Diane's Diary #20: So Much Gear!
Note: This is Excerpt #20 in Diane’s Diary. If you would like to read previous excerpts, you can find Diane’s Diary 1-19 here.
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In the last blog post, (Diane’s Diary #19) I shared that in preparing to film Kaitlyn's neurologist in October 2019, we had dressed the conference room to mimic his office. While we were dressing the conference room, Marcos, our cameraman, and John, our Production Assistant hauled up a giant cart and multiple roller bags filled with gear. I couldn’t believe how much was needed for our little shoot.
Lights and cameras and tripods and sound equipment and lenses and so much more.
(Note: I was so focused on the actual filming that day that I forgot to take pictures. This one is a stock photo and just a camera image and doesn't even come close to what that looked like. I'll try and remember next time!)
While the mini-documentaries have been professionally filmed, it has been more of a “run and gun” situation where we are just following the action and then filming what we can. So, we have only needed a camera or two, and a light here and there. Our setup time has been just a few minutes, so that was all I knew.
This was a whole new level of professional.
At 8:25 am we finally had the gear in the correct room, unpacked, cars parked in the lot, and our hospital contact said the doctor would be there at 8:30 and asked if we could start then.
I asked Marcos how much longer until he would be set up (expecting it would take another 10 minutes). He told me he needed another 30-40 minutes.
GULP.
“But I thought we would be ready by 8:30,” I said. I was concerned that we wouldn’t have enough time before the doctor had to go to his meeting.
Meanwhile, Marcos was working his tail off and Miss Inexperienced (that would be me) was having unrealistic expectations. He said he would do his best, but the unload took longer than we had planned, for a variety of reasons that were completely out of his control.
Time for me to chill out and go with the flow (and learn to pad the unloading and set up with more time next time!)
**NEW Mini-doc now live!**
If you haven’t yet had a chance to watch our latest 3-minute mini-documentary, here’s a link: