16 Aug Packing for a week of production

Today we spent at least half of our day in the studio preparing, packing and re-packing for our upcoming trip to Japan.  The first and most important thing I always attempt to finalize is the primary camera kit on which we are going to shoot the majority of the project.  We landed on our Red Dragon X Cinema Kit.  It is by far my favorite camera that I own and the most joyous to shoot on.  As soon as I pick up the camera, I just know how to use it. Because I’ve shot so much on Red over the last few years, it’s is the most comfortable kit for me to operate.  I know where the camera excels and I know its limitations so I feel like I can rely not just on the camera, but on my ability to get the results I expect and promised to our client.

A camera kit consists not just of the camera body (brain) itself, but of all the various components that are required to make it work… batteries, monitors, media, lenses, a cleaning kit, and everything necessary to put it together. There are also tripods, light stands, filters, audio accessories and so much more to consider when planning for production out of country.  Thankfully we’re shooting in Japan, so if we need a generic accessory, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a convenient camera store, but to pick up any thing camera specific would likely be impossible.

Once the primary camera kit is packed, we need to figure out secondary camera and specialty camera components to bring with us.  For our second camera we did decide to bring the BlackMagic Pocket Cinema 6k.  In the nick of time, Autokroma released their update to BRaw Studio allowing me to edit files natively in Premiere which is absolutely clutch!  We’ve decided to bring our tiny DJI Osmo Mobile Pocket in lieu of a larger gimbal option and will also be bringing a DJI Mavic 2 Pro for some quick aerial captures in the country side.

It’s a pretty heavy kit once everything is packed in our carry on luggage, but it also has a specific purpose and will all be used for designated shots in Japan.  At the end of the day, if we’re weighed down too much, it will affect our ability to be nimble which would likely cause us miss shots or get us fatigued prematurely, so the kit we’ve assembled is meant to be both premium and prudent.

It’s always exciting to get out of our comfort zones and shoot in new places and there’s almost no where that I enjoy shooting more than in Japan!