EQUIPMENT (complications, scheduling, and equipment haul) !!!

     This is the week where things for this project are picking up at a pretty fast pace.  I've finally finished my script and most pre-production things and I've started to film.  And in order to film, I need equipment.  I have my own camera and tripod but I wanted to go all out for this project, so I rented out equipment from this really cool place called BECON-TV.

    BECON is a TV station where a lot of different things go on, and one of those things is a show called Shortcuts that consists of student-submitted short films and other video types.  Shortcuts is ran by Jim Guarasci, and one of the cool things he does is allow any South Florida student to DM him and ask to borrow from a wide variety of really good equipment for a few days.  I actually used to work at BECON with Jim as my boss, so I was able to ask for the equipment only 3 days in advance hehe.  I got a whole lot of equipment that Jim helped me pick out specifically for what I wanted to do within the film.  So thank you Jim <3

    The only issue here is that I was planning on returning the equipment on the 14th, because on the 15th I leave for a TV competition in California, and I wanted to maximize my filming time according to my schedule.  But unfortunately, Jim is also going to the competition but he's leaving on the 14th in the morning, so it would be impossible to return it then.  My only other option was to return it the 13th, which would give me a bit less time to film, especially since I couldn't film this past Monday.  So I just decided to cope and use all the time to film this week to film I can.  We filmed yesterday, and plan to use today and Friday to finish, since my actors aren't available over the weekend.  My only worry is that we won't be able to get everything within these three days.  but worst case scenario, I use my own equipment during next week to get any shots that I'm missing on any day that my actors would be available.

    So now that that's out of the way, let me show you the equipment I checked out!

    First up is the camera.  I decided to check out the Sony a7iii because I've used it before, and it might be my favorite camera to work with.  The image is always automatically beautiful, and I love how the controls give me full manual access to the camera.  

    To go with the camera, I checked out a variety of Rokinon lenses, that are very nice and very expensive, so I have to be extra careful with them (not them I'm not careful with other equipment but you know what I me
an).  These are prime lenses with mean that they don't zoom, which is why there are several of them so you can use a wider or more telephoto lens.  The lens Jim lent me include a 14 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, and 85 mm.

    I also checked out a boom microphone and a pole to hold it.  This just helps me get the best audio quality possible.

    The last thing I checked out was a light kit.  Jim had light kits that I was used to from using them in school as well, but I decided to check out different ones referred to as Cobb lights for their RGB settings and for some reason I just like them better.  These lights will help me achieve a lot of the different strangely-lit shots I want to incorporate into my project.