Day Five

Life lessons from a former Punk rocker and a man with a glass eye.


Seeing as how it was my last day I was less than enthused to go. I have loved the work I do there, and especially loved the experience earned. It was a slow day. Joe told me they normally get all kinds of crazy calls on Fridays. They get calls from people who have no clue what they want. People just walk into the studios say "I have a movie I wanna shoot." and then ask for a camera. Joe still has to entertain these bizarre people, but they know these guys won't be able to pay. It's a kind of rat race for the camera department.

Camera Rig: Step 1: The Head

Step 2: Camera  Body

That didn't happen. It felt very relaxed here. We nonchalantly chatted about my weekend plans, Joe's daughter, and the pending apocalypse. We didn't even have much camera equipment to rig up. We'd gone through most of it during the week. We only got two or three calls at max which took a matter of minutes to clear up. I could tell nothing was going because Joe was making small talk to a customer for thirty minutes before handling their request.

Step 3: Rods

When Ryan offered to take some equipment to the Panavision studios I jumped at the chance to go with. We hopped in his car and took off. The ride was 15 minutes long, and we listened to Punk rock all the way there. What started as a conversation about punk rock and music in general turned to a discussion with Ryan about his history. Suffice to say I don't think it's appropriate for me to share that information over the internet. I respect his privacy. But he was very interesting to hear from. He was a punk rocker in high school. He played in some bands. He studied music at UNT for awhile before getting involved. I certainly learned a lot from hearing his story. AND! For the record: He may have been very immature in high school, but he's certainly matured. I'd vouch for Ryan so no worries. I just got some good life lessons from him on our car ride to Panavision.

Step 4: Lens + Accessories

The Panavision rental house was larger than MPS. They're an international company so that doesn't surprise me.The people over there were nice too. Everyone who works at camera rental houses seem to be pretty nice people. I found it very funny that Panavision has it's own kind of gift shop. It's interesting to note that there's such a large subculture of camera operators, owners, technicians, and assistants that camera rental houses have their own gift shops.

MPS' secret weapon: Mike

We returned to MPS. Joe and I chatted more as we worked on very small things. Ryan, Joe, and I worked on a remote zoom controller because Ryan was wondering if putting the motor in the opposite direction would reverse the rotation of the motor. Small stuff. Enter Mike. Mike is a genius in the camera repair department, and MPS' secret weapon when it comes to in house camera repairs and specializations. Mike used to work at Panavision (?) in a very, very distant place in Texas. That's where he gets his thick accent from. He's a genius mechanic/engineer over all. Best part: He's a gunsmith too. This guy does it all. He got into a debate with Ryan about which direction to push the zoom button to make the image larger or smaller.

The day was pretty much like that. We set up another rig with the Arri Alexa Plus. I got to mount the head, the camera body, even the rods, and I attached the lens with the motors. I did the whole rig! Not by myself, but given enough time I could've figured it out. I even solved a couple problems while Ryan was working something else. It was my pride and joy of the day.

In review I learned way too much to write down. As it stands this blog post is incredibly long. Lemme give some bullet points to sum it all up.

The finished product. What I did today.

- By working on the cameras and seeing camera operators I got a good view of how the film hierarchy works. I got a glimpse of what it's like to be on set witht he director (hopefully me someday) breathing down your neck.


- I learned a ton of technical camera terminology and mechanics that I will not learn in college.


- I learned about what film school teaches its students. The basics since nobody knows anything.


- I learned the best opportunity for valuable experience is on shoots.


- I learned about the kinds of people I will meet in this future-world of cameras, lights, and action.

This senior project has been very valuable to me for all the experience. I hope to do the experience justice when I give my formal presentation. We shall see though.

For anyone out there reading this: This is the end of this blog.

Peace out Cosmic conciousness.

              Daniel Pappas

Day Four

All my questions are answered.

I got in today feeling even more nonchalant than before. I pretty much walked in and acted like I owned the place. Which is not true. 

Lens with motor, zoom control, and battery

A student from New Tech high school in Coppell was shadowing Joe around today so I had company on my journey through the camera-world. Nice kid. Pretty quiet. I could tell he was bored because he kept wandering around the shop. I don't blame him for feeling bored. It was even slower today than the past three days. There weren't any preps to do. No orders even came through today. We just hung out, rigged up cameras, and set them away. To my credit I rigged up an audio mixer, a shotgun mic, all to a camera with ease. I'm getting better at this! Of course, most of the rigging is obvious if you just look a little closely. Insert slot A into tab B. Connect Input 1 to Input 1 jack. Then put Output 1 into camera. Indubitably obvious to the casual observer.

We mostly just hung out. Talked some. Ryan explained to me about the position of a focus puller. I did some focus pulling of my own. On the Nikon. I still don't like it with all the attachments. It's just easier to use a motion picture camera instead. Either way, I was successful in keeping up with Ryan. He'd move the camera, I'd have to adjust the focus to keep the target in view.

Joe (left) and Ryan (right) at work

Of course we saved all this work for when Mr. Ash showed up. We saved the Nikon rig for that. Ryan kept me busy while Mark Beasley talked to him. Ryan was teaching me all about focus pulling. I would walk from side to side on the camera. Ryan rigged up more pieces. Everything looked very clever.  We put on a very good show considering naught 20 minutes earlier we were sitting around just talking. Albeit we were talking about camera stuff, but it certainly didn't seem to be the best use of my time. Ash came. We worked. He took off. Things went back to solitude.

Unfortunately Ash reminded me I had a screening for my films back at school. I hurriedly got out of my internship early and raced over to the screening. Thinking back: that screening probably wasn't worth all the teeth-gnashing or broken traffic laws. Nobody had any questions to ask me. It was all the usual films I'd seen twenty times before. Still, rewatching my films and remembering what made them successful put all my doubts yesterday at ease.

You see the true strength of a film lies not in its composition or its acting or its special effects. The true strength of a film lies in the story being told. If the story is told well then it will draw success to it. Accolades accompany a good film because it is a good story. The truth behind filmmaking is that the best stories are the ones told with passion behind them. Films made for paychecks do not hold up. But a truely great movie is one made by a director and producer and writer who are invested in what they're doing. If they care about the story they're telling they're gonna tell it good. Then, when the story is told people will love it. That may not always be the case, and plenty of people make plenty of films that are just paychecks, but just remembering that success comes with a story you care about is a measure of comfort to me. I love the stories I tell. I think I can be successful, it's just gonna be a long journey. 

I can't wait to see where this journey leads. This week it's lead me to MPS studios for a view at technical expertise. I'll do a clever review about what I learned for my final report tomorrow. Tonight, for all you readers (or reader) out there just be aware that I'm feeling much more confident about my career choice. I just want to make more and more movies now.

Day Three

A slow day leads to small doubts.

It was a pleasant day to say the least. I got free food! One of the productions left us whatever steak/chicken enchiladas they had left. I ate my steak quesadillas alongside some "bitter old men" as the employees over here like to cal themselves. Today I cleaned filters for the cameras. Each filter costs upwards of $300. I clean them if I see even a fingerprint. I'm being extra cautious in this case, but it's better there extra clean rather than slightly dirty. Busywork really. Look at each filter, clean them if they need cleaning. The matteboxes are their own beasts that I don't even wanna imagine how much they cost (but for the curious lenses can cost upwards of $65k+)

Joe spent a good hour and a half testing out equipment just for potential clients approval. Ryan stayed in the background. I stayed back too. I had no idea what exactly they were talking about. I mean, I knew they wanted a lens for their RED camera, but I couldn't tell exactly what they were looking for.

Joe took care of that business and while I watched I gained a better understanding of the business side. You see, everybody has a camera. Then they need a lens. Then they need motors for their zoom, iris, and focus remote changers. Everybody disagrees over which part works best for their camera. Nobody exactly agrees which lens will work best. They spend hours trying to build a camera for a video which, quite frankly, will look exactly the same to the mass audience no matter which kind of auto-zoom rock'n'roll handle you pick. No matter the brand of head you get for your camera a Lachster or something else you'll still get a picture that an average person would never be able to tell the difference. So why all the trouble?

I asked Joe and he said that a lot of DP's (director of Photography)'s like to craft their own particular image as a kind of trademark. That way anyone else in the business who know what their talking about can tell how well crafted a certain shot was with very specific elements. It's like proving your good at your craft to the people who can tell a difference. It still matters, even if the average person will never know the difference.

This plus accessories.
Too much troble

I also got into a smaller camera debate where Ryan showed me something ridiculous. You know those Nikon cameras that everyone and their mother uses because they all think it's a high quality camera and they love high resolution pictures? You see them everywhere now. Yeah, people use those to shoot video. The only problem I have with this is that camera rental companies like MPS have to build rigs for these faux-cameras, they have to mount them on tripods, find rods that might fit in the baseplate. They have to find ways to attach monitors, they have to power it all, they have to add in some accessories. The lenses they use on these cameras are worth 25x whatever the camera was worth. They have to add in converters for the monitors cause it's all in HDi whereas the monitor displays SDi. Don't even get me started on the audio! It's a still camera! Why would anybody use a still camera to shoot a video!? Especially when the audio they're capturing is going to be as good as your average soccer mom camcorder? Honestly it's not worth the trouble. It's like putting all the attachments of a sniper rifle onto a pistol. Seemingly useful to a specialist, but you might as well have invested in the sniper rifle since you went to the trouble to outfit a pistol. It's a personal problem really.


I dunno. Today I really got into my questions about the profession I want to go into. This all seems like madness. Go looking for unsteady work in a competitive market while still be a good-natured human being? It's dog-eat-dog out there. Anyone who wants to be an artist understands my sentiments. Live broke. Pray for work. Wish for success. Somewhere in the world somebody else is doing the same, and I like people too much to just stomp all over his dreams in pursuit of my own. It's weird. Happiness can be what you make of it, but giving up on the dream seems to be the mark of failure. Chasing after your dream, thats what everyone says to do. There's reward in just pursuing your passion, no matter how risky it is. Can I survive or even prosper in a profession like this?

Yeah, doubts kept piling up today as I realized just how large the film world is out there. Just thinking about how much time and effort goes into building a career is astounding. Ryan said a lot of technical experts come out of rental houses after two years and still have trouble getting jobs. I was certainly building a case towards being a lawyer, an electrician, or some engineer. Wouldn't life be so much happier if we could find a stable job, good friends, and a family? In my personal opinion 2 out of 3 ain't half bad.


My best reason for pursuing my dream, aside from "it's my dream" is the kind of experiences that will come with trying to make it. Even the stories I can garner from living broke would be enough to please me. I keep imagining traveling around the world with different film sets doing crew jobs just to pay my rent or something. That kind of dreamy artsy lifestyle where barely living is living large. I'll keep going. No point in turning back now from that far-off future. It'll bring me all kinds of adventures. Let's just hope success comes out of those adventures.

Day Two

"So, uhh, let's build some sh*t eh?"

My foray into this foreign world was much easier with a guide to show me around. I worked with Ryan today since Joe was out on vacation. We were dealing with camera intake. We had to put back together camera parts and test them to make sure they work.
My orders: "Just start puttin' stuff together and see if it works."

Consider it an engineers paradise. Mechanical part after part stared me in the eyes. Boxes of equipment. And plenty of time to work on it. I took a VCX 200 camera body(?) (it automatically comes with a lens) and figured out how to attach lavalier microphone sets to it. I tested it back and forth. I would come across a problem. Ryan would come over to help. I have to say I solved the problem in the way Ryan never expected it. I turned the volume on the camera up. Simple solutions. That's what teenagers are for right?

I successfully tested two camera bodies, four lavalier sets, one tripod, and plenty of batteries. I learned how to wrap cable (a very necessary talent.) Apparently there's a very specific way of coiling it so as to prevent knots. Ryan said it took him a couple weeks to get it at first. I picked it up after several unsuccessful attempts.

After testing out the equipment I got a bit of a break while Ryan anwered calls. They are a business after all, and Ryan has to help out with the camera questions from clients. When he had spare time he looked at me and said words I never expected to hear:

" Why don't you try putting up the rig?"*

The Arri Alexa without any accessories

He handed me a mount, and showed me the camera body to use (an Arri Alexa) and said get to work. It took me awhile but I figured out how to put on the mount. I attached the quick-release slide to the dovetail and slid that into my head while loading up the camera body. I got support for the rods. Ryan showed me how to handle the lens and I got to attach a lens too. I set up two spare monitors. I could technically shoot now. Ryan went on for an extra 45 minutes after I setup the body attaching accessories. We worked on a remote control focus, a rock'n'roll handle, several Israel legs (or Noga legs depending who you ask), an extra monitor on the camera. You get the point.

Can you believe this is a Noga Arm?

I learned about the camera assistant job on a film set. I helped set up a hollywood standard camera with all the accessories. Alot of what I'm doing now I will never learn in school. I can learn it in a professional setting, but in this studio I'm in the safest environment for learning (where there's no job or money on the line). Tomorrow I get to take it all down and pack it away. Or if I don't then I'll get to put more cameras together. Ryan thinks that by the end of the week I could do the whole rig plus the accessories by myself. Sounds a little ambitious to me, but why not?

Good day. The more specific camera tech stuff I learn the more general tactics I learn about film and film sets.

Two principles to abide by when it comes to film:


1. Everything is based around money. The less spent the better, so if it's not necessary or cheap it won't be bought.


2. The people paying know nothing about film so everything has to at least look official. They want to see everything you're doing so they get their own monitors and chairs and food and sets and etc. etc.

Remember these and you'll survive in the film world.



*Not his exact words, but basically something like that.

Day One

Let's begin shall we?

Have you ever been dropped into a foreign country where you know only the basics of the native language? As you try to navigate your way around the place everyone's speaking the language and you're holding on for dear life trying to understand what's being said. You fade in and out after awhile, because your brain can only handle so much new vocabulary. Pretty much the story of my first day. But that's a good thing.

"But Sir, I don't speak Italian!"
"Like I said, second best."

I arrived promptly at 1 o'clock. My mentor Meredith Stephens was very pleasant and gave me the full tour. The studio incorporates three different sized shooting spaces. Each room varies in size and the rooms are all attached to a hallway with hair and makeup rooms, changing rooms, kitchens. The building contains several production rooms (Places for the cast and crew to go over work.) And in a completely different side the Post-production suites are located. They run Final Cut and they have some badass computers working. Basically MPS has everything you need, except for the crew. You get a full package with these guys, and that's their selling point.

 I work in the camera department with Joe. Joe has a glass eye. He's medium height, mid-weight, bald, and has tons of stories to share. Under Joe is Ryan. He graduated from UNT and freelanced until he got involved with MPS. Ryan and I spent the lion's share of my time their. He explained all kinds of things to me from why technicians wrap cables a special way to the difference between HD and Video to 1080 x 720p versus 1080 x 720i. It was certainly much to take in.

Most of my early work was just observing. All the equipment costs so much and is so specific I wouldn't know the difference between a quickslip and a dovetail. I think once I spend more time with the equipment I will be able to help out more. I did a lot of small things like put batteries on charge, lift stuff, move carts around. I was very careful not to do anything out of line since most of the equipment here can pay for my college education. Ryan constructed a huge camera on a head stuck to a mount on a cart. He loaded it up with a zoom lens, motors for the lens, a nice eyepiece, and plenty of other gadgets. It took close to two hours.

By the end of the day my brain was killing me from learning so much in just 5 hours. Ryan gave me plenty of wise knowledge (and not just about film stuff.) He was very helpful in my understanding of what life in college and after college would be like. I kinda liked being in the camera department. It's like building a huge robot with parts from household electronics.

I know it's not on an actual film set watching people shoot their films. I did expect that, but the technical expertise as well as friendly company makes my time spent feel even more valuable. I've learned about the studio system, camera equipment, and so much more. I"m off to a good start and hoping for better understanding as time passes.