September 20, 2005
Why does everything I love have to cost so much money? Filmmaking's all-consuming enough as is, but now I think I might be hooked on skydiving.
A big thanks to Amy for facilitating the development of this new habit.
On Saturday I filmed this insert shot for 48 Ribs.
That image in particular and this film in general are the last things I'll ever shoot on my classic XL-1. Yen and I are upgrading (only one or two steps up - certainly not to this), and tomorrow morning, before placing our order online, we're delivering our cameras into the hands of their new owner.
I'm not a materialistic person, but I am extremely sentimental; thus it's hard for me to part ways with this piece of equipment. I bought it almost exactly six years ago, on my first trip to Austin, back when the XL-1 was still a cutting-edge camera. It was the deciding factor in my plans to go ahead and make my first film by myself, and since then it's been used on every movie I've made that hasn't been shot on celluloid (and for that one, it filmed the behind-the-scenes documentary). In addition, it's been used on a lot of other people's projects, too. Those 3 CCDs have been witness to a lot of history. They've also been possessed, but that's another story.
Yen's had his for about the same amount of time as I have. After we used both cameras to shoot Deadroom, we started talking about retiring them. Yen convinced me we needed to finally take action while on the drive to Kat's shoot two months ago. And now my camera - CAM. A, as denoted by the handwritten label leftover from some long ago shoot - is cleaned up, packed up in its original box (speaking of sentimental value, I couldn't believe some of the stuff I had stored in that when I dug it out this evening), practically out of my hands. I wish I wasn't so poor; otherwise, I'd just go ahead and buy a new camera every time I needed one and just let the old loveworn models...accumulate.
Oh well. It was a good run. And as soon as the replacement arrives, I'll forget about it forever.
Editing, meanwhile, is going pretty well. The film's structural shortcomings are becoming apparent, but I've still got a lot of rewriting to do. I may take a break, however, to finish up the sound work on my short documentary piece, which I've almost settled on a title for...
Posted by David Lowery at September 20, 2005 3:06 AM
Comments
Skydiving? Oh, you're a braver man than I am.
Needless to say, if you need any help looking at rough drafts of anything...
Posted by: Matt at September 20, 2005 5:09 AM
what camera are you getting?
Posted by: brad at September 20, 2005 11:09 PM
The DVX-100a.
I'm excited about a.) 24p and b.) having a handy fold-out screen.
Now if only we could afford the wide angle lens adaptors...
Posted by: Ghostboy at September 21, 2005 12:04 AM
Would you believe that the camera I bought myself recently has 24p, anamorphic 16:9, and came with a wide angle adaptor? We're talking consumer, not prosumer, here! I couldn't get over it.
Posted by: Matt at September 21, 2005 2:47 AM
I know, there's practically no point in distinguishing between those terms below the ten thousand dollar range anymore. What camera did you get again?
Posted by: Ghostboy at September 21, 2005 7:12 AM