At the end of last week, David from The Distance Project and Physiology First in Freeport, Maine reached out about filming two short videos on Saturday. He had just had an opportunity to appear on a large Podcast/YouTube channel and wanted to quickly revamp his web presence before the podcast dropped. We met up on Friday and made a plan and script, I filmed the videos the next day, edited horizontal and vertical versions of the videos on Monday, and then he uploaded the videos and updated his website Tuesday. It wasn’t the quickest turn-around I’ve ever had to do but it might be the shortest time from ideation to release! Such a fun rush of making things.

I filmed the project alone and primarily used my Sony a7IV with the Sony 24mm 1.4 on a Ronin RS2 gimbal with my Rode NTG5 mic going into the Zoom F3 audio recorder. I also gave everyone a Rode Wireless Pro microphone. The B-cam shots are my Sony a7sIII with the Sony 50mm 1.4. My best filmmaking hack was using the gimbal on a rowing machine for a DIY slider. I filmed everything wide in 4K so that I could edit the vertical versions easily.

My only gear mishap was the adhesive I used to tape on the lav mics was a little too strong and took the back off one of my Rode Lavalier II microphones! Doh. I’ve never had that happen with any other lav mics. My only regret on this project was I wish I had a few more hours of filming so I could have used more video lights.

I’ve also done some photography for David this year and revisited my old photos before the filming:

Walking around their gym with a gimbal reminded me of this one-shot video I had made for Brooklyn Boulders many years ago. So many trips down memory lane.