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.