Friday, February 19, 2010

Phantom Power

I worked for about two hours at the City of Lakewood, and it was mostly to learn how to work the new equipment. Something called "Phantom power" was the main focus. For new sound equipment that they had just bought. I've deal with this odd idea once before back in my Proud Father days. (My god, I can refer to those days in past tense). Phantom power is just a slick way of saying "It needs more than one power source."

After that, I would have work for the PCTA shooting a musical play in Westminster. But that wouldn't be for another three hours, so I made a dumb move and went to Comics Unlimited. This was a dumb move because they were working, while I was merely killing time. I made an attempt to get a pointless conversation going with Lainey and Nancy, to reenact the wonderful random talk of Wednesdays.

Whoops.

You see, Wednesdays are a little more easier for them to participate in random convos. Too many people to do anything but talk and sell, so its not as much a hindrance. But Friday is when they have to do nitty-gritty real work stuff, not the little dream that I have in my head. Here's how it went today:

ME- "Wow, can you believe there's a Beatles Trade Paperback?"
LAINEY- "Yeah, crazy."
NANCY- "Huh."
ME- "Yep. Oh, check it out. John Lennon got killed in this panel a lot like Batman's parents did."
LAINEY- "I love John Lennon. Why would you say that? I hate you." (I added the last bit for dramatic effect).
ME- "Wow, look at the time! I need to be going to something."

So I got the hell out of there before I truly killed my welcome. (Yes, Lainey was just teasing. But I figured I'd get out before I wasn't being teased anymore). I headed over to Panera to buy a free water and write ideas down for a skit. Finally, 3:30 rolled around and I headed to Westminster to shoot the musical play. I found out the title when I got there:

Murder On The High C's!

Oh you know wackiness is afoot with a title like that. We had to set up cameras and audio. We actually set up in rapid order, feeling pretty awesome about ourselves. We had time grab lunch and talk about nothing in particular.

Topics of Conversation @ Rose Center Theater: My co-worker's Ron Jeremy story, furrys, dumpster treasure, Halo 3 documentaries, camera work for the sake of redemption, Tommy's Burger and the guilt it brings, zombie fortification, etc.

Murder On the High C's was actually pretty good. A self-aware musical that got a kick out of breaking the fourth wall. The singing was pretty spot on, and the entire plot wasn't too bad, if a little by the numbers. The only problem was that the head on the tripod that I was using for my camera was massively off balance. It was my fault for not double checking whoever set it up in the first place, but it was so front heavy that the camera CONSTANTLY leaned forward with almost the entire weight of the camera. This is bad because that guarantees that smooth shots are nearly impossible, especially if you need to follow someone. I had to hold the camera perfectly still for over an hour, at the same time, making sure that I kept the subtle vibration, from the shaking of my tired arms, from affecting each shot.

Good times.

I was later able to fix the head to a point that I was able to actually relax for most of the second half of the show. The shoot went off without any obvious hitches, and we broke down everything with minimal effort.

Blah blah production assistant blah.

-Nate

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