Leo Rules

Hello, my name is Leo and I am Director of Photography for this here RES. Life show. I have put off this, my first ever "blog," for quite some time, mainly because of the negative association I automatically make upon hearing the word "blog." But I was sitting in my room about a week ago, Rush's 2112 erupting out of my iHome, when i made the realization that I am connected to the "blog" in a very subtle and cerebral way. You see, the word "blog" is short for "weblog" which really should be "web log" meaning "a place where loser's egos inflate to the size of hot air balloons as they decide to air their dirty laundry for all the world to not read." But pretty much everyone knows the etymology by now. So I looked at the word "weblog" and noticed that if you added an "e" and dropped the "g," you would have "webelo" which happens to be the highest cub scout ranking I myself achieved as a youngin. With this knowledge, I decided that it would be okay for me to finally write a blog. Plus, Pat kept yelling at me to write one.

So as I said before, I am Director of Photography on this project, which means that I work with Pat to develop and execute the visual aspect of the show. In short, I gotta make sure it looks purty. Early on, I chatted with Pat about what he wants the show to look like, and from that we established a sort of definition of the visual style we want to achieve. Since this project is a single camera sitcom (like The Office or Scrubs), rather than the more conventional multicamera sitcom (like Frasier or Alf), we get to look at the piece almost as if it were an (unpretentious) short film, as every shot and all of the coverage needs to be carefully planned. It's more fun and more challenging this way.

Currently I am working with the rest of our balls-to-the-wall crew to make it all happen. This coming week is our last training session before we actually shoot, so we're just doing some last minute preparation, getting even more comfortable with all of the equipment and such. Some of said equipment, such as the camera and dolly, was new to everyone at the start of the semester, but now it's like second nature when we go to set up, which I think is pretty impressive. After all, we're using all this "professional-grade" stuff, like the Panasonic varicam HD camera, the Chapman super pee wee dolly, Kino-Flo and Arri lights, and GMC pickup trucks (get it? - "professional grade" - ooh, tough crowd). So what I'm trying to say is this: Dave (1st A.C.) and Oscar (operator) are camera wizards, Rich (key/dolly grip) is a key/dolly wizard, and Jac (gaffer) is a light wizard, or wizard of light since it sounds cooler. And then we've got Darcy as the best boy for grip and electric, and she's some sort of wizard with a electric grip or something. Then all the PA's who are going to help us out with this stuff, and I guess they'll be like wizard apprentices, or "mage-pages" if you want to get cute. And the rest of the people in our class are just badass too. I guess I'm not really any sort of mythic creature unfortunately.

Alright, I'm now realizing that I'm doing exactly what I hate most about blogs; rambling. It's probably cause I just downed my third iced coffee of the day. I should go back and edit some of this stuff, but I'm too lazy, so I'll continue later with another post or two. I should have more to say once we start shooting.

So I think I win the prize for longest entry yet. All I can say is you got what you asked for Pat harharhar.