Stand Up Gourmet – Quick Take

Cameras

I recently had the opportunity to shoot for a pretty cool project. My friend, Rich Cascio, contacted me about a project he was set to DP/Direct. The concept consisted of comedian Will Durst traveling around San Francisco sampling the best food, wine and beer this city has to offer. If you don’t know Will Durst, he’s a political satirist based out of San Francisco and has made his niche with his witty take on our political system.

The day was set to go to the Buena Vista; home of the original Irish Coffee, The Ferry Building; populated by numerous artisan and local food merchants, Perry’s; a SF staple for over 40 years and the Punchline Comedy Club. Will would interact with the proprietors for a short little vignette about the featured item of the establishment and a brief history and then finish at the Punchline with his seven minute set.

Rich wanted to spin two cameras and naturally the quick setups and confined locational aspect of the shoot HDSLR was the format of choice. We were armed with two Canon 7Ds mounted on shoulder rigs. I operated the A camera which was mainly tight on will on a longer lens. Brent Johnson, our B camera operator, was on a wider lens getting the two or three shot. Our sound engineer, Mike Ravetti, was equipped with my TASCAM DR-100 recorder and a Sennheiser wireless lav and cardioid mic. We lit all the interior shots with daylight spill from the windows and fill light was provided by a Litepanels MiniPlus flood. For our exteriors we used an ARRI tungsten kit gelled with CTB to add fill to the daylight. One thing that really shined on the shoot was the fader ND filer set from LCW. It’s really great to set your taking stop and just dial in your ND to get an even exposure. And at 160 ISO at a F5.6/8 split the Canon 7D looked amazing on a 40″ HDTV.

Since this was the pilot of the series our total running time was around 5 or 6 minutes. If the show is picked up we should be working with the 22 minute timeline. I look forward to sharing the final product with you all as soon as I’m cleared to do so. Enjoy the short quick take below. Cheers.

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Jared Abrams is a cinematographer based in Hollywood, California. After many years as a professional camera assistant he switched over to still photography. About two years ago a new Canon camera changed the way the world sees both motion and still photography. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.