My best client, Herb Kanzell, has landed a job for the Rank Organisation. In its day, Rank owned Pinewood Studios, Odeon cinemas, a movie production company, Rank Xerox and Wharfedale, a little company making loudspeakers just outside of Leeds. That’s where we’re headed.

Despite the drive, I am keen to do this. Wharfedale’s founder, G.A. Briggs, was a schoolboy hero of mine. I still have his book Loudspeakers: The Why and How of Good Reproduction. In it, he shows plans for a loudspeaker enclosure made of 48 bricks. My friend, Robert Parker, actually built one in his mother’s living room. No stereo in those days, so it was just the one large, brick enclosure, right on the carpet.

Gilbert Briggs' famous book

GAB himself

When the going gets tough… Nine o’clock, we made it. Stagger in to the Wharfedale reception.

“We’re here to film the factory, can I see Bob Brown?”

“Mr. Brown is tied up at the moment.”

We need coffee. “Sorry, no coffee.” Tea? “No tea. Sit down.”

Time passes. More time passes. We got up at 4:30 for this! Eventually, “Mr. Brown says it’s not convenient for you to film today. I’m sorry.”

“That is not acceptable. Your head office booked us for today and today it is.”

“Mr. Brown is adamant-no filming today. Please leave.”

…The tough keep shooting. We go out to the car. Get out the Éclair 16mm camera. Tricia has the Nagra tape recorder and a Sennheiser rifle mike. We find the door into the factory and wander around, shooting from the shoulder. Meet friendly people doing their job.

“Have you met Old Bill? He’s been here since Gilbert Briggs.”

They take us to meet Old Bill. He’s the man in charge of the wood veneers; been doing it for 23 years. Tricia runs the Nagra and I ask him to tell us about how the veneers are done.

Just then, with the camera still running, I hear what must be Bob Brown on the warpath. We keep shooting Old Bill. This is going to be very bad timing for ugly Bob.

“What the **** are you doing! I said no filming!”

I swing the Éclair around, still running. He stops dead in his tracks. “I’m glad you found Old Bill. He’s been here over 20 years. You’re doing a great job. Seem to have it all under control.”

Reversal of fortune. I switch off the camera. Suddenly he’s Mr. Nice Guy:

“I like you two. You’ve got the right attitude. Not like those stupid wimps in head office. You’re not Rank people, are you? Can I buy you lunch?”

We all go off to a cozy little restaurant. Get to know each other. I tell him my Radar the Wonder Dog story (DV, June 2007). We come back to shoot their anechoic chamber and new range of speakers.

“Joyce, they’re OK-not from Rank!” Now even his secretary likes us. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

We finish the job. Pack up, not looking forward to the long drive back. “Why don’t you stay the night? There’s a good hotel nearby. Dinner is on me.”

vintage catalogue

Over a glass of wine, I tell him about my G.A. Briggs book and Robert’s brick loudspeaker enclosure. “Well you must film Gilbert Briggs. He lives in the Yorkshire Dales.”

The next morning we drive north to visit Gilbert, who is delighted to tell his story on camera. Gilbert looks directly at the lens and says, “The worst mistake in my life was selling my company to The Rank Organisation.”

His interview was never shown at the conference. Funny about that.

ABOVE: That old "You lookin' at me?" look from the quarry truck marshal.

You lookin’ at me? San Rafael, Calif. August, 2007. Shooting complaints for a protest group about quarry trucks-250,000 trucks a year. The quarry management gets twitchy and sends out its truck marshal.

“You filming our trucks?” I film him. The quarry guy sees the camera, shrugs and slouches off.

Stefan’s Tip: “Get Outta Here!” means, “Shoot Me!” Turn around, take aim and fire.

Never fails.

Son-in-law George (www.thebigpicture.tv) posing in front of his ginormous mega-van with camera. Spot the battery?

101 South from Corte Madera, Calif. March, 2002. George, my son-in-law, is driving his ginormous Ford E-350 Super Duty Extended wagon. It’s crammed full of cameras, tripods, lights, lights stands, sand bags, you name it.

I’m chattering on, “I don’t have a list, I just do a complete set up in my living room the night before. Check the lights, run the cameras. Then I pack it all up in one suitcase and a camera bag.”

“Well that’s fine for you, but I’d rather work from a fully equipped truck. If I need a couple of HMIs, they are packed and ready. I leave everything in the truck. I never have to worry about leaving anything behind.”

“I guess you have to take out the batteries to re-charge?”

“That’s the only thing I take out—I take out—the—the batteries—sheeeeet!!!”

We are passing Daly City—about halfway. George stops, gets out and checks the van. Nope—no batteries nowhere.

He’s on the cell to the office. “Steven, quick, grab the Betacam batteries, they’re on charge. Get the address from the call sheet. Meet you in San Jose.”

“Stay calm,” says George to me. I’m calm; it’s not my screw up. “We drive there. Arrive on time. Then I’ll do the best, slowest, setting up job you’ve ever seen.”

Downtown San Jose. George meets Heidi, his client. The space is a big conference room with windows on every side.

We unload the van. I secretly phone Steven from time to time.

Now he’s crossing the GG Bridge. George: “Can we move the conference table a little? Take the chairs out?”

Batteries at Daly City. “Maybe we should blackout the windows.” I get the ND 0.6 gel and a roll of gaffer tape.

Batteries now passing SFO airport. “We really need a better background. Can I use that company board in your reception?”

Batteries at Redwood City. “I just think we need to take down the background a little. Stefan, can you get some gobos from the truck and another C stand?”

Batteries at Mountain View. “You know, I’d like to add a bit of powder to your forehead. There’s a little shine there.”

Heidi: “George, you are the best cameraman I’ve ever met. So much attention to detail.” George: “I’m really a producer—and you are my product.”

Batteries now entering San Jose. “I think we are ready to rock.” Steven enters the room. Slips George a battery like a palming a $100 bill to a Las Vegas maître d’. The camera bursts into life.

“Heidi, You look terrific. I’m running.”

George collects $200 and passes GO.

A Right Royal Screw Up

Those ears. Those ears. Oh my!

Windsor Castle, U.K. November, 1975. We’ve been here for three hours to shoot a three-camera interview with Prince Charles and Alistair Cooke. Titled “A Much Maligned Monarch,” it’s been presold across the States in time for the 1776 bicentennial.

Tricia sits in for both Charles and Alistair while I adjust the lights. Wow, that looks great! Colin Clarke, the producer, looks through the viewfinder at Tricia. “Perfect!”

So where’s the prince? We turn off the lights and wander around aimlessly down the nearby art-filled corridor. Rembrandt, Rubens, Holbein…We don’t go far as the palace staff are there all the time…watching.

Three more hours pass. Finally, the royal party arrives.

Tricia wires up the 27-year-old prince with a lavaliere mike. She’s wearing a form-fitting jump suit with a zipper top to bottom. The prince is intrigued in the mechanics of the zipper. I switch on the lights.

SURPRISE. Charles’ ears light up like pink stained glass—the backlight is shining right through them. Those ears. Oh my! What was terrific lighting for Tricia is a total disaster for Prince Charles.

“OK, Let’s go”, says a tense Colin.

“No, I need to make some lighting adjustments.”

“Come on, Stefan. It looked great when I looked through the viewfinder.” How can I say, “The Prince’s glowing ears don’t meet broadcast spec”?

I fiddle with the backlight. “I need some spun glass and a chopper.”

“Stefan, you’ve had all day to set up! It’s fine—leave it.”

I need 15 minutes to fix. I can feel tension mounting. “STEFAN, WE ARE WAITING.” OK, I give in. “Roll cameras—slate it!”

“Much Maligned Monarch, take one.”

Stefan does not collect $200. The prince has bright red ears—he hasn’t spoken to me since!

He never made another movie. If only he’d had today’s technology.

Nob Hill Masonic Center, San Francisco, July, 2007. Here on another Summer’s Day, I have a multicam shoot. Louis Armstrong couldn’t make it, but no matter. We have Dr. Graham Powell, Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley. The lecture is about “nonlinear modeling and analysis for performance-based design.” Huh? Where’s Louis?

I set up two Sony V1U cameras, side by side, halfway up the center aisle. On one I’ve switched on the internal X1.5 digital telephoto—that’s my close-up camera. The other I’ll use for the wide shot. I operate both cameras, but the wide is really locked-off until question time.

Some Hysteresis Loop Shapes,” courtesy of Dr. Powell’s PowerPoint and Camera 2.

The venue has supplied an IATSE cameraman, Dimitri. He’s good. I put him on the stage with a third V1U. Tricia gaffer tapes his tripod to a spreader with wheels. I tell Dimitri he’s free to get the best shots—audience shots, close-ups, wide shots, reverse angles of the presenter—by repositioning the camera during the show. We switch off his red light so that it doesn’t distract the audience.

I’ve reset the timecode on all three cameras to “FREE RUN.” Now, here’s how to sync up the cameras in a jiffy. Get a Sony RMT-841 remote control. Power up the three cameras, hit “TC RESET,” and bingo—all three timecodes go to 00:00:00:00. The cameras will stay locked even when you change tapes. Magic. Eat your heart out, Bert.

The sound is coming from the PA mixer. Now for a secret weapon: a Shure A15AS XLR audio pad. If you’re getting a feed from a PA system, a pad is essential. They may say they are sending you line level, and then blast you clean away. Just as well that I brought a XLR gender changer. The feed was XLR female—how is that possible?

At every hour, Dimitri and I change tapes. I have a cute Sony DR60 disc unit on my close-up camera. I only want to use it when I’m changing tapes, so I run it manually before the change and stop recording once the new tape is running.

Camera 1's close-up.

Dimitri’s on-stage camera has rolled into a position where he can get a good shot of the presenter when he turns away from the audience and looks up to the PowerPoint slide on the screen. My two cameras only see the back of his head, so that third, on-stage camera is essential. Come question time, Dimitri has good shots of the audience.

When it’s all over, I whip out my Memory Stick and grab a copy of the PowerPoint file from Dr. Powell’s laptop. No real secret. The trick is: always carry a Memory Stick. Back at base, today’s shoot has produced 22 one-hour DV tapes and one tape copied from the DR60 disc drive. Good labeling is essential. I wouldn’t be without my Brother PT 1830 labeler.

Although we shot HDV 1080i, I do this edit in standard def. I use a Sony M25 desk player, feeding its HDMI output into a nanoConnect box from Convergent Design, and the SDI output into my G5 via an internal BlackMagic DeckLink HD card. I also have an external BlackMagic HDLink, but that’s only for monitoring.

The view from Camera 3 on stage.

Now all I have to do is edit six hours of a totally incomprehensible technical seminar. I do this in real time using Final Cut Pro’s multicam and a glass of cabernet. With the multicam edit complete, I switch to merlot and cut in over 350 PowerPoint slides. It’s tough checking an edit that runs for over six hours, so I ask my client to help. Hey, just one wrong slide and a three-second black hole. Easy to fix. Time to make the DVD menus and burn two dual-layer DVDs. Six hours on two DVDs. Amazing.

As a thank you for the celebratory champagne, I make a no-charge 60 sec. promo. See it at http://www.csiberkeley.com/Powell/DVD/.

And rent or buy Jazz on a Summer’s Day. Sorry, no V1s, no DR60, no nanoConnect, no BlackMagic, no FCP. Just Louis, Anita, Chuck, etc.—and all in 84 minutes!

I give him credit. Surprise! The market job is delayed a month. Another month. Six months pass. The weekly market reports never happen. Do I get paid for the original job? Of course not.

Made on video, but my client won’t pay because the laboratory release form is missing.

AMBUSH.  London, 1982. I’m running Molinare, the biggest video facility in Soho. Alan Stewart, our wonderful builder, needs to be paid. Unlike 30-day trade accounts, builders want their money fast. Alan’s accounts are simple. He pays for his building materials cash on pick up. He pays his workers cash each Friday. I pay him every week. What’s left over is profit. Who needs accountants?

But our cash flow is low. We’ve been chasing our debtors like crazy, but it’s not coming in fast enough.

I show Alan our accounts receivable.

“I’ll sort out your bad payers,” he says. “Pay me as I bring it in.”

“Let me see—look, this guy Adrian R. is on Wardour St. He owes us £12,500, most of it over 90 days. Go get him.”

Alan and five builders, all carrying tools of trade, head for Adrian R. on Wardour St., about five minutes’ walk away.

Fifteen minutes later Alan returns, £12,500 check in hand.

“Alan, what did you do?”

“Nothing—I just said that I couldn’t pay my men because he hadn’t paid Molinare’s bills

. My lads were wandering around the office straightening the paintings. He pulled out his checkbook there and then.”
A few weeks later, Adrian R. is in my office. He’s promising prompt payment in future and hoping he’s welcome back as a client.

BATTLEFIELD HOLLYWOOD. London, 1992. I am making a 90-minute “sell-through” video, The Trials of Claus von Bülow, for a major Hollywood company. I finish the job. Everyone happy. I invoice for $50,000.

But no. “You’ll have to bill our New York office.” I send them the invoice and wait. After a month, I phone. “Where’s the E&O certificate?” they say. I get one. It costs $16,000 even after getting a signed release from von Bülow himself.

I chase again. “We are waiting for the laboratory negative release form.” I explain that there is no laboratory, no film negative. It’s a VIDEO.

“The contract specifically states we must have a laboratory negative release.”

“But there is no negative!”

“That doesn’t matter—are you going to sign the form or not?”

I FedEx a laboratory release form. But then, they relocate from NYC to L.A. Can’t find their files.

Next, “We can’t pay you unless the film has U.S. copyright with the Library of Congress.”

Seven months after master tape handover, we get their rotten $50,000.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES. San Francisco, June, 2007. I’m chasing a job that I shot last year and edited over Christmas. That’s six months ago. The final payment hasn’t happened.

“No worries, Stefan. We’re working on it.”

Working on it? Huh? It’s a piece of paper: the date, my name, the amount, a signature.

“But I’m glad you called. I’ve got a TV commercial I want you to do.”

Here we go again: the old “Big Job Coming Real Soon” routine.

Time to send in the builders.

Tomorrow’s conference has three circular screens—just more work for me. This one depicts Wells Fargo’s exploding bank notes.

My BetaSP machine died yesterday. Chewed up tape. I rented a replacement today, but before I could lay off a safety copy to tape, my client wanted mega changes.

The Avid is unhappy too. It doesn’t like it when I go to the loo (translation: restroom). It misses me and crashes. I really have to go to the loo again but can’t risk it. I decide to go out into the reception area and then return. Fooled it. Still running.

This time I’ll take those few extra steps to the loo. I come back. It’s dead again. Thinking of making a life size replica of me so that the Avid thinks I’m still here.

Reminds me of the story about the lady with the broken vacuum-tube radio. She discovered that if she put her finger on a tube, the sound would come back. Tired of keeping her finger there, she replaced it with a pork sausage. It worked! The problem was that the sausage cooked slowly and needed to be replaced every Friday. “Hey mum, the radio’s fading, needs another sausage!”

10:00 p.m. I’m assembling the segments and keying in a circle matte. The team doing the set design and projection has succeeded in convincing the ICI conference lady to have three circular screens, one big and two small on either side. They call it “MoonVision.” Spare me from “creatives.” My compilation video is 85 minutes and all within a stupid circle.

Midnight. This is crazy. Das Boot is over. Derry has closed down the projection theatre. I’m alone. I’ve gotta go to de loo. I need to fool the Avid:

“Look, I’m just going to the Poland Street garage to collect my car. You be a good Avid and keep rendering those dumb circle mattes. Back very soon. Love you.”

Never fooled Avid for a moment. Whammy, it crashes again. Not your average Panic Kernel. It’s a (gasp!) General Error 41. The Mac’s running but Avid’s dead.

3:00 a.m. Nothing is working. I’ve done everything. Trashed preferences, ran Fix Permissions. Tried Disk Utilities, Norton, Disk Warrior, you name it. This job is on my books at £35,000 (US $70,000) and it has to be ready for today. Got to be out of here by 5:00 a.m. I’m distraught.

A thought. I have a BlueICE board in the Avid. It runs hot. I’ve squeezed in three little fans around the board and there’s a household fan on the floor pumping air into the Mac. The card gets so hot that its own heat sinks fall off. The Avid’s never been the same. Maybe it’s just a heat problem. OK, take it easy and cool it.

I turn everything off except the external fan. Vacate to the empty reception area. Nibble at the Das Boot leftovers in the kitchen. This is going to be my big, big screw up.

“Sorry Martin, Avid’s crashed. General Error 41.”

“The fertilizer plant in Taiwan?”

“Trashed.”

“Surfactants in Delaware?”

“Dead.”

“Australian ethane pipeline?

“Nope.”

“Wells Fargo exploding bank notes?”

“All gone. It’s over. I’m off. Got a green card. You’ll never find me.”

I go back. One last try. Give my Mac the old Das Boot start up. This is it baby, make or break. Yeah! Error 41 gone. Woo hoo! Avid opens up my project. I’m delirious. Hallelujah!

Render, render. Now save the project. Transfer 85 minutes to BetaSP tape—no time for a safety copy.

5:00 a.m. I spot check the tape. High on Das Boot caffeine. Drive home. Shower. Shave. Pack overnight things. Suit ‘n’ tie. Drive to Heathrow. Park. Run to Terminal One.

8:00 a.m. Made it. There’s Martin.

“Hi Martin!”

“Everything OK?”

“Piece of cake.”

“Bruce, I can’t live on my salary.”

“What do need more money for?”

“A car for a start.”

“Add a credit line, ‘Bandstand Drives Hertz.’ Pick up a car tomorrow. What else?”

“Clothes, you know, little things like that.”

“Be smart, Warwick. Have a teenage fashion segment. Get free clothes.”

Host Brian Henderson on the set of Australia's Bandstand. Brian, Warwick and I have free clothes, a free speedboat and free gas.

The closing credits of Bandstand get longer every week. Need a week off in Fiji? “Bandstand Flies Pan Am.” Hotel Rooms? “Bandstand Stays at the Suva Holiday Inn.” How about a speedboat for Warwick and friends? Easy–Pride and Evinrude give us one for the show. And to top it all, in every waterskiing film I shoot, we show our speedboat being fueled from a BP pump. Free gas!

New York, 1985. A day off. Walking down Broadway, I see a boat shop. My friend in Australia collects boats. Has them hanging in all his sheep shearing sheds. He keeps buying boats and hanging them. The sheep love them.

I go in. The shop is empty. The owner targets me. “You look like a Klepper Kayak person. Let me show how it goes together.” He up-ends two bags full of wooden bits and pieces and begins to construct a 17-foot kayak right in front of me. I love it. Got to have one.

London, a week later. I phone the UK agent. “I need a Klepper.” He tells me the price–$4,500 with all the extras, including sails.

“I make corporate videos. How about I make a video for you?” I list some of my clients: IBM, Mercedes, General Electric…

“Sounds good, but have you made films about speedboats?”

It's raining, the water is choppy, and I'm balancing on the edge of the boat with a rented $40K Betacam SP. See it on my Web site (www.stefansargent.com).

“Funny about that. I must have made 20 speedboat films. My specialty.”

Exmouth Harbor, two months later. The Klepper agent, David Green, has organized the local SOE (in the U.S., read OSS) guys to demo the kayak. I shoot it from David’s latest design, a stealth speed boat called the Skua. We find a stony beach to assemble the Klepper kayak. The SOE guys wade into shore with Tricia and me over their shoulders.

I shoot the Klepper and then the Skua–which is designed for military covert operations and can sink under water, out of sight, to be raised again on a radio signal.

Sadly, today it sinks on cue but won’t come up.

David goes back to the drawing board. I finish the video without this novel feature.

One corporate video = a Klepper kayak with sails.

San Rafael, Calif., June, 1999. My son wants to go to a drama school to learn both acting and fencing. We meet the principal, Peter Meyers. He tells me that the classes are $650 a semester. “Peter, have you ever thought how beneficial a videotape would be?” I tell him about IBM, Mercedes and General Electric…

“What about films for schools?”

“Funny about that. I must have made 10 or 12 for colleges. I made a half hour for the Department of Education and Science, another for Central St. Martins College of Art…My specialty.”

They get a Web site, Tricia and I get free food. A win-win solution.

One corporate video = three years of drama and fencing tuition.

Marin County, Calif., May, 2007. It’s Sunday. We drive to the Olema Inn for lunch. Let’s start with oysters and champagne. Won’t cost us a thing. I designed their Web site (www.theolemainn.com).

One Web site = free food and wine.

A word of caution: contra deals are subject to tax. Talk to your accountant. Perhaps he needs a video or a Web site himself.

They are planning to announce a new concept in gasoline merchandising. The idea is that you get a Mobil VIP sticker for your car, which makes you a Very Important Person. My client, John Hewer, has written a script that features a little man who dreams of being important and finally becomes so with—you guessed it—a Mobil VIP sticker.

Monday, Le Lavandou on the coast. We meet up with Mr. Big from Mobil Europe—he who writes le grand chéque. I have reworked John’s script. Threw in a few random frustrations: a blind man who appears out of nowhere to block Mr. Everyman, a parking attendant with a moveable parking meter, a dog that runs under the car and won’t budge.

Tuesday. We film around Le Lavandou—the blind man, the meter man. Mr. E. drives into a nondescript gas station and a rude attendant wheels the petrol pump away. Mr. Big wonders when I’m going to shoot the sequence with the dog.

Tricia plays a bikini starlet on the plage of the Carlton hotel. Mr. E. in a dream sequence imagines he's her escort.

Wednesday. We drive up the coast to Cannes, where the film festival is about to start. Tricia plays a bikini starlet on the plage of the Carlton hotel. Mr. E. in a dream sequence imagines he’s her escort. He thinks he’s a VIP. Wrong. He needs a sticker.

Thursday. Mobil has set up a VIP gas station of choice. Flowers everywhere. Attendants in new uniforms. VIP flags flying. Mr. E. drives in and receives a royal welcome. Yep, he’s got the sticker.

Mr. Big is happy and takes us out to an eight-course Menu Gastronomique.

“You film the dog tomorrow?”

“I was thinking that with the blind man coming and going, the dog is really the same joke. I don’t think we need the dog.”

“No, no. People love animals, not blind men. Cut the blind man, leave in the dog.”

I’m stuck. He’s serious. The dog stays in the picture.

Friday. We move on to our last location.

“Now we film the dog, Stefan?”

We are back in Le Lavandou. Mr. E is about to drive out and face the hazards of motoring. I look across the road and in the distance see a man and a dog, an Alsatian. I run across the road.

“Excuse moi. Je suis faire un movie la bas—”

“Stop. I speak English. What do you want?”

“I’m making a little film for a conference and I need a dog to lie down under a car.”

“But how did you know we are here? This is RADAR—THE WONDER DOG. We have a program on French television. Radar is famous. And you didn’t know we were here! This is so funny. Don’t worry, I won’t charge you. C’est mon plaisir. Viens Radar!”

We cross the road. Mr. Big from Mobil can’t believe his eyes.

“You booked RADAR—THE WONDER DOG! What a treat! Stefan, you are a funny man—you had Radar coming all the time and didn’t tell me.”

Radar performs as expected for a wonder dog.

Mr. Big and Radar’s owner become instant friends. He stays with us for lunch, and later, another eight-course Menu Gastronomique.

I save a bone for Radar. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

“That’s great. You’re getting an aerial cameraman. Good idea to hire a specialist.”

“No, that’s you. You’re our helicopter cameraman. You told me you’ve done it before.”

Tell him how you screwed them up. Tell him about the shoot in Dubai when you dropped half the camera in the Persian Gulf. Or the one in Leeds, when you shot the wrong housing estate. Or the helicopter shoot for the British Army where the convoy completely disappeared into dense civilian traffic and you had nothing to film.

“You know, I was just thinking how well the Birds Eye Pea film went.”

Shame on you Stefan. Sure you had usable aerial footage, but the pilot was a loony who flew so close to the ground that you had your eyes closed most of the time….

Tom Miller of Blue Sky Aerials (www.blueskyaerials.com) hand-holds the gyro-mounted camera and wears a safety harness. This lets him lean right out of the 'copter. While he has great camera freedom, he's facing into a 50 mph wind. Not for me. I'll stay inside, rest the camera on my knee, and wear a seat belt.

December 1975, Dubai, UAE. I am making a film for an Iranian architect. He has designed a tall hotel to be built at the mouth of the Dubai Creek. The architect wants me to shoot buildings in old Dubai to show how his design incorporates ancient with modern. He also wants the view from the rotating restaurant at the top.

It seems impossible to get a helicopter. The only helicopter is owned by the Emir himself. I am booked for a 5-day shoot and I have no return ticket!

“I want to go home. Please get me a ticket. It’s Christmas. I miss my wife and child.”

But I’m stuck. After two weeks I climb aboard the ‘copter from atop the palace. I am in a monkey suit so I can stand outside the cockpit. If I fall I’ll just dangle.

We fly all over Dubai. I have an ƒclair NPR 16 mm camera. There’s so much wind and cold and primeval fear that I just point the camera down and shoot away.

Pretty soon we’re in position and altitude for shooting the top of the new hotel. Helicopters are not good at staying still in one place, and the shot is less than exciting. About 180 degrees of the view is the Gulf itself-just water. The other half is Dubai, which is no Paris. The ‘copter is doing 360s. I feel the camera vibrating. I keep wanting to do another 360-maybe slower this time.

Helicopter pilot to rookie cameraman: “We gotta get outta here. This is a dangerous spot.” Dangerous? The pilot flew in Vietnam.

“If you look left in the distance-see the airport, way over there. Now look right and up. That’s a 747 coming in to land. We are slap bang in the flight path. Hang on.”

We spin around. An ƒclair 400-foot film magazine shoots off the seat and into the Gulf-about $5,000 gone overboard, not to mention 10 minutes of exposed film.

Safely on the ground, I tell the architect that his precious hotel is directly in the flight path of an airport runway. He breaks down and cries.

Google Earth of Dubai. The international airport is dead center. The doomed hotel's rotating restaurant was to be 60 stories high on the coast and directly in the flight path.

August 2006, San Carlos Airport, California. I turn up early for my latest date with a whirlybird to meet aerial cameraman and gyro specialist, Tom Miller of Blue Sky Aerials.

“Tom, I need help. I’ve done four aerial shoots and three and a half were embarrassing failures. Any tips?”

Tom climbs into the ‘copter and puts on a harness that allows him to lean right out of the ship. He’s cool and calm.

“Make sure you know how to speak to the pilot. Left pedal, right pedal. Ten o’clock, one o’clock. Airspeed and distance to subject. Say to the pilot, ‘Okay, let’s fly around that tanker at 200 feet. Keep me at around 55 knots.’

“As the tanker passes from my left to my right, ask the pilot to give you some right pedal. This will swing the ship to the right allowing you more right pan,” Tom explains.

“The pilot can really pan for you,” he goes on. “Then say something like, ‘That was great, but let’s lose around 100 feet and slow it to 45 knots and repeat the move.'”

“Tom, I can’t say that-I have no idea about airspeed and height. The pilot will laugh at me. Tell me how I shoot straight ahead.”

“Put on the harness, lean out of the ‘copter, and angle the camera forward. Have the pilot put the helicopter slightly out of trim,” Tom says.

“No way-I’m staying inside.”

I then meet my pilot, John du Gan of Bay Aerial (www.bayaerial.com). I show him a photo and the architect’s plan.

“John, I know nothing about airspeed or pedal left and right. I just need to shoot flying straight in and match it to this drawing.”

John is straight out of Central Casting. He’s the honest, silent, no-nerves pilot. On the way to the location he plays country music from his iPod.

“Do you have ‘Ride of the Valkyries?'” He doesn’t.

John spends some time flying over vineyards looking for a flag. He needs the direction and strength of the wind. He finds a flag. There’s no wind. Good. I’m relaxed. I can do this.

“Let’s fly down the river and then move into the target.”

The Ken-Labs dual-axis gyro unit sits on a rubber pad in my lap. My Sony HVR-Z1 is fixed to the unit and safely chained to a bar. The camera is heavy but solid. I switch on the gyros and can feel them working.

“We’re going in at 500 feet.”

Blue Sky Aerials' Micro Gyro Mount HDV-K4, a custom rig based on Ken-Labs stabilizer technology, with my Sony Z1. To buy the mount is $4,200, but you can rent it at $75 a day, $225 per week. The foam pad on my knee works well. There's a yellow safety cord looped around a bar.

John flies the ship like no other pilot I’ve worked with: sideways, crabbing the craft so that my camera is almost facing forward. It feels good. We do four runs. I have stuck two small bits of paper to my Sony viewfinder. When they line up with the target, I know the shot will match the drawing.

The shoot has cost $1,500 for John and the ship. Just $75 for the gyros. Can’t wait to see it. Back in the edit room, take one is the best, but it’s just not as steady as I had hoped for. I transfer the HDV shot into Final Cut Pro, export as an HD QuickTime movie, and import that into Apple Shake.(I’d rather do this than use FCP’s export-to-Shake feature.)

I put the shot into Shake’s Smoothcam node. Because Shake is fixing the camera movement, it’s lifting the shot up and down and from side to side. To get rid of the black edges, I run the shot through Shake’s size node and make it 7 percent bigger. Now I export the stabilized HD shot using the Animation codec. I import this into QuickTime Pro and export using the NTSC DV setting. Lastly I import to Final Cut Pro, which is now reset from HDV to plain old DV widescreen, and admire my handiwork.

Because I did the processing in HD, the quality hasn’t suffered-it’s perfect. You can see before and after Shake at www.stefansargent.com/helicopter.html.

My first real aerial shooting success. But all the credit goes to Tom for his gyros, John for great flying, and finally to Shake, which unshook it.

It’s not going to be a visual film. The most exciting thing that happens is steel bars go on and off racks, and there may be some shots of rusty steel on the ground.

Can see the audience yawning, maybe even hanging themselves, as they’ll do six years later in Airplane!

To provide a human face and a strong link, I have hired BBC presenter Michael Barratt. We’d just made a 20-minute film together on sausages that had the audience applauding wildly. In America, think of Ed Morrow or Mike Wallace hosting a sausage video.

So we are off to British Steel in Port Talbot, South Wales, to shoot the opening sequence-actually just one shot of Mike in front of the molten steel, saying, “This is where it all starts…but will the steel be looked after?”

Just one 15-second shot. Who needs a tripod? Not me. I can shoulder-hold without a quiver. Who needs lights? Not us. Hey, there’s lots of steel fireworks and plenty of factory lighting. So, no lights. Hope I can pull this off.

Take a taxi from the station to the mile-long steelworks, which will be the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

British Steel in Port Talbot, South Wales

I have a small 16mm Éclair ACL camera with one fixed 12mm lens, just fine for to-camera pieces. Tricia has the lavaliere mic and a Nagra SN recorder. If you’ve seen The Conversation, the Nagra is the miniature tape recorder that Gene Hackman uses. It’s 5 x 4 inches and less than an inch thick.

The British Steel PR man gives us tea and biscuits in his office. “When is the crew going to arrive?”

“We are all here,” I reply.

“Where’s your equipment?”

“This-the camera-and Tricia has the tape recorder in her pocket.”

“But you will need lights. Last week we had the BBC here and they had three trucks with lights and generators. It’s dark in there.”

So he takes us inside the foundry and he’s right. It is dark. VERY dark. I have screwed up.

I find a good spot for Michael where I can see the steel being poured from a cauldron behind him. His face is in total darkness. Then I see a collection of cardboard boxes. Even a newspaper. The guardian angel of filmmakers is with me.

I stack up the boxes between Michael and the camera. Tricia runs the Nagra recorder. I watch the cauldron as it moves into place.

Borrow a lighter from the PR man. Light the newspaper. It catches fire. The boxes start to burn. The cauldron is about to tip. Roll film.

“Action, Michael.”

The flames light his face. “Here at British Steel is where our story starts.” The flames are burning higher. Michael is now behind a wall of fire. The cauldron is pouring. Sparks are flying. “The molten steel behind me will find its way into the buildings and bridges of tomorrow.” The flames get lower. His face is lit by a red flicker. “But will this precious asset be stored properly or will it be left to rust on the ground?” Crump. The boxes collapse. The fire dies out.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” gasps the British Steel man.

On the return trip to London, the three of us are killing ourselves with laughter.

“Did you see his face when you lit the box?”

“No, I was too scared. The flames were so close to the lens.”

“If this doesn’t come out, we can never go back.”

The film comes back from the lab and it’s perfect. The flames and fire light so much better than sterile lighting from three trucks.

Even today, I meet total strangers who say, “Stefan Sargent? You’re the guy who lit the fire at British Steel!”

Fame at last.

A MacBook running iChat sits on boxes in front of the victim, so she sees Burton, who is 2,000 miles away, and Burton can see her.

Flying tonight to Edmonton, Canada. Will shoot a laboratory and do the interviews greenscreen-Burton not coming. Will use iChat for the interviews. Who’s Burton?

Good question.

I met Burton through a neighbor who designed hotel rooms for Burton 35 years ago. After World War II, Burton Goldberg was a real estate developer who bought huge amounts of property and turned it into hotel rooms and members-only nightclubs in the Miami area. When Burton left the hotel business, he became interested in alternative medicine. With a ton of enthusiasm, but no medical qualifications, he published 18 books on alternative medicine and started the popular Alternative Medicine magazine, which he sold in 2004. At 78, he turned to producing movies.

I created a Web site for him in-it must have been mid-2003. Put a few short “Hi, I’m Burton Goldberg” Flash 7 videos on it (www.burtongoldberg.com). Then, just before Thanksgiving 2004, he phoned. “I want you to go to Germany with me tomorrow,” he said.

“Huh? Tomorrow?”

Apparently Burton had lined up “a girl” to shoot this video about conquering cancer, but she had pulled out at the last moment (the day before) because the camera he bought for her didn’t turn up. “She’s a flake–I don’t work with flakes!” explained Burton. I was cast as the last-minute replacement.

I couldn’t do “tomorrow,” but a week and a bit worked. In my suitcase I packed clothes plus three lights (a Rifa 500-watt soft light, a 12 V Dedolight, and a mini Kino Flo), a couple of lightweight tripods, my Sachtler dolly wheels, and about 35 used DV tapes–all in one case. My carry-on bag had two Micron radio mics, a Sony PD150 (hey, this was 2004) and a PDX10, some more tapes, and batteries.

On the flight to Germany, Burton told me we were making a 10-minute DVD, so I decided to shoot 16:9 using the PDX10, which does–or did–a much better widescreen than my aging PD150.

We arrived at the cancer clinic just south of Munich and while we waited for the doctor grupen fuhrer, Burton started chatting to a lady from New York who had been given months to live by her American oncologist and was now almost cancer-free. “You’ve got to film her,” Burton insisted. So I set up the PDX10 and a couple of radio mics and shot the two of them talking for 30 minutes. Afterwards I said, “We must do the reverse-angle questions.”

It was just Burton and me–no assistant. We couldn’t remember the questions he’d asked just minutes before. Burton did a few easy “How are you feeling?” questions to a no-longer-there subject and the usual noddies and smiles. I knew it wasn’t going to work.

The next day I decided to shoot with two cameras: one on the subject (who I’ll call “the victim”) and the other on Burton. The first shoot was in a small doctor’s room barely big enough for one camera–impossible with two.

At the next shoot I had a good background (BG) behind the victim, but the BG behind Burton was just awful. I only had enough light for one person, so Burton was lit by ambient and spill. That was it. I gave up. Concentrated on just shooting all the interviews with one camera. Shot 35 hours of interviews in 5 days. Not a tape left.

What I thought was going to be a 10-minute corporate project turned out to be a 2-hour DVD. Just as well that I packed all those old, used DV tapes.

The edit
Back from Germany and in San Francisco for the edit at my place, I needed Burton’s reverse-angle questions. Making corporate films and videos is not so much an artistic endeavor as it is a search for elegant solutions. The answer to this one was to shoot Burton asking questions against a greenscreen. I found backgrounds from the B-roll I shot in Germany. You need only a single frame for a BG.

Shooting greenscreen also gave me a chance to rewrite Burton’s questions, improving on his original, rambling live versions. I used a Lastolite greenscreen and Ultimatte AdvantEdge software in Final Cut Pro 5. Despite all the rubbish on Web forums about how you can’t get good keys from DV, the results were pretty good.

During 2005 I made a couple of other DVDs with Burton, including Curing Depression, and the technique of inserting his questions in post using greenscreen worked so well it became our standard practice. Burton was so pleased with greenscreen that he decided our next video, which was about stem cells, would be shot the same way for both the interviewees and later the reverse angles. It speeds up production if you can shoot anywhere. Just give me a room that’s 12-feet long. Camera to victim: 6 feet. Victim to greenscreen: 6 feet. I use backgrounds I’ve shot myself or pay a buck a photo to download from iStockphoto.com.

Tool kit
By 2006 I’d sold the PD150 and the PDX10 was lost, stolen, or strayed. To replace them, I bought two Sony HDV cameras: an HVR-Z1 and an A1. Don’t believe the “experts” who say the Z1U looks awful in 720 x 480 standard-def DV down-converted from 1080i. The widescreen DV images are much sharper than those of the PDX10, and PD150 footage looks very sad by comparison. So I shoot 1080i but edit in DV.

The irrepressible Burton has now decided to make a big movie for THE SILVER SCREEN. He talked to a Los Angeles-based feature film director who told him the HDV format wasn’t good enough for blowup to 35mm and that it was totally impossible to get a good chroma key for the big screen. Yet another expert in my life.

So I shot an HDV test of my daughter, Cissy, in front of the greenscreen and dropped in a background using Ultimatte AdvantEdge’s default settings. I did nothing except eye-dropper the green.

Burton had been told by an expert that it was impossible to get a key from HDV.

The next day my daughter Cissy was visiting us and I put up the green-screen on our deck and shot a quick test using only sunlight.

I removed the screen and shot our view, and then composited the two using Ultimatte AdvantEdge. Note: Although the shoot was HDV, the ultimate product was not HD, so Sargent edited in NTSC DV. All stills are from DV 4:1:1 timelines.

Other chroma-key software works, but try this with dvGarage’s dvMatte Pro, Primatte, or Keylight. There’s a lot of fiddling to be done before the key works in DV. The downside of AdvantEdge is its price of $1,500 versus dvMatte Pro’s $199, while Primatte and Keylight come free with Shake. At present, AdvantEdge won’t work at all in the new Intel-based Macs.

The feature film director is now history and we are making the BIG MOVIE 100-percent HDV greenscreen. Burton, who just turned 80 last month, likes to do the interviews on iChat from his home in Tiburon, CA. All my fault–I told Burton about documentary maker Errol Morris, who invented the Interrotron so his subjects looked directly at him and the lens. Burton took the idea and ran with it.

The victim sees and hears Burton via iChat. Burton sees and hears the victim. The victim looks straight at the lens. Burton stays at home. I fly to Canada.

Burton Goldberg asking subjects questions. I tried to find a background for Burton that matched the location of the subject. All these shots of Burton were taken in my living room and were lit with a Rifa for key light and Dedo for back light.

Travel log
So here I am still stuck in the San Francisco airport waiting for my plane. Why don’t planes fly on time? I’ve been here 3 hours! I told you about my carry-on. Did I mention that if the checked luggage goes to Hawaii, I can still shoot from my carry-on? I’ve got carry-on cameras, mics, tapes, and batteries. Missing would be the lights and tripod, but I’ve made entire 1-hour TV documentaries without those. Phone directories on a table are a good camera support for an interview–use a table lamp for key light. It’s fast and easy.

The airline I’m taking restricts you to two items of checked luggage–each as heavy as 50 pounds. My greenscreen is one item. And that leaves me just one suitcase for everything else. I don’t like paying for valet parking if I can park across the road. Likewise, I don’t like paying for excess baggage. Many years ago I arrived at a rural airport in Italy. It was in the middle of nowhere, but another crew shooting Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World was waiting there. I was traveling light–just a few small camera bags, a tripod in a soft bag, and some personal luggage. The pros had lots of big metal flight cases. Guess who got on the small plane to Rome and who got left behind.

Tonight it’s just me traveling. I don’t want lots of big, heavy cases. That 50 pounds is a good limit for both the airline and me.

Over the years, I’ve bought every pro camera and lighting bag made, but they don’t work for one-man shooting. The beautifully made Petrol case for the Sony Z1 won’t fit in the overheads of the smaller jets. I know this for a fact, and you never want to part with your camera. I use a smaller camera bag and keep my babies close to me.

The $400 Petrol four-light case (they call it a bag!) weighs 30 pounds-that leaves just 20 pounds for the lights, light stands, tripods, monopod, dollies, and extension cords. Impossible.

So I use a lightweight Skyway 26-inch case–costs about $65 online and takes my 500-watt Rifa light, two dimmable 150-watt Dedos, two tripods, one monopod, three light stands, reflector, iChat speaker, Ethernet and power cables, and tonight I’ve packed wheels for the tripod. Plus a change of clothes, toothbrush, shaving cream, and so on. The secret is that it’s all packed tight. You don’t need all those fancy dividers. They just take up space. The Dedos have their own padded bag. All of this weighs 50 pounds exactly.

Tamisha and her son who was blind before receiving an umbilical stem cell injection in Tiajuana.

Tamisha's $1 iStockphoto.com background.

Time to board. Off to Canada. I’m starving but there’s no food–not even crackers. Crazy. This is a $650 ticket. I could fly to London and back for less. Why can’t they feed me? The airline needs profits. I need food.

October 2006, Edmonton. What is it about Canada? The first shoot I did here umpteen years ago, we arrived at midnight with a proper, expensive ATA Carnet. “What’s this?” asked the Canadian customs agent, who promptly put all our equipment into lockup for the night. The next day we had to pay a storage fee. One day of shooting down the drain. Welcome to Canada.

Location, location, location
So once again I arrive in Canada after midnight. “I’m here for one day, making a corporate video,” I tell the official.

“That door over there marked IMMIGRATION.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’m making a little video and will only be here for a day. Just one day,” I say.

“Tell the immigration officer over there.”

Fortunately IMMIGRATION was empty, apart from the two lady officials.

“Tell us about this video you’re shooting.”

“It’s for a video about hospital errors in the U.S.A.” (I thought that would please them.)

“Who do you work for?”

“Technically, I work for myself, but I have been commissioned by Burton Goldberg to do this shoot.”

“Do you have a camera?”

I show them the camera bag.

“Tell us about Burton Goldberg.”

Dear Reader, this is as close to verbatim as I can get. Eventually they let me go.

Catch a shuttle bus at 12:30 a.m. “Downtown Holiday Inn Express, please.” I arrived at the airport Holiday Inn Express 15 minutes later. “I said downtown.” “You said Holiday Inn.” “I said downtown!”

I arrive at the correct hotel at 2 a.m. Burton made the right decision to stay at home.

The next morning, I tour the location. I’m glad I brought my tripod wheels. Decide to do a tracking shot around the lab. They give me the boardroom to shoot the interview in. I put all the chairs into the corridor. Carry out most of the tables, too. Oh, the glamour of making videos. Put the MacBook on a table in front of the camera. Set the greenscreen against the far wall.

For the lights, I set up my Rifa 500-watt to the right of the camera. Put a Dedo at the rear wall for back light. Put a second Dedo down low near the victim’s chair facing the greenscreen. And turn off the house fluorescents.

Generally, I try to place my greenscreen 6 to 8 feet away from the subject. Ditto camera. It all depends on the room size. With smaller rooms, use the diagonal.

My formula for no-brainer lighting: Light-interviewer-camera, or interviewer-camera-light. The side of the face facing the camera goes darker than the other side. Generally, back light should be on the opposite side as the key light. Daylight back light with tungsten front light works well–just keep them on opposite sides.

With good daylight coming into the room, say on the right, put the interviewer to the right of the camera. Turn the chair to get the best balance, but never have the daylight strike your subject straight on. Camera-interviewer-daylight from window. Add back light to suit. That’s why the dimmable Dedos work well. Just slide up the brightness. The shots of Katia shown were lit with daylight and a Dedo back light.

Katia lit by daylight and a 150-watt Dedo backlight. Greenscreen lit with daylight.

Katia composited against another iStockphoto.com background.

I continue preparing for the shot in the boardroom in Edmonton. Lights up. Camera ready. Lens at eye height. Chair in place for the victim. Here comes the hard part. I put the MacBook on phone directories until it’s just under the camera lens. Connect an Ethernet cable through the room’s Ethernet wall connector. Run the MacBook headphone out to a mini speaker on the table. The victim will be able to see and hear Burton via iChat. To do that, I set the camera input to DV in iChat’s preferences and set the microphone to line in.

This interview was shot against a Reflecmedia screen. I prefer a simple greenscreen. They're lighter to carry and don't suffer the seam seen here. I had to fix her green sweater in AdvantEdge. Her earrings were very close to the green-screen's color.

With an Internet connection up and running, this next bit is trickier. I shoot in 1080i HD but down-convert inside the camera to DV. Don’t use the Squeeze setting. Opt for Letter Box. I feed this via FireWire to the MacBook so Burton can see the victim. I use a double headphone adapter on the camera with one output feeding headphones and the second output connecting to the mic input on the MacBook.

In Tijuana, Dr. Ramirez has had great results getting paraplegics to walk. However, the good doctor's real office is cluttered and not photogenic.

Dr. Ramierz shot against the background in the image above this one. The keylight is from my trusty Rifa 500, which fits nicely into my 26-inch Skyway suitcase. The back light is natural daylight.

Phone Burton 2,000 miles away. “Hi Burton. Time to log on to iChat. Just accept my invitation for a video chat. Great to see you. Is that Belinda in the kitchen?”

“We’ve got a good connection but his face looks a bit dark to me.”

“No Burton, it’s just your monitor.”

“I can’t see one side of his face. It’s dark.”

“Must be the iChat connection adding contrast. Looks good here. Ready when you are.”

“Hi, I’m Burton. Thank you for doing this interview. Remember, when you answer my questions, look into the lens. Keep your eyes there. Don’t look at me. You’re on a big silver screen. Are you running, Stefan?”

“Yes Burton. I’m running. Start whenever you like.”