“Tell us what you need. When you need it. And we'll take care of the rest.”
In this case, “What” our client (Emergent Order - a marketing and production company in Austin, TX) needed was not an unusual request. Providing them with a cinematographer, a Sony PXW FS7 4K camera package, a sound recordist, and an ENG audio package would not be a problem. The challenge was the “When”.
The phone call came in at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Emergent Order had been filming in Wisconsin for documentary on farm animals. That morning the producer uncovered a new story line she wanted to follow, but her film crew had already left for their next location in another state.
Their question was: Could we provide a crew with the specified camera package for two days of filming at the Wisconsin State Fair beginning that Sunday at 7:00 AM?. Our answer was: “We’ll try”.
38 hours wasn’t a lot of time to pull this off – especially on a Friday evening. Our only option would be to locate an experienced Wisconsin DP who not only owned a FS7, but who was available on such short notice. We reached Milwaukee DP Jon Kline late Friday evening and he was available. Even later that evening we got lucky a second time. One of our go-to Wisconsin sound recordists – Thomas Beach – was also available and willing to get up very early on Sunday morning.
We got lucky (as did Emergent Order). Thanks to the great relationships we’ve developed with crew people in the Midwest, we were able to “take care of the rest” - even with only 38 hrs. notice.
