1.What is your role / contribution to the film in each phase?
As the Assistant Cameraman, I’m supposed to count how much footage we’ve shot, make sure shot is in focus, help the d.o.p set up the camera and check the gate for any slice of film that was cut off. As no lights/dolly was used, I didn’t have to do any grip work.
2.What have you learnt in each phase?
Well one thing for sure, if you think you are 100% prepared to load a film, you’re not. I didn’t had any problems when I load the second film(the first one was load by my d.o.p), although I took about 5 mins. However, (cue dramatic music here), on the last day of filming, the magazine’s lock mechanism was faulty and I had to load out the exposed film into the can and the unexposed film into another magazine. Now, as I did this at a bus-stop while other people are looking at me wondering, why is there a guy sitting on the floor, beside a trashcan, with his hand in a bag? At first, it was easy but as I was transferring the unexposed film into another magazine, I took out the small black thing with the film which means I had to take out the small circular black thing(I’m really sorry about my lack of knowledge on SR2) and put it back in the magazine. Although I successfully manage to did that with the aide of my drenched, sweaty palm and in about 15 minutes(yup, that long), I knew I wasn’t prepared. I guess the saying “there’s no such thing as too much practice”(i think I’m making this up) is more appropriate than (practice makes perfect).
Another thing that I’ve learnt is that to check the gate. CHECK THE GATE. I remember when we were halfway shooting on the first day, Kevin, my d.o.p, checked the gate and says there’s something inside. The fact that checking the gate is my responsibility, I’ve begin to be paranoid, imagining what the outcome will be. Will there be like a huge line cutting across the frame?So, yeah, check the gate.
