A Successful Day of Shooting

Yesterday was an absolute success.  I shot at sunrise and for most of the afternoon near Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park.  We had perfect weather, especially for Golden Gate Park, which is often socked in with fog.  Danica, my wonderful girlfriend, was kind enough to get up while it was still dark and lug all of my equipment down to the park in our Cabrio for a time-lapse sunrise shoot at Hippie Hill.

Shooting sunrise was challenging for several reasons.  First, it was cold enough to see your breath and fairly damp, not the kind of weather that's amenable to standing around for hours.  But we bundled up and managed to avoid freezing. Second, it appeared that one of the workers patrolling the grounds in those little park buggies called in the park ranger who approached us stiffly and asked in a gruff voice whether, "we were filming for any particular purpose." I assumed he was asking if we were part of a professional crew or maybe shooting a muckraking exposé.  But I replied that I was simply, "shooting some time lapse of the sunrise." This seemed to satisfy him and he drove off in his white pickup.  The final challenge was technical: I realized I don't know how to set the F-stop for a sunrise shoot when the amount of light keeps changing.  You throw in the additional variables of the gain setting and the exposure and it's tough to figure out how to realistically and consistently capture the sunrise.  I'll find out next week when we edit our footage I suppose.

Once we wrapped on the sunrise shots, we went to Whole Foods to pick up the food supplies for my craft services; a mix of various prepared vegetable salads, Thai veggie tofu wraps, and sandwiches. Danica was a big help, especially once we got home to pack everything up for the afternoon shoot.

I won't got into too much detail on the afternoon shoot; you'll have to wait and see the finished product (a mere two or three weeks away).  I'll just give you a thumbnail overview.  My classmates and the instructor from the school were all right on time and we quickly scoped out our interview spot in the shade near some trees.  I had very little trouble finding folks who were willing to talk to us.  The weather remained sunny the whole time.  And we were not hassled at all by the normally ornery homeless hippies who don't like to be photographed, the SFPD, or the parks and rec folks.  All my anxiety was put to rest and I spend the rest of afternoon and evening basking in the glow of a day well spent realizing my weeks of planning.  Many thanks go out to James, Svetlana, and Laura.

I couldn't be more excited to begin the editing process in Final Cut Studio.