will be that once-in-a-lifetime shot that only the Nikon could have taken. But I think I will take that risk and think that that wasn't so great a shot anyway and instead I got those once-in-a-lifetime shots only possible with a Leica and a video camera.
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5 comments:
I think we do our best work when we're aware of a set of limitations, or constraints. It encourages creativity and innovation. Paring down what you're carrying is a good decision.
I still think you should take the flash for your Leica though. Or you will all of a sudden find yourself in the dark with no camera that works.
I think it's great that you finally acknowledge, in writing, that you obsess about packing. For years, you would go into a semi-coma looking at your bags prior to leaving on a new trip (or just looking at that one bag that was always packed just in case).
Think of it not as a semi-coma but as a period of reflection and meditiation, rather like the squires of old who would pray over their swords all night before being knighted or going into battle!
And in the end it was still too much... I am having something of an equipment crisis. Film developing cost me almost $300 (for 24 rolls and no prints, just a CD, Swedish prices are ridiculous). And, although I think it takes very good video and at times the shoulder mount is nice, in the end the DVC60 is too big, the bag too heavy, and the size of it, especially with the shotgun mike mounted, is intrusive (especially for a guy used to often carrying only a black Leica). I think the best solution, with my current research, would be a Leica M8 and a Panasonic DVC30 with a Sennheiser MK400 shotfun mike and perhaps a small pocket digital like the Ricoh GRD... All told, approximately $8,000, not including a 35mm lens for the Leica to mimic the current 50mm...
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