Quirks

We've all got our own way of doing things. From laying track to how we like our boom control set up, Dolly Grips are a pretty diverse bunch. I enjoy watching other guys work when I dayplay or fill in on B camera on a show. I like seeing how other Dolly Grips set up their gear and their actual technique. As far as personal quirks go, I have a few: I dislike seat offsets. I think they are dangerous and over used. I rarely use pie pieces in dance floors. I've managed to make it through the last few years without ever using one until this show. I'm not even sure why I dislike them, I just do. (In the interest of honesty, I did break a 10 year streak and also use a seat offset for one shot on this show. My camera operator is a great guy and a fantastic operator; he's also 7 feet tall and there was no way out of it). I always use white one-inch gaffer's tape for my marks. I make the number one mark about four inches long and the number two mark about 10 inches long. If I have a bunch of marks and need to differentiate one of them, say the end mark, to keep from getting confused, I'll tear a piece of the tape in half so it's 1/2" wideand use it for that mark. I can tell by glancing at it that it's special without having to mark a number on it with a Sharpie. These are just a few of my things. What are some of yours?
I know I'm slow in posting these days. Again I apologize and hope to be back up to normal when this job ends.

PS I owe a quick apology to AJ. For some reason, I keep wanting to refer to her beautifully written blog as "The Hills Are On Fire" instead of it's real name The Hills Are Burning. I don't know why this is, but I have corrected it.

Alan Rawlins Update

Last week, Key Grip Alan Rawlins, (and my boss of many years) of the Gentlemen Grips, had a little motorcycle accident while dirt bike riding with his grandkids. He crushed a vertebrae and is in a brace for a while but he's OK. Everybody moves up a slot. We wish him a speedy recovery. I've recieved several phone calls asking about him and just wanted to post this quick update.
D

Roundy Shot Redux

I'm not doing a good job of explaining the roundy shot from my previous post so I'll try it again.
Two rooms opposing on opposite sides at the end of a hallway. Opening frame is on an actor walking toward camera from the other side of the room we're looking into. Camera is just inside the room with the dolly itself in the hallway. As the actor approaches, dolly pulls back about four feet (that's really all you have) and as he passes camera, and crosses the hall, the dolly roundy's around, basically executing a pan with the actor as he passes. He stops in the doorway of the room across from the one he started in. Camera ends up 180 degrees from where it started over the actor's shoulder.
There, I hope that clears up the confusion. If it doesn't, let me know and I'll try it again.

Week Two (and Three and Four)

So sorry for my long absence. My lack of internet accessibility at my house here has brought me out to the local Starbucks on this Sunday morning where I will try and play catch up while my daughter ( who wears too much lip gloss) listens to her Ipod. The show is going well. It is a dolly intensive show, though, so I have little time during the day away from set. We do a lot of stand ups and sit downs which are my favorite (see Azurgrip's previous post). The dolly I'm using (my usual Hustler 4) has a sweeeet arm on it, although it is a little slow on the down for my taste. Quite frankly, my track is a problem. I have to use skates on every shot or it ain't happening. It's fairly new American track which makes me call into question the quality of their track in general. It's bowed. it's got ripples where the inserts were welded into the ends, the joints don' t match up. It looks like it was made by a bunch of blind half-wits. But, we're getting through it. When I lay it, I basically have to forget level and just concentrate on getting the bumps out of the joints, mostly by laying it in a gentle arc by eye. Luckily this is a rom-com, shot mostly in the city, so most locations are level anyway and there aren't any extreme or rural locations. I just go ahead and level it using the "Whiskey Stick" (4-foot level) and then refine it by eye to get the bumps out.










Now, to answer a question from my previous post where I described using your roundy gear to get you around in some tight spots, I have drawn a crude diagram on a Starbucks napkin. The camera is on the left, going from "1" to "3" and the actor on the right, walking from "A" to "C." As the actor approaches, the dolly backs up in roundy and then roundy's to the right as the actor passes, effectively performing the camera operator's pan for him, and ends up in an over -the- shoulder. I hope this helps make it clearer. I will try to get the picture as large as I can, but as we know, this seems to be my weak point in all of this.



Meanwhile, stay safe and stay tuned. I know I'm a little slow getting back these days but I'll get in when I can. If you haven't already, check out Blood,Sweat and Tedium or The Hills Burning(in my links section) Both have had some really great posts recently.



D

The Art of Dollygrippery.

On set the other day when the topic of "teaching the art of Dolly Grippery" came up. I also bring this up as I noticed that Local 80 in LA is running a course, which I'd love to take, however, I'm on the wrong coast right now.

SteadiCam has options for courses (Maine, thru SOA in Philly, Malibu Classic, etc) but we on the whole don't. Pushing dolly was something that I was thrust into. I had no "teacher", just an operator screaming at me. I started with a real dolly, not a doorway or some plywood with a stick, but an Elemack Cricket hydraulic (without the cable boom extension). Now a boat anchor, but back then a workhorse, as most productions couldn't afford the "new" Pee Wee I.

Most of the stuff I've learned has been the common sense stuff ie: put marks on the inside facing the shot so as not have to look away from the actors you're leading or mark the front tires if there's any chance of dog tracking, etc.

But trying to teach the "feeling" is another side of the coin. Having rhythm is a big thing and it follows in to timing. Example: I know for a fact that if I'm faced with a difficult stand up, that most times, once I see the actor start to get up, I'll actually close my eyes, knowing to stop on the height mark only by knowing how long it takes the boom to go up when I've got it open a certain amount. I've tried to fight it, but most times instinct comes into play and overides.

Just learning to walk is another. How to avoid surges while stepping over track and wedges. How not to go insane trying to make a 2 foot move last 2 minutes. Or on the other hand, how not to make a nine foot move on an 8ft piece of track.

The feeling of nailing a complex move is always a great high, one that you'll most likely not share with anyone on set (other than the camera operator who expects nothing less from you). Also knowing when a shot falls apart and knowing how to fix it.

I've kinda gone all over the place here but one can learn to lay track; can one "learn" to push the buggy? Now Grasshopper - snatch the wedge from my hand...

Week One

Sorry about the dearth of activity, but internet connection at my house here is spotty. The first week of my show is going well. The DP, Andrew Dunn is great, as well as the Camera Operator, Will Arnot and the AC, Matt Alper. Storms have kept us on stage when we were supposed to be out and that has resulted in the dreaded night on stage phenomenon.
I did an interesting shot today which I'd like to post about. It involves "roundy-round." Most of the time, you think of roundy as a way to do, well, circular shots, such as around a table. Roundy can also get you out of some tricky situations where space is limited. Our shot today involved a boom up as an actor approached, coupled with a 180 degree pan with im and a pul back into an "over" to an actress in another room. The space we were in was very limited, so after thinking about it, we decided the best way was to use the roundy to pan the actor around into the over. This is one of my favorite shots to do because it's a challenge and the shot is really in the hands of the Dolly Grip. So next time you're in a tight situation, consider using your roundy to get out of it. I'll post again when I can.

Dario Dolly?

Terry Cook, who is with Griptech in Sydney has a question about maintaining a Dario Dolly. He asks about tightening the chains etc. I know nothing about this machine which I believe is Italian. He's asking for some help, so if anyone knows about this dolly, please post in the comments. This is the kind of thing this site is for, so help if you can!

The Next Big One

I'm starting a feature in Atlanta in September. It'll be great to be working at home again and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of old friends. As a prelude, I'm driving cross-country from California to Atlanta (the car I had in California finally gave up the ghost and I had to bring my truck from Georgia out here, meaning I've got to drive it back since I'll be there for a while). I think I'm going to take I-40 instead of I-10 (nothing is more depressing than 2 days across Texas alone). Anyone got any good things to see on that route? I might stop by Tombstone but don't really know of anything else. Give me some ideas.

Fill In Work

Let's talk about something that we all face every now and then as professional Dolly Grips- the Fill In Day. Lately, as I'm between shows, I've been getting calls to fill in for Dolly Grips who want to take days off. I've done days on everything over the past few years from Bones to Mad Men. Over the past couple of weeks, the calls came so frequently I've had to turn down days (I am on vacation after all, and have an extensive "honey do" list to complete).These days can be your saving grace as an out of work Dolly Grip. Dolly Grips on shows hate to take days off (in general). We understand the intricate balance between Camera Operator and Dolly Grip and don't want to upset it. I always feel guilty about doing it, but as a friend of mine said long ago, "Life intrudes." Sometimes you have to do it, and it is a big relief to have a good Dolly Grip available who can step in and make it as seamless as possible. Luckily, most of us know each other and who we can trust not to come in and totally change around the settings on our boom controls, or have the Key Grip say,"who was THAT guy?" when we return. So, if you have a good reputation, you can actually find a nice little niche as a temp Dolly Grip, working two or three days a week just filling in on second units or days when the guy just wants a day off.
Here are some simple rules:

Don't try to be "Super Day Player." If you're filling in for "B" camera, you have a lot of spare time. You may be tempted to race in every time something is called for just to eliminate boredom and justify your presence. The guys have a rhythm. Don't upset it. Let them know you're available to help them tie on that 12 x 12 and then go have a seat on an apple box.

Do what you know. If you're "A" camera, it can be a little stressful being thrown in among a tightly knit group. You don't know the system, you don't know the MO. Do what you know. If you think you need a floor, lay it. Ignore the DP saying, "You need a floor for this?" I did and it worked out fine.

If your dolly is tuned to someone's specifications and you can't find "up" to save your life, look for an alternative. I did a day on a show where the Dolly Grip had a dolly specially tuned to his preferences. After I blew four takes on the first shot, I switched it out for the "C" camera dolly we just happened to have on stage and everything was, well, not fine, but better.

Try and put everything back as you found it. You'll want the next guy to do it for you.

Remember, your goal is to have the Key Grip say to the Dolly Grip when he returns:" You want to take next Friday off?" (OK I'm just kidding).

Answers to Questions that Weren't Asked

I've got a nifty little application that tells me what visitors to this site are looking for when they come in from a search engine. It's always fascinating to see what people are interested in and it gives me ideas on which way to steer the conversation. As I've said in previous posts, I don't know if any of them found the answers here or not. And it drives me crazy. The message board has been quiet so none of them just came out and asked for the answer to whatever was troubling them, so I'm going to take a few and answer them anyway. Some aren't questions per se, but I'll address them as if they were.

Working with dolly considered lowly.
The answer is.... only to people who really have no idea what we do. And there are a lot of them. I've worked with really big name directors who valued my input and would call me to the monitor frequently to consult about a shot, and I've worked with tv directors who didn't even acknowledge that I existed (and vice versa). This is true, though, in any position to an extent. I've watched as the same thing has happened to DPs, camera operators, ACs, gaffers, and any other position you could name. The bottom line is... we're not lowly but we're replaceable. What we do takes mainly common sense, timing, and is learned by doing the same thing over and over until you get the skills down (just like any other profession). The film business is like a pyramid, but that's mostly in the chain of command area. When you need a good dolly grip, you can't do with a crappy one. Anyone can roll the camera around and park it to shoot. Not everyone can immediately see what you need to get a shot, set up the dolly, lay out the surface, and do a five point move with three booms in it and nail it on the second take....and the third and so on. You're only as "lowly" as your skills allow.

Fisher Ten/Chapman Peewee for sale.
They aren't.

How much does a Dolly/Key Grip make?
Again, depends on your skills, reputation, and work ethic. There's Union Scale which most of us try to get a little over and some can command it, which is somewhere in the 32.00 to 40.00 an hour range. There's also "low budget" Union Scale which can be 15.00 an hour. There's also the abominable cable side letter rate which is around 28.00 an hour. It also depends where you are working and under which contract. New York and LA rates tend to be the highest in the US. Some make a lot more than that on equipment rentals. On non-union, it's often a day rate which can be anywhere from 150.00 to 300.00 a day. These figures are ballpark so don't send me emails telling me the exact number. I really have no idea what they make outside the US.


Wa11y Dolly.
Stop it.

Apple.
???

This Says It All...

A friend of mine sent this to me. All right Dolly Grips, vote in the poll to the right (if you work in LA) and let me know how it's going out there. My phone ain't ringing much.

This Weeks TV Nice Moves Award Goes To...

Burn Notice. I just started watching this show and was immediately impressed with the nice sled work. Just coming off an episodic, I know the end result of a lot of our work ends up on the floor. Directors in TV don't get final cut, so a lot of really intricate work that took a lot of sweat to set up gets butchered, for time if nothing else. So if the moves aren't actually worked into the overall look of the show (CSI: Miami, NCIS) you get a lot of inward groans as that beautiful Technocrane shot you worked so hard to get is cut two seconds in for a closeup or an insert.
Burn Notice makes camera movement a large part of the cinematography of the show and it's really nicely done. I don't know who the Dolly Grip is- there's no IMDB listing for him/her (though it's shot by Bill Wages, whom I've worked with a few times) but I would like to send some praise in his, or her direction. Nice work!

Oh yeah, I also saw The Uninvited on cable. Nice work, Gil!

Update- Earl wrote in to tell us that the "A" camera DG is Casey Osborne, and the "B" camera

DG is Jimmy Greene. Thanks Earl and nice work guys!

How to Deal With Your Dolly Grip

Regular reader DP Ed Moore, from the UK, sent in an idea for a post for operators concerning how they can make our jobs easier. I thought this was a great idea, especially since I spend my day trying to make their jobs easier. Here are a few tips.

The following are given with great affection for my Operator friends. No offense is meant. I hope you get a laugh out of them:

Don't wait until we're rolling camera to tell me that you see a bump. We've done three rehearsals. Wake up.

Don't leave your coffee cups, half eaten sandwiches, candy wrappers etc on the dolly for the rest of the day. I understand you can't always leave to throw it away, but if it's been on there since breakfast and we're on the third shot, it's time to pull the trigger. I'll just put it on the camera cart and then blame it on you.

Don't leap off the dolly. You're not dismounting a horse and if the brakes aren't on you can make something really bad happen.

Don't tell me every move to make if I've proven to you that I know what I'm doing. I generally know which way to orient the dolly, how much floor I need, how high low-mode is, and whether or not I need a riser. Believe me, if I need help I'll ask. I need your input, but some things are pretty self -evident.

Don't get accessory happy. I can almost always set up the dolly correctly so that you don't need a seat offset. I've managed to make it ten years without using one (that's the last time I remember using one. It flipped and dumped the DP on his ass. Sorry, Frank). Give me a chance to set up the dolly in the right way for the shot before you start yelling for stuff. If you're still not happy, I'll get you what you need.

Do include me in conversations about the shot. I need all the info I can get and my contribution may make your job easier.

If I blow a take or a rehearsal, turning around and yelling won't help. I know I screwed up. I'm very sorry. I'm your friend. And I'll start changing your gear settings when you're not looking.

I have to see it at least once. Don't expect the first run through with actors to be perfect especially if the stand-ins did it differently (and they usually do). I know I have to match movements, hold eyelines etc.

Communicate with me. Tell me how I can do it better, or conversely, how I screwed it up if you can see that I don't get it.

Use a finder. I don't want to lay it twice.

Yes, I can do a boom and a move at the same time. I actually do this for a living. If I can't, you've got the wrong guy and it'll be pretty evident very soon anyway. I'm just as good at my job as you are at yours. Can you pan and tilt at the same time?

When I'm at work, I'll give you 110%. It's my job to make sure you can do the shot safely and as comfortably as possible. I drink Budweiser.

Watch my back. If you see me forgetting something, not doing something right, are uncomfortable with a shot set up, tell me. Don't watch me lay the track in the wrong spot and wait until I'm done before you mention it. We're a team. Watch out for me and I'll watch out for you.

I have a name. Learn it. Use it. I know you're big time DP and all but I'm a big time Dolly Grip and the whole motioning up and down thing with your thumb without saying anything is just insulting. This is a phenomenon mainly associated with commercial and television DPs. For some reason, some cameramen think it's cool to never address the Dolly Grip personally but to communicate through a series of cryptic finger displays. I know some do this from time to time if the set's loud or they're trying to be quiet. I don't mean you. A certain few do it very dismissively all the time. Believe me, I've worked with the best, they don't do this. This doesn't make you cool, it only makes you a jackass.

Don't tell me what kind of dolly to use. I don't tell you which head to use. I've been doing this a long time and I know the right tool for the job and which machine I'm most comfortable with. Every dolly is different and some Dolly Grips can make a Fisher Ten sing while others are more comfortable with a Chapman Hustler. It's my job to make sure you don't notice which brand of dolly you're on and if I do it well, you won't. I'm the one who has to make it work. Let me do my job. Help me, help you.

Operators- send in your own tips, pet peeves, etc. I'll put them in a post. I need all the help I can get.

These tips all pre-suppose that the Dolly Grip is experienced and is engaged in what's going on. Otherwise, I probably deserve whatever I get. I count Camera Operators among my best friends and what you do is truly a joy to watch. These are just some helpful suggestions to help us work better as a team. You know who you are.

Synchronicity

My last post was an indictment of the whole incentives mess we've gotten into. Right after I posted it, Mike over at http://hollywoodjuicer.blogspot.com sent me an email and a column he had just finished and had intended to post the next Sunday. One problem- it was eerily identical to mine. The writing style was different (Mike's lyrical, well-thought prose vs my last minute angry scribbling) but he had independantly written a post that hit almost all the same points. He said that in light of mine hitting the airwaves first, he would cancel his. I encouraged him to post it. It's an important subject and his column was great, so hopefully he'll have it up soon. Anyway, if you read his and it bears an uncanny resemblance to mine- it's because we're both geniuses.

Film in LA (or not)

Well, they've done it. They've actually managed to drive the industry that Los Angeles and Hollywood is actually known for ( Hollywood!) out of the state. By "they", I mean the bureaucratic half-wits who we (well, not me) elected to run this city and state. Who would have ever imagined a time when more movies would actually be shot in Louisiana and Georgia than Hollywood? Now before the letters saying, "Oh, another LA guy is upset that they're shooting movies somewhere else," start coming in, let me clarify. It's not that they're doing it, I work all over the country anyway. It's the way they're doing it, and the effect it's having on my Grip and Electric brothers and sisters.


I worked in Atlanta and all through the South in the late eighties and early nineties. At that time, it was common for any given city in the country to be the "Flavor of the Month" for the film industry and this was Atlanta's time. I was there working during a boom in production for the city and with the relatively small pool of grips in town, the back to back procession of features, tv movies, and series ensured my perpetual employment. A boom would last for anywhere from two to four years and then the studios would decide they liked Dallas or New Orleans better and move on, leaving a smattering of occasional features or tv movies to keep us employed until the next boom came around. It was cyclical, we all knew that, and it had nothing to do with tax incentives, which were unheard of for the film business back then. Cities in those days were picked mainly for their locations, ease of shooting, and availability of qualified crew members. Los Angeles was a far away place that we both loved and hated for her fickle attentions, but we all knew we were dependent upon it because that's where the business was. It was the home planet that sent representatives in the form of Key Grips, Dolly Grips, and even Hammers with the shows that came in, whom we resented, learned from, and eventually became friends with (I know, I shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition but it would be twice as long otherwise). We were a small community, but proud of our technical abilities and work ethic. Then the door to Pandora's box was opened and nothing has ever been the same since. Studios discovered Vancouver and tax incentives and suddenly a job at Home Depot wasn't that farfetched. Work in Atlanta dried up. We straggled along with enough commercial work and features at home and in nearby states to make a living, but the salad days were gone. In the back of our minds, though, we always knew that there was LA. They would never stop making movies there. I was lucky at the time to be working (I still am) with a Key Grip who had become well sought after by some very big DPs and directors. He had his Local 80 card and worked frequently in LA. Eventually, I realized that I could no longer make the living I wanted in just Georgia and out of necessity, also acquired my card. I still worked in Georgia when the calls infrequently came, but now I could always find a job in LA when I needed one.


Then came Shreveport. A lot of the people I knew in Georgia had moved there for work, which was plentiful.


Then came Boston. Then Connecticut, and the ever present New Mexico. Then Georgia, again.


Only this time, it's different. It's not a decision based on locations or crew depth or proximity to an airport. It's a race to the bottom based purely on which state is giving away the most money at any given time. And there's no way to stop it. Let me clarify something right now. I'm happy for the workers in these states. I'm glad that Georgia is once again the darling of producers if only for the sake of the techs who live there. I'm glad they're working. As long as they realize that it could dry up tomorrow as soon as another state gives a better deal. It's my home state. I still have a residence there and would love to work there again. And I'm sure if I had stayed there and never come to LA that I wouldn't give a rat's ass what was going on out here. But something's wrong. What's going on is just crazy. I'm watching second generation Key Grips who have worked on the same lots as their parents lose their houses. Studio lots that normally would be jammed with trucks, and honeywagons, and stakebeds are ghost towns. I was on the Warner Brother's lot two weeks ago and there was one other show besides ours there. Businesses that have supplied the studios with condors and catering and dry cleaning for thirty years are closing their doors. And it's not like the shows are permanently relocating to a cheaper city to stay. The bosses are still here. They drive their Mercedes and Porsches through the studio gates every morning, while Grips and Juicers chase shows all over the country, living in Extended Stays and working as locals just to send money home to pay their mortgages. And there's the problem. No one is safe anymore. If you're in an incentive city that suddenly gets hot, droves of shows come in from out of nowhere. The bench of locals is suddenly thinned and techs from everywhere start coming in. Rental houses from out of town open up shop and begin competing with, and in many cases driving down rental rates for local rental houses. Local politicians crow about how Boise, Idaho or Cleveland, Ohio is the new Hollywood and start planning studio construction. Then, suddenly Wheeling, West Virginia offers a higher tax rebate and it's a stampede to the border leaving a crowd of dazed locals, empty warehouses, and starstruck citizens behind. Now, a new population of local techs suddenly have more work than they could ever dream of and the one's in the town left behind either move or sit at home waiting for the phone to ring. There's nowhere to put down roots anymore because places aren't chosen because of location. Time was, if you needed Savannah you went to Savannah. Now you go wherever you can get 40% and throw some spanish moss around. True, Los Angeles has stood in for everywhere for years. And if you had to or wanted to, you could move there and work every day and go home every night. Or if you lived in New Orleans, you knew that enough shows would need a New Orleans look that you would get enough work to do well and you could go home every night. Same with Atlanta or anywhere else that has a significant production community. The balance is completely off though, and there's nowhere safe to establish a home base. What's hot today could be dead in two years so you may as well keep the van packed and be ready to go at any time. For the first ten years of my career I worked mainly in Georgia with the occasional location in Mississippi or Alabama. Then, incentives killed Georgia, so I worked mainly in Los Angeles and Georgia for the next five or six years. In the last two years I've been to Shreveport, Boston twice, New York twice, and Connecticut. I've turned down jobs in Detroit and Iowa.


The thing is, I don't blame the studios. They're doing what they do and have always done. This business is about money, pure and simple. Anyone who thinks it's about art hasn't seen Transformers.

I blame the lawmakers. They started this. Now California has to join the same grim war of giveaways just to compete in the industry it's known for and in which it still originates. And they refuse. Businesses are leaving California in droves because of endless red tape, restrictions, and ever rising taxes. So now I'm torn. On the one hand I'm pissed at the cretins who have turned this state into a punchline for not moving to protect a homegrown industry, and on the other, I'm pissed that states are being lured into this trap by studios whispering in their ears and by visions of their legislators getting their pictures made with Kevin Costner. Some of these places are building studios. And as soon as Ohio gives a better deal, they'll sit neglected, millions wasted on empty promises. Does this make me a hypocrite? Probably a little. But piling more incentives upon the heap is the only way Hollywood can hope to stay busy now. Self preservation tends to kick in a little when you've moved twice and finally started establishing yourself in the one place that there should always be a movie shooting.


So where does it end? I really don't know. I want to say what I've always said: it's cyclical and we've just entered a perfect storm of bad economy and union actions. But I just don't know.

Series Recap

As most regular readers know, I (D) just finished a season of a series after a long absence from tv. During this long six months I relearned a lot of things I had forgotten that are peculiar to television dolly work and in the process, sharpened a lot of skills that had grown a little rusty. I hadn't done a full season of tv since around 1994 and was curious to see how it had changed. The first thing I learned was that to make a decent paycheck on a cable series you have to have rentals. I had spoken on the phone with the Dolly Grip from The Sopranos a few weeks beforehand on an unrelated matter and he had mentioned this fact, and boy was he right. The side letter for cable television that the IA negotiated years ago and refuses to revisit is ridiculous. It's not much more than the rate I was making 10 years ago. I won't go much further on this issue because it's just restating the obvious and it gets me all worked up. Needless to say, it's driving down wages and making us all the collective bitch of the industry. Don't even get me started on this tier 3 crap.
Here are some things I did like about doing the show, however:
It forces you to learn to work fast. As I've stated before- a good Dolly Grip earns his money in set-up. Laying floors, what surface you need, which tool is best for the job- all these are decisions that have to be made quickly and you have to be right the first time. The moves should be second nature, either you have the skills to pull them off or you don't. It's the collaboration with your operator and deciding how to best allow both of you to execute the shot that get's you the attaboys in tv. You also have to be able to pull off some seriously technical shots in a rehearsal and a couple of takes. If take 7 comes around and you're still the reason they don't have it, you're not going to last long. In as far as the moves go, tv brings you up to snuff pretty fast. You've got 6 pages a day, not 1 or 2, so you've got to be able to nail it.
You've got to solve problems quickly and effectively. Got a bump that won't go away? A squeak in a floor or track that's killing a line? You've got to diagnose it and come up with a solution fast, usually while number one on the call sheet is watching you do it.
Know your sets. You'll generally have a couple of sets that are "home." Know the dimensions. Know where a 2x4 sheet of floor will work and where only a 2x18" will work. Make special cuts for hard to cover spaces you regularly end up in. We had a bar set that was five feet wide behind the bar. I had a 1' x8' piece of floor cut that I could add onto a 4x8 and cover the whole space because we consistently used it all. Cut 30" doorway pieces. Anything that regularly pops up. The beauty of this is that you can keep these special cuts on the stage and they are there when you come back.
Plywood these days sucks. We went through two (2!) sets of plywood before we said, "OK, what's going on?" It bowed, it chipped, it warped and when we talked to the lumber company, they said you couldn't get good birch anymore, the hurricane rebuilding cleaned it out. We ended up ordering Baltic Birch, heavy as all get out and expensive, but it holds up and stays true.
Get your dolly inspected and tuned up every couple of months. We rode it hard and were doing a lot of shots on offsets directly over actor's heads. You don't know what's jarred or rattled loose over a couple months of hard use so get it looked at every so often by the techs. Don't take the chance of something giving way with 60 lbs over someone's head.
I fully expected to hate everyone after a few weeks, but surprisingly didn't. My camera operator and I truly had a working relationship based on respect. He knew I would get the job done and that he could trust my decisions and vice-versa. Same with the AC and pretty much everyone else from the DP on down.
So in the end, I'm glad I did it. It gave me six months of steady income and brought me up to snuff after several years of 1 page a day feature work. Will I go back for the next season? We'll see what happens between now and then.

Oops! On an earlier post I gave our email address as dollygrippery.net. It's actually a dot com. Sorry and thanks to Nathan for the head's up!

Please Ask Questions

I notice we get a lot of hits from Google from people searching for Fisher dolly set-up, Hustler 4 instruction manual, low mode on Peewee, and things of a similar nature. We also get about ten hits a week for Wa11y Dolly and many more with things like aluma beams, dance floor outside. The bad thing is, I never know if these people found what they were looking for. Please, if you have a question about professional camera dollies or camera movement, ask. The best place to do this is to visit the message forum on the right, or you can email dollygrippery @ gmail dot com. We have some of the best Dolly Operators (yes I used that term) in the business and most would be happy to answer any questions you may have. So ask!

Dollying on THE ROCK

On the road again...

Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while. I've had a busy year so far - I can't complain when there are so many grips out of work these days.

Work has taken me away from home. I'm out on the "the Rock" in St John's, Newfoundland to work on a TV series (D - odd we're doing more TV than feature work when networks are pushing for more reality TV than drama) for six months.

I'm out of my element and never been here before, but the people are great and ever helping. I uncrated my Pee Wee IV. Something I've never had to do before. Normally I just deal with the dolly tech. Here, I'm the dolly tech. The local rental house doesn't have a dolly in house, so they have a deal with another east coast rental house to supply dollies, however... if the item in question is too big to FedEx, (and they have it in shop) then it's six hour boat ride and 11 hour drive, all dependent on IF the truck gets onto the ferry AND the weather is good enough to drive the roads.

Although the chassis wasn't new, it was in pretty good condition. I'm still suspicious of the arm. I'm not a fan of the PW IV boom control as I find it way too sloppy and not enough force feed back to "feel" where you are in the opening of the valve. Also too much distance to travel from closed to wide open.

Had to send back and exchange the low shot plate (spoon) as it had no lower support pin and the attaching bolt was bent and not enough threads to support the plate.

Working with newish Matthews steel track. I haven't seen the beast in ten - twelve years and had forgotten about all the little tricks in dealing with it. We're still working on dance floor... there's another story.

Weather here is a little chilly for my liking as we're right on the Atlantic ocean, and I'm about 15min drive away from the most eastern tip of North America.

Still waiting to be screeched in (local tradition involving lots of rum and kissing a cod). It's an adventure!!!

Chapman on Science Channel Tonight

Just a quick note. Tonight at 10:00pm Eastern (7 Pacific of course) the Science Channel visits Chapman/Leonard and learns about the science of camera dollies. It may be at the end since the main part of the show is about special effects I believe. Check it out.

New Pictures and a Story

I've gotten a couple of pictures in, but not nearly as many as I'd hoped. I've added a few on the right (I know my pictures were getting old) courtesy of Sean Devine, Stephen Murphy, and Alexa Mignon Harris. The above is from Rick at http://grip411.com/. This is (strangely appropriately) from the Michael Jackson video Smooth Criminal in 1987. His came with a story that I'll let him tell in his own words:

"We were doing a shot starting high and moving down right into Joe Pesci's face. I had to cut once because there was a by-stander standing right next me as I was swinging the arm around. I told him to move so I don't hit him in the teeth with the arm... he apologized and moved over.In between takes he came back and bummed a ciggie.Next take there he is again right on my ass... "Dude! you gotta get the f--k outta way" I said."Oh sorry" he said as he was backing up. As he was walking away he trips on the headset wire and rips it off my belt... the stills guy got the shot just as I looked back at this jerk-off. The guy was Bruce Willis. He was just hanging around the set watching...not part of the shoot in anyway."
RD

I'm working on how to get the pictures bigger, haven't solved it yet, even though I clicked the largest size in the layout.

I did the final load-out at Chapman today and had a talk with Dana in the office about having my standard package as well as dolly numbers that I prefer on a list or database somewhere so that it's not a new experience every time and if my favorite dollies are available, they'll hopefully be pulled out for me. I worked so long on the East Coast and dealt with the same people over and over that after working in LA for 8 years, I still didn't have a relationship with anyone at Chapman LA other than the guys on the dock. She was very helpful and hopefully this will streamline my checking out process. It's something that I should have done long ago and just never did. (No, I won't tell you the numbers of my favorite Hustlers).

ps- I appreciate the pictures more than you know. Please be aware that by sending them, they will be posted at some point and I'm looking into starting a Flickr page so that they are all more easily accessible. They will always be attributed to whomever sends them. If you have a problem with any of this, please don't send them.