On the Road with Ken Willinger
On the Road with Ken Willinger
He's traveled the globe, camera in tow, and now he's here to share some stories with us! Thanks Ken!
Foreword
Producing high-end video for documentaries in foreign countries has been a specialty of mine for several years. I lived, worked and traveled abroad for a good portion of the 1980's and into the early 90's for CNN, NBC and The Christian Science Monitors "World Monitor" respectively. Throughout those years of intensive travel I've learned how to deal with and prepare for the out of the norm situations which come up while working and traveling to foreign countries.
Since 1992 I've been a freelancer and have had some great experiences abroad. I'll share some tips and procedures I've used along the way.
The best project this year was with a new client, which brought Audio Technician Tom Williams and myself to Russia for the month of March to shoot a one hour documentary called "Volga Germans in Russian/German population of the German Volga Republic as traitors in the Nazi invasion of The Soviet Union during WW2. It is currently in post and should be ready by mid-January 1996.
We used very high production value and dragged 18 (not a lot, really!) cases of gear with us through Moscow, Seratov (in the Volga Region, formerly the Russian |German Republic) and Vorkuta, mining city 150 miles above the Arctic circle. The crew consisted of myself (DP/Camera), Tom (Audio), Al Admire (Producer), Katie Baldwin (PA), Dirk Bergdorf (German Translator), and a full time Russian Translator.
I had of course my beloved Ikegami HLV-55 camera and brought a BVW-35 deck as a record back-up. It's been a valuable asset to have that deck along. Not only do I use it in all sit down interview situations (to save head wear on the V-55) but also in case of the unforeseen record problem in the camera. It has happened before and that deck has saved my ass!
Two of the first things to think about when traveling abroad with a lot of expensive video equipment, especially if you own it is: 1) Insurance and 2) Customers.
Insurance is easy enough. Most people insure their gear. But if your traveling abroad, it doesn't mean you're insured. You must get a rider (at extra cost) for the amount of time you'll be out of the country. You're normal coverage does not (in most cases) cover travel abroad. Full-time yearly worldwide coverage is expensive to keep and hard to get. You're better off getting a rider for each trip you make. And you must be specific with your insurance company as to where you'll be working. There are places where you will not be covered, i.e. war zones like Bosnia. Even going to Russia was dicey. They wanted assurances that I was not going to Chechnya to cover the war there.
Most people think of Customs as an easy affair. Get a Carnet (International travel documents for equipment) and you're all set. That's true if you're traveling to countries which accept Carnets. But in the last 2 years, I've traveled to Russia, Trinidad, Fiji, and Kenya. None of them recognize the Carnet. And in each place it has been quite an ordeal bringing my equipment into the country. The first thing I do is create an Equipment List listing all my gear, model numbers, serial numbers and value on my company letterhead. I don't go too crazy, like listing each electrical cable and gobo. I'll put assorted grip gear, assorted electrical gear etc. for the smaller items but will be quite specific on expensive items. (However, be very specific with your insurance company. They will not cover what you have not listed with them.)
I take that list to US Customs the day before (if I'm traveling very early in the morning) or the day of travel (they usually want it the day of) and have them stamp it along with a Registration form (available from customs) as gear traveling with me out of the country. Bring all the gear with you and make it available for inspection. They may want to check serial numbers. DO NOT LOSE THIS US. CUSTOMS STAMPED LIST. It is proof that you left the country with the gear and can return without having to pay duty. You can now leave US and return without a problem.
To go into a non Carnet country I usually prepare 2 more lists. One without values of the gear and one with greatly deflated values of the gear. So now I'm carrying three lists. I keep several copies of each one. Each country is different and may want different things from you. I'll usually try the list without values first upon entering the country and going through the "Things To Declare" or Red channel. Sometimes after getting a supervisor and explaining what you'll be doing in their country, you may be allowed in with that list alone. It's rare but has happened. Sometimes it depends on who you're working for and what kind of connections they have in that country. More often than not they will want to know values of equipment. That's when you take out you're deflated value list. This sometimes is all they need and again will let you proceed into the country.
But sometimes they want to know values so they can assess duty on your gear. A duty for bringing it into the country! Even though they know you will be taking it out when you're done. That's why you want the deflated value list. It will help the budget of your client and will be greatly appreciated. And if you're sponsoring your own trip, you'll save a bundle in these import duty fees. Don't ever show the full value list. That's only for US customs on return if you need extra copies.
I always warn my clients in advance about these situations, and many times they have people in-country to help facilitate the customs process. I also warn them of possible license fees they may need. In Trinidad the gear was impounded for two days. Through the clients' in-country connections, we got the gear out without any duty payments.
In Kenya it was impounded for almost a week! That is expensive to the client because the crew is still getting paid and they are losing many shoot days. Duty had to be paid (on the deflated value list which saved the client thousands) and a license fee had to be paid for shooting in the country. It's lucky we weren't shooting a doc on the animals. That license fee is outrageously expensive.
In Russia, customs is always a crap shoot. You never know what's going to happen. They may wave you through without looking at a thing, or they may hold you up for what seems like an eternity asking questions and looking at your gear.
You're required to fill out a customs list when entering Russia. This goes back to the days of the USSR. You had to claim everything you were going in with. Even watches and wedding rings! So that you couldn't sell it on the black market. Now it's a bit looser but they still require customs forms with a list of stuff you're bringing in, in order to take it back out of the country when you leave. Through personal experience, on a previous trip to Russia I discovered that my equipment list was not sufficient. I could not attach it to their form and write on it "see attached list".
I had to fill in every item on my list, by hand, onto their form. Of course their form isn't long enough. I needed 4 of them. This last time I had several extra copies of their form which I filled out prior to getting there. It saved me at least an hour at customs in Sheremetyevo airport copying my list onto their form! This time they just stamped my forms and waved me through...all eighteen cases, without looking at a thing, and without wanting values! (They actually wanted values when we left the country, I don't know why!!).
So now I'm in country. I know that the client is looking for a high end product, but couldn't afford to bring a huge production team in with tons of gear. Hauling excess baggage is very expensive, depending on where you're traveling to or from. Sometimes you can arrange special rates with the airlines and again I warn the client of this in advance.
I worked out a basic yet highly effective equipment package to bring with us. Of course lighting is key, but we couldn't bring so much as to make it difficult to be mobile since we would probably be going to several locations a day.
Along with an Arri fresnell light kit (3 300's & 1 650), 2 Lowell Omnis, two Totas, a 200W Pepper, an XS and S Chimera lightbank and a Kobald 200W HMI, I special ordered Flags and Nets which would fit in the Arri case. Make sure you find out the voltage in the country your visiting and get the proper lamps (220V in Russia).
To cut down on stands (6 Arri stands, 2 Lowell stands, 2 C-stands w/gobos) I brought Articulating Arms which would hold flags or nets attached to the existing stand with a Maffer clamp. It worked brilliantly and has now become a favorite method when controlling light, especially when working in limited space. I also got some sandbags from Matthews which have Velcro on them.
I traveled with them empty and filled them when we got to Russia. You should have seen me trying to explain to the Russian fixer that I wanted 60 pounds of sand! This was the perfect kit for the kind of lighting we did, which in most cases was a single interview subject.
Since the producer wanted to get a realistic feeling of the hardships the subjects of the documentary withstood, shooting took place in March. The weather was frigid in all of the cities we shot in, especially in Vorkuta. 25 below zero is not unusual. I hit REI before I left to get the proper cold weather gear to wear, but what about operating the camera in that weather?
I have a porta-brace camera cover for the V-55 but I knew that wouldn't be enough. So I bought a bunch of those hand warmer bags which you use when skiing. Open it up and shake it and it gets really warm outside. As it turned out, I never had to use this system as the camera performed magnificently even in the frigid weather. But I was prepared!
I brought a Sachtler video 20 head with 2 stage aluminum sticks. I like a heavy tripod, especially when doing a lot of outdoor shooting. It really helped on Red Square where I was trying to get a shot of the bust of Stalin which is behind Lenin's Tomb. I wasn't allowed to bring the camera behind the tomb so it had to be a shot at the end of the bottle. Of course the wind was strong so the heavy head and sticks helped to stabilize the shot somewhat.
All my charging devices were 220V as was my power supply. I use an IDX 111,. Not only is it auto switchable but it also has three DC outputs and variable output voltage (12V-17). This allows me to run several items off of one power supply. Also I can boost the voltage in a long run or with poor power. My monitor is not 220V so I ran that off the power supply along with the BVW-35 which powered my camera through the 26 pin connector.
For filtration, along with what I usually carry, I specifically got some graduated ND filters for my matte box. I knew there would be situations where I'd be shooting desolate Tundra with white snow as far as you can see and then the horizon blending into a white sky. I wanted to be able to create a separation between the two, and the filters worked great.
For audio, Tom boomed all the sit-down interviews with a Sennheiser 416. We had Sony ECM 77's available and also had 2 Lectrosonic radio mics with trams available.
As an added bonus for the producer, I brought a wireless Timecode reader which attaches a transmitter off the TC out of your camera/deck. The receiver is in a clipboard which holds a notepad and has a large LED readout at the top. It also has a hold button to stop the counter as you write notes. When you release the button, time code picks up at real time. Producers love this thing.
Of course one of the most important things I did before this trip was to have my camera checked out before I left. I use Macie Video Service for all my maintenance and bring my camera to Roger Macie before every major trip I take. I do this even if I am not seeing problems with recordings. Preventive maintenance is the way to go.
More on foreign travel in my next article.
Snow Geese
Now for something totally different. A wildlife documentary. Yes, a full one hour doc on, believe it or not, Snow Geese. I've done a lot of different shoots on a lot of different subjects in my 17 years of making video, including long format magazine style pieces on nature related subjects, but this is the first full length wildlife doc.
The hook to the story is that Snow Geese - a migratory bird - genus white or blue, have grown so great in number that they are in danger of decimating their own breeding grounds on the James Bay and Hudson Bay in Canada. They are ruining their habitat so greatly that it is effecting many other migratory birds and arctic animals.
In order to see the process, it was decided that the migratory cycle be documented. In order to do this we began our filming on the James Bay coast where the Snow Geese stage on their way north to their nesting grounds on Akimiski Island, the northern James Bay coast and the Hudson Bay coast in Canada. On this initial trip the crew consisted of myself, Sound Technician Tom Williams and Producer Al "Big Daddy" Admire. Also with us was Dr. Bruce Batt of Ducks Unlimited.
Since this was the first time doing a full length wildlife doc, I knew I had a lot to learn. The first thing I thought I would need for sure was a blind. It is very difficult to get close to these birds. They are very wary, unlike other species like Canada Geese which we see up and down the East Coast year round grazing on large corporate lawns and public gardens. These guys take off if you get within about 100 meters. Even a long lens doesn't do that well at that kind of distance.
The producer and I did some research and he came up with a two man blind for still photography. I couldn't find anything for film or video, even when searching on the net and professional forums, and as I soon found out, there is a reason why. But we'll get to that later.
This particular blind was of a water repellent canvas material that folded out from an L shape on metal rods into a circle basically creating a tent about four and a half feet tall and five feet across. The center of the base is where all the rods connected so they fanned out all around like the spokes of a bicycle. You can begin to see the problem!
There were two lens ports, one at 10 o'clock, one at 2 o'clock and screened visual ports in six other locations around the blind. We had two of these blinds which we set up together since there were four of us.
Although they were called two man tents, once you set up a tripod (Sachtler video 20 on 20 stage legs) space became very tight. Also, we had a lot of supplies with us spread between the two blinds. We were not sure how long it would take for the birds to get close to us, or if they would get close to us, so we had water and food, tons of batteries and tape stock, and extra lens (24X) a small monitor, some cases to carry our stuff to location (we could only get to location by helicopter) and audio gear. On the next two trips we had even more stuff!
So I was in the blind with the camera and Big Daddy (6'2" and he was bummin') and Tom was in the 2nd blind with the audio rig and Bruce.
Figuring out where we should locate ourselves was critical. On this first trip Bruce was worried that we get the "money" shot, basically what this doc was all about. Grubbing.
Grubbing is what Snow Geese do when thay eat. And they eat grass. A particular grass which grows along the shore of these sub arctic areas where they stage and nest. When this grubbing activity takes place, it is early spring (for sub arctic). We were shooting mid May. The James Bay and Hudson Bay are still frozen solid. Snow is still everywhere, but small pockets are beginning to melt creating holes to the earth where the grass grows along the edge of small ponds of melt. The Snow Geese in groups of thousands feed along these edges pulling the grass up by the roots, washing the mud off in the water and eating the roots and grass. this process of pulling the grass out by the roots is grubbing. We needed a closeup of this action.
Our staging area was a Cree Indian town called Attawapaskat. With no hotel in the town we made arrangements to stay at the police station house for our week of shooting. To get to where the Snow Geese were we had to fly via helicopter about 50 miles north.
The first day we did a survey to check out where they were. We flew along the coast at about 500 feet. It wasn't long before we started to see some fairly large flocks. The noise from the helicopter would scare them up.
Pretty soon we were seeing hundreds of thousands of birds. As we flew along we also saw some Cree Indian hunting blinds with decoys laid out made of mud and snow. The mud ones on the snow and vice versa. We decided to land and sit in one of these blinds just to see what happens. Kevin, our pilot, was in cantact with us via radio.
I had my Ikegami V-55 with me along with my tripod (only camera mike audio as Tom was not on this survey) and set up inside this hunting blind. we immediately learned our first lesson. We all jumped out of the helicopter and Kevin departed immediately. As he left, he scared up a huge flock of birds which would have been great shots had we been set up, but of course we weren't. But we also discovered we could use the chopper as a tool to move the flocks around, specifically towards us, and if lucky, they would land right in front of us and begin grubbing.
The Cree Indian hunting blind was literally a hole about six feet wide dug out of the snow with the walls built up four feet high all around it. On top and along the outer walls were branches of willow to conceal it and the floor was covered with evergreen boughs to keep your feet warm. This is a great set up for hunting, but very difficult for filming. You can't shoot between the branches so you have to lift the camera on the tripod higher than the walls, which exposes you to A( the birds - who have tremendous eyesight, and B) the intense cold, stiff wind which if shooting at the end of your lens creates the earthquake effect.
The survey worked out very well. We learned a lot about what to do when out next. We could shepherd the birds, we had to be hidden, and we had to be out of the wind. And amazingly enough, we actually got some very useable material on the survey. Bruce who is a biologist and has worked with and studied water fowl all his life was totally pumped when he screened the material later that night.
The following day we flew back to the same area with our own manufactured blinds. On a natural levee close to the James Bay shore where the birds feed, we dug into the snow and set our blinds into the snowbank. Then we covered them with white sheets so as to blend into the snowbank. After we were all set up we let the helicopter pilot depart. As he flew down the coast, wave after wave of snow geese came up. From a distance they looked like great swarms of bees.
The waves of geese kept flying over us. Thousands and thousands of them. Soon some began to land in a wetland area behind us, which really pissed us off. There was no way to reconfigure our position so as to film them. Then luckily a small group landed about one thousand yards in front of us. And even though I had the 24X lens it was nothing for that distance. We sat there for several hours as slowly more and more geese landed and began feeding in front of us. And as more came in, the closer they got to us.
Our camouflaging the blinds by digging them into the snow and covering them with white sheets was paying off. They didn't seem to notice us and we got birds as close as about 15 yards which with the 24X on a doubler allowed us to get the "money shot!" - close up shots of beaks digging into the mud, pulling up grass and roots, washing it off in the water and chowing it down.
We stayed the whole day and got as much footage as we could and were extremely happy to finally pull up stakes and leave. Sitting basically motionless for 8 hours without being able to go out and relieve yourself is very difficult. And it was mighty cold!
When we got back to the police house in Attawapaskat, Bruce who had been in the other blind with Tom doing audio and hadn't seen a frame of footage was itching to screen tape. We cued up the "money shot." Man he was beside himself saying this kind of stuff had never been put on tape before! That we were the first to record this grubbing activity! We lucked out. The rest of the first trip was gravy. We had recorded the hardest element on the first real day of shooting.
To be continued...........
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