How do they do it?
Last weekend, I caught the movie
Hancock on FX, and it was a special showing behind the scenes of how they made
the movie. This is an awesome 2 min clip of how the train scene was made in Hancock. I am extremely intrigued by specials like
these, because I’m constantly wondering how they do some of the effects. They actually animate the whole thing to
visualize the scenes before they even shoot any video. Considering they have a huge team of
animators, I still can’t imagine the time it takes to do that. Check out this 13 second animation of Three Point Oh’s logo, and it took me around 3 days to finish. Even though Hollywood takes it to the extreme
level with production value, such as lights that could light up a small town or
a 50 yard dolly camera that costs twice as much as my car, I have seen several of
these aspects on the job.
This past January, when the Republican Party came through
town, I was a part of several Fox video shoots with Gingrich, Perry, and Romney. Only a handful of people realize how much
really goes into as short as a ten minute satellite feed. We’ve arrived as early as 4 o’clock in the
morning for a ten minute live feed at 8 o’clock. What could we possibly do for four
hours? Well obviously we have to unload
all the gear, which depending on the walk can be a good 45 min operation. Unless specifically told what the set is
(which is a rare thing), we have to build it from scratch in whatever room we
are assigned. This is where the fun part
really begins. After setting up the
background, getting power to the lights, positioning the camera, running audio
cables, and touching base with the satellite truck another hour and a half has
past. In a perfect world, all we have to
do is wait for our talent to arrive.
This of course is never the case.
Your shot can never be perfect (so I’ve found). Tweaking….and tweaking….and tweaking, then
someone comes in and really wants a banner hung in the background, or the
window behind him, or the camera on the other side. Now it’s coming down to the wire. After the talent gets there, it’s the easy
part. You can stop making changes, frame
the shot, and let Fox News do the rest.
We make sure to TiVo the show, so we can see our work in the
end result!
As promised, you can see some photos from recent video
shoots to Jack back in the 90’s at our facebook page or the Three Point Oh Website.
Next week I'll show you a home hospice website I've been working on!
