I worked on a MOVIE as a Camera Operator | VLOG

Cut, cut, cut. All right, everybody. That's a wrap. Awesome. [applause] Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. So, this is crazy. [music] I'm up here. They brought me here as a camera operator. I'm going to operate a camera. Just think about this for a second. All the way from Istanbul, Turkey to here. And now, I'm working actually they're going to take everything. I'm just going to be holding the [music] camera, I believe. I'm not doing much, but this is insane. I'm at a movie set. I guess Hollywood finally discovered me. So, let's go and see what is happening. This video is sponsored by Higgs Field. So, Lucas Colombo, the founder of Condor Blue, asked me if I wanted to and I and I said yes before he can finish his sentence. And it turns out he was asking me if I wanted to be an A cam operator in an independent feature film. By the way, if you like to check out the movie, the link's in the description box below. So, I said, "Lucas, say less. Just tell me where and when." So, I showed up to the set with my morning hair because for once, I get to be behind the camera. And I was going to be the A cam operator, which means I was going to be operating the main camera. But when I met the other guest, This is Britney. How you doing? We're going to be operating cameras together. Great apps. And saw her work, I switched to the B cam because she's fantastic at what she does. And as I was sitting on my Apple box to operate my B camera, they told me the B camera is also called the camera. Not my words. These are the things I learned from this experience. And up until now, I've been on many sets to work or to be in it as a talent, but I don't know all the common terminology by heart. So, in this scenario, everyone was really kind and really nice. And when I asked stuff, they were really patient with me to teach me what the common terminology is. And I never operated a camera like this before, but they didn't look down on me. They didn't make me feel bad. They weren't like, "Oh, look, another YouTuber here trying to get some content." So, it was really nice and I feel like I caught up really fast. A cam set. B cam set. All right, and action. So, after I got there before the shooting started, they were going to rehearse the scene because this was like a really tense scene. And for the rehearsal, they only allowed couple of people in the set. And I was one of them. And this was the first time where I get to be this close to the actors. And witnessing that energy is really interesting experience. And after the rehearsal, I started getting familiar with the camera I was going to operate. And it seemed like the supporting sponsors like Sony, B&H, and Condor Blue put together these cameras. The camera body was in Sony FX6. I have Sony FX3 here that I constantly use, so it's the bigger version of this. And it was so much fun to operate all those buttons right under your fingers and the internal ND. By the way, there's a new firmware release for FX6. It is the version six and it brings the big six to the home screen. So, FX6 version six, big six. And then B&H Photo Video, which I can't say enough good things about them, sponsored or not, they're really good. This is This is me talking. And they provided the DZO lenses and the entire camera was rigged up with Condor Blue camera gear. So, all these three brands, the supporting sponsors, I personally love and use them all the time, which makes my job in this video very easy. Go check them out. They're They're really good. So, on top of that camera, we had the headsets to communicate with each other and that came in very handy because while you're doing something, they can direct you to do something else or they can ask you to do something even while we're filming. And the reason why I'm saying that is because you can do millions of things with the camera as you're a camera operator. All right, this is going great. I'm getting more and more used to everything. And I understand the terminology even more now, so I can follow what the director wants. It's really It's really interesting to be this close to the action. It's all happening right in front of you. You look up, it's like really happening. It's crazy. And this contraption, oh my gosh, look at that. Yeah, this is a lot of fun. I need to do more. Yeah, another take. Let's go. But I knew I wasn't there to be myself, I was there to be part of this filming crew. So, I followed the directions. But at the same time, a part of me was like, "Hey, I'm here. Do you want me to add a little bit of firework flavor on top of this, little bit of dolly zoom and stuff like that that I love doing?" But I didn't leave that to chance and I just did what I'm told because everything was working in harmony and this isn't their first rodeo, it's my first rodeo. So, I cannot be the one that makes a mistake and makes everyone stop, reset, and reshoot a scene. I knew I had to respect everyone's time and effort that they were putting into this project. We're coming towards the end of the day and it's actually the final day of this uh movie. So, I'm really excited. I I think I'm going to hear the word martini, which is a fantastic thing to hear on a See how I acclimated? I have my headset on my shoulder now because that's how cool I am in this environment. And they're setting up. We're going to do the final couple of shots. And that's it. This has been incredible. Such a fun event and it's addicting, so what are we doing next? That's the question. That is the question. So, for the first couple of shots, I was really nervous and I felt like I was really stiff. However, after a couple of shots, I started getting used to it. I got used to the tripod, which is a thing, and I got used to the delay in the monitor I was staring at. So, I started following what's happening with my peripheral vision, but I was also checking out what's happening in the monitor. And interestingly, when you shoot the same scene couple of times or or when you're shooting the same actor couple of times, you start to pick up how they do things. Almost like you start following their rhythm and how they move. So, I started catching up with how the person I'm filming first looks up with their eyes and then lifts their head up, so I was able to adjust the space between the top of the frame and the head according to that. And even the way they sit down, you kind of start understanding the movement they're going to do and then how they're going to sit down, especially for that scene. So, on the second one, second take or third take, I was able to fully follow with the camera how they were sitting down. And the more you get used to this, the more you understand this game, the more you know the actor, it almost becomes like you start moving there before even they make their move. That's why I guess it's the best to know the script, it's best to know what is going to happen, obviously. But as this was happening, I was thinking this is going to be really chaotic because there's so many people, there's so many moving parts. The headset is there, it's my second language. They're giving me directions, they're giving other people directions, which makes you think, "Are they talking to me or are they talking to the other camera operator? What is happening?" No. It was not chaotic at all. It was almost like we were all in this one moment and we were moving as a one unit. There were couple of moments where I looked up and had an eye contact with someone else from the crew and we communicated what was happening. It was really nice. This is such a fantastic, positive environment here, which I enjoyed a lot. I knew it was going to be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be this good. We sat together, had, you know, lunch break, everyone. Everyone. No one was like, you know, in their own place being like better than us. No. Everyone was together. That was really nice. I enjoyed this a lot. And for the final shot, there was There was this final shot that they just didn't like the lighting and it made sense the lighting wasn't really that good. So, they started changing the lights, moving things around, and the time was running out. We had to leave the place. But they somehow made it work. They didn't give up on it. [snorts] And then we had the light that looked really good and then we got the final shot. And then we I was hoping to hear the word martini. All right, settle down, everybody. Let's go for one. It's martini, everybody. Woohoo! Sound. Sound speed. Martini. Sound speed. Sound speed. The sound speed. Sound speed. 10 Hotel, take one, AB mark. Rolling, rolling, quiet on set. All right, everybody, that's a wrap. Let's give it up for these amazing tennis players. Woo! [cheering and applause] And if you haven't had enough of me [applause] yet, let's give it up FOR OUR MAN, ADAM. [cheering] LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR OUR MAN, ADAM. THAT WAS GREAT. I HEARD the [music] martini, now I can go home. And of course, during all of this, I got to chat with Josh Long and he told me about how he made the storyboards using Hix Field. All right, right now I'm with Josh Long and then we're going to talk about Hix Field, right? That he uses for pre-production. So, what is this? What is going on? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, we're here working on on the set of Father Son Time, where this is our last day of shooting. We're finishing strong. I'm super excited about everything's been going. But, um one of the things that's been special about this is how we sort of did our pre-production and our pre-visual pre-visualization stuff. Uh in the past, when I've done shoots, it's been I'm hand drawing storyboards and they look like, you know, stick figures cuz I can't draw. That's why we make movies, I can't draw. Um but, uh using the Hix Field Soul Cinema stuff, we were able to generate images that are very close to what our final shots are looking like. So, I can show you some of the ones I've got. Here's some of the um the uh images that we generated for our storyboards, kind of just based on what we had already. One of the cool things you can see also is we were actually able to take actual physical photos of the space when we got in before we were our shooting days. So, you can see some of the details that are actually in the room. The disco ball that's there made it through. [laughter] Yeah. Some other things like that. So, um uh this was one using the actual space, where we have a a model sitting a little bit further away. That's going to be one of our later shots. But, then I was able to just out of nothing generate this one, which is kind of close to one of the singles that we're uh we're getting here. Can you give me a closer one on that one? Yeah, you can see there. So, that's again, sort of an approximation. Mhm. Looks a lot better than anything I would have been able to draw myself. A lot easier to communicate to the camera team exactly what it is that we're trying to get and to um uh this also has the ability to kind of uh dial in you know, the lens that you're going to be using, not only the focal length, but the type of lens, spherical, anamorphic, whatever. It is able to work within those parameters and and create those things. So, that's been uh something that we used for most of our scenes for this movie. It was really cool. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. So, after all this, there are two things I can't wait to see. One, the finished version of this movie, of course, and two, my name in IMDb. Well, that's it. Thank you so much for watching this video and I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know what you think about this experience in the comment section below. Are you Do you work on movie sets? Do you do similar stuff like this? And what is your experience? Please let me know in the comment section below. How do you think I did? And until I see you next time, take really good care of yourselves and always check out in.