A Day In The Life: Camera Operator
What's it like to spend the day in a camera operator's shoes? Find out!
Video Transcript
What's up guys, James here from Pritt Entertainment Group. And I'm here to show you what it's like to spend a day as a Camera Operator.
So, here we are in the gear closet of our offices and we're gathering gear to use for an on-location shoot that we have this morning. So, we're grabbing only the gear that we need to load into the van to then take to the location that we're going to be filming. So, as you can see behind me we also have an interview set up for later this afternoon that you'll see later on, but for now let's finish gear prep, finish loading up the van, and I'll see you on location.
Here we are on location in downtown Akron. We're here to shoot some b-roll this morning and as you can see behind me, I've got the PEG van, and the van works as like a home away from home. So, we can keep extra gear in there and travel light and if we need any of that extra gear we can go back and get it. As you can see, I've got the shot list here. It has shot references of what we're going to be shooting today, so we can see the location beforehand and it's also got shot descriptions, so we know what kind of shot we're going to be capturing.
So, Josh here has the camera. Thank You. This is one of our Sony FS7s. And right now we're going to be walking around and just looking at these locations making sure that they're good to capture today. And, in general before we start shooting, we're going to want to set the white balance on this so that it's set for outside and not inside. It can vary a lot. And then we're also going to want to format media and make sure that these cards are good to use and good to start recording on. We'll adjust a couple other settings, but in general, we're pretty much ready to start filming, so let's go ahead and start.
All right, here we are in our studio space. As you can see, we're set up for an interview here. Claire, our Account Manager, is standing in for the talent right now until they arrive, just to make sure that we can get the framing nailed down and the lighting just how we want it. So, this is a completely different camera that we're using here. The RED Scarlet-w. It can actually shoot in RAW and gives a little bit higher quality than the camera we were using this morning. But it's not quite as easy to move around, which is why it's ideal for interview situations where it's on a tripod. But if I were to check focus on this camera it actually has a special mode where I can take things out of focus and back in to know right when they're in focus. But this is sort of a small monitor, so if I want to double check on a larger monitor, I can also reference that and use a variety of tools to double check exposure and focus.
The biggest things that you want to achieve as a Camera Operator on a set are the best looking picture possible. Everything being in focus and properly exposed. And also any specific direction given by the director for a specific shot. So, we're about ready to start filming here this afternoon. Afterwards, I'll check back in with you guys with the next steps of our process.
All right, so we just wrapped filming here in the studio. I've got the media from this afternoon and the media from this morning, and I'm about to go dump those onto our server. After that we can begin editing and start developing those finished pieces, but that's about all I have for today. If you want to check out more behind the scenes content, visit us on social media or check out our YouTube channel and, until then, I'll see you later.
