The Camera Assistant

A Complete Professional Handbook

Douglas Hart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136049132
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Películas y vídeos

Veteran camera assistant Doug Hart describes in this comprehensive technical guide all of the important facets and duties of the first and second camera assistants' jobs. Whether it is feature films, episodic television, documentaries, commercials, or music videos, The Camera Assistant: A Complete Professional Handbook explains both the practice and theory behind it with a concentration on technique rather than equipment. In addition, personal anecdotes from the author's years behind and beside the camera provide insight into this demanding field.

Key topics include film formats and aspect ratios, testing lenses and camera equipment, focus theory, film loading and labeling, scene blocking, marking actors, shooting tips, slating, paperwork, equipment maintenance, set etiquette, and finding work. This is not a camera equipment handbook; it is a comprehensive procedures manual which describes and explains the most important responsibilities of the camera assistant on the set, the theory behind the practice, and the methods that get the job done properly and keep the assistant frequently employed.

Douglas C. Hart has been a freelance first-camera assistant on feature films, documentaries, television shows, and commercials for more than 20 years, including 10 years (and 10 films) as first-camera assistant to Gordon Willis, ASC, as well as work in 42 states and 26 foreign countries. His work includes Presumed Innocent, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Cosby Mysteries, and CBS's Central Park West. He is a member and former president of the International Photographers Local 644, IATSE, and teaches the Camera Assistant Workshops at the International Film and Television Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Camera Assisting

What is a Camera Assistant?

A professional motion picture Camera Assistant is a very valuable commodity, all too often overlooked in the hustle and hype of contemporary motion picture production.

The Camera Assistant is the person closest to the camera on the motion picture set, usually standing quietly on the camera's left side, ever alert. The Camera Assistant is instantly recognizable by the roll of white camera tape hanging on one side of his or her belt, usually balanced by a small pouch of pens, markers, and small tools on the other side.

The Camera Assistant is wary as someone approaches the sacred machine, as watchful as a mother grizzly bear with her cubs. Yes, someone may touch the camera, may look through the eyepiece, may even change the direction the camera is pointing, but no harm shall befall that wondrous machine while the noble Camera Assistant is standing sentinel. No president, queen, or prime minister ever enjoyed protection as vigilant.

When hungry, the camera in the Assistant's charge shall be fed-film in magazines on top or on the back, electricity through cables plugged into the back or side, heat when necessary, lenses and filters in front, oil for the mechanism inside. When the camera moves to the next set or location, the Camera Assistant places a casual but resolute hand on the magazine or handle, and walks alongside in a procession of vigilance and confidence.

This delicate precision machine is to be kept safe, warm, and dry at all costs, even when the Camera Assistant may not be. It is not only the potential expense that keeps the Camera Assistant so protective, it is “the job.”

The job of the professional motion picture Camera Assistant requires an unusual, demanding, and sometimes very personally satisfying and financially rewarding combination of talent and skill and luck and experience.

The job involves technical expertise (an understanding of photography, mechanics, optics, electricity, and electronics), certain physical attributes (manual dexterity, quick reflexes, excellent peripheral vision, good judgment of time and speed and distance, physical strength, and considerable endurance), and considerable mental and attitude control (organizational ability, consistency, good memory, patience, extraordinary concentration under conditions of stress and distraction, common sense, flexibility, adaptability, a briskness of attitude and demeanor, boundless energy, and a good sense of humor).

The job may also involve considerable local and world travel, interesting and unique people, places and events, occasional excitement, meeting and working with “celebrities,” substantial financial rewards for a few very good and very lucky ones, and the ever-present possibility for advancement to Camera Operator, Director of Photography, and maybe even Director.

That's the “up” side.

The “down” side is that the job all too often requires long hours, little sleep, low pay, unpredictable and seasonal freelance employment, stressful family and social life, minimal or nonexistent job security, unfair favoritism, more patience and tolerance than should be required of any mere mortal, working conditions of extreme heat, cold, wet, damp, dirt, mud, dust, smoke, etc., not even imaginable by most civilians (those outside the industry), occasional extremely hazardous situations, and the necessity to put up with the absolute dregs of humankind—the stupid, the arrogant, the dishonest, the incompetent, the criminal, and the asinine, all of whom seem to be attracted in droves to the film business.

We shoot in blizzards in winter, jungles in summer, inside coal mines and construction sites and land fills. And when it is not raining, we often make our own rain to work in.

I always tell the classes and workshops that I teach that if you can't go for 48 hours without sleep, 12 hours without food, or 8 hours without a bathroom or a phone, then stay out of this business, at least as a Camera Assistant.

Someone once summarized the motion picture production process this way—”Hours of Excruciating Boredom, Punctuated by Moments of Sheer Terror.”

Still interested? Now comes the hard part—acquiring enough knowledge and experience to get yourself hired to this position, and to do the job once you are hired.

How does one prepare for a job as Camera Assistant? There are no classes in film school about Camera Assisting. I doubt if the Camera Assistant is even mentioned in most film schools. Film schools turn out directors, writers, editors, actors, and only rarely cinematographers and sound mixers. Other positions on the film crew, such as the Camera Assistants, are ignored and denigrated, if not downright slandered.

The reality is that the Camera Assistant is often, if not generally, the first one to start in the morning, the last one to finish at night, and has one of the highest responsibility levels on the set.

Accepting Responsibility

A prime requisite of the job of Camera Assistant is the ability to accept the responsibility thrust upon him or her by the job. Accepting responsibility sometimes means admitting mistakes.

If anyone else on the set makes a mistake you can usually see it right away—if an actor flubs a line, an electrician misses a light cue, a dolly moves too fast or runs over the director's foot, a microphone dips into the frame; everyone can see these things right away, and can try again.

If the Camera Assistant makes a mistake, it is quite likely that no one will see it until dailies are screened the next day. That makes these mistakes by Camera Assistants very costly to the production company because if something must be reshot because of that mistake, you have to go and set it all up again—go back to the location that you thought you were done with, relight, redress, bring in actors who thought they were wrapped, etc.

A missed focus pull, a bumpy zoom, a scratched negative, or hair in the gate can prevent the director from using the take he or she might have preferred because of an actor's performance. A mistake in film can or magazine labeling, or in inserting a filter, can mean a very expensive reshoot of an entire scene or perhaps even a whole day's work.

A Camera Assistant who is preoccupied or distracted or ill or tired can make a multithousand-dollar mistake in a second, and no one will be aware of it until the dailies screening, or until the panic phone call from the lab the next morning.

Preventing Mistakes

This is why on a set you will hear the Camera Assistants constantly asking each other if they have remembered to remove the 85 filter, or checked the amount of film left in the magazine, or called to order the high-speed camera for next week; a continual barrage of questions and reminders between them.

There are a great many things going on at any given moment, and the two Camera Assistants on the job can keep reminding each other about them. This is not a result of inexperience, or of not trusting each other, but is the mark of a professional. The airplane pilot has his checklist to run through before take-off to remind him of the hundreds of small items that can contribute to an airplane's flightworthiness, the Camera Assistants have each other.

A good Camera Assistant will never take offense at being asked if the filter has been changed, or what stock is in the magazine. It is that kind of constant dialogue and double-checking that minimizes mistakes. Directors of Photography and Camera Operators also sometimes get involved in this dialogue, especially if they have come up through the ranks and have spent any time as Camera Assistants themselves.

Everyone makes mistakes, even Camera Assistants. No one is immune. And there is nothing wrong with making mistakes. What is wrong, and potentially devastating, is failure to admit a mistake. If a mistake is made, no matter how trivial or large, the Assistant must immediately let the Director of Photography know what happened, and begin the process of repairing the damage.

Tell the Director of Photography

If something has to be reshot, it is cheaper and easier to reshoot it immediately, while the shot is still set up, or while the crew and equipment are on the same location, than to have to reschedule and reassemble everyone at a later date. The most important thing is to get the shot, regardless of the consequences.

If you do make a mistake while shooting, it's very important that you tell someone immediately—go to the Director of Photography and say “I messed up that take—I had the wrong filter in,” or “I missed a focus mark,” or “I zoomed the wrong way,” or whatever the problem is.

But tell the Director of Photography immediately—I can't stress that strongly enough. The Director of Photography may have some harsh words for you, but you'll get the shot. Hopefully the Director of Photography will not make a spectacle out of it and embarrass you in front of the entire crew, but he may just call you over later and say emphatically, “Don't ever do that again!”

If the D.P. chooses to take you aside later and chastise you for your error, so be it, that comes with the job. We've all been yelled at, and we've all survived. But the shot is in the can, and that is the important thing. “The Show Must Go On!”

There must be a constant dialogue back and forth between the members of the Camera Crew. It's not that they don't trust each other, it's just an insurance or safety device, a mutual support system designed to minimize mistakes. Under “combat” conditions, it is all too easy to overlook some small yet vital aspect of the Camera Assistants’ job. There are 100 things to remember at any one time. Only remembering 99 of them is not good enough. You've got to remember all 100 and you do that through the constant dialogue between the First and Second Assistants. It's an attempt at making the system foolproof.

When the Director of Photography asks for a lens or a filter, or gives the Assistant the lens aperture or frame rate to be set for the shot, the Assistant should repeat back the request out loud and in its entirety.

This is partly to let the D.P. know that the request has been heard correctly by the Assistant, and partly to give the D.P. one last chance to change his or her mind. Hearing the request back verbally (not just “Yes” or “OK) gives both the opportunity to decide if that is what they really want.

Generalities

A feature film, television movie, and television series will almost always have a First Camera Assistant and a Second Camera Assistant. A television commercial or documentary usually will have only one Camera Assistant, although more and more commercial shoots are beginning to realize the value of having a second pair of eyes, a second pair of hands, and a second brain next to that camera.

I have to keep qualifying my statements with “usually” and “almost always” because there are no hard and fast rules about this business, only generalities. I will try in this book not to use absolutes to avoid getting into trouble with my readers. So many of these decisions are based on the amount of money available in the budget, or on the working styles and experience of various individuals, that there are no hard and fast rules.

The Camera Assistant has a very large responsibility on any set, no matter how small or how large the set may be. I've invented a scale I call the “RSI”—the “Responsibility: Salary Index,” and I have determined through careful research that the Second Camera Assistant has the highest Responsibility to Salary Index on the set. In other words, the Second Camera Assistant has got one of the highest levels of responsibility compared with his salary, and the First Camera Assistant is not far behind him.

The next chapter describes in detail the respective responsibilities of the Camera Assistants and other members of the Camera Department and other departments on the set or location.

CHAPTER 2

Responsibilities of the Camera Assistant

Overview

The first logical step to take in a volume about professional motion picture camera assisting is to define what a Camera Assistant is and what a Camera Assistant does. In order to do this, however, we have to define what a lot of other people do as well, so it is clear how the Camera Assistant fits in to the team effort required for any motion picture project.

Filmmaking is a highly specialized undertaking. Neither the term “Art” nor the term “Business” describes the process adequately by themselves. The reality of film-making is that it is both an art and a business, and inseparably so. Perhaps “Industry” is the best description. Even the smallest, lowest-budget film involves many people performing a multitude of artistic, technical and administrative tasks.

The larger the budget and the more complicated the project, the more people are going to be directly involved in the manufacture of the product, and the more highly specialized they will be. This should be obvious to anyone who has sat through the ten minutes of screen credits found on typical recent theatrical motion pictures, especially the special effects action blockbusters we all love to watch.

Literally hundreds of different people work for months and even years on a particular project, rigidly divided into speci...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List Of Illustrations
• Preface
• 1 Introduction to Camera Assisting
• 2 Responsibilities of the Camera Assistant
• 3 Film Formats and Aspect Ratios
• 4 The Camera Equipment Checkout
• 5 Shooting Tests During Checkout 103
• 6 LoadinglUnloadiig
• 7 Lenses
• 8 Filters
• 9 Focus
• 10 Setup and Maintenance
• 11 Shooting Procedures
• 12 Slates and Slating
• 13 Paperwork
• 14 Video Assist Systems
• 15 Tools and Supplies
• 16 Education of a Camera Assistant, and Finding Work Afterwards
• Appendix A: Bibliography
• Appendix B: Expendable Supplies Shopping List
• Appendix C: Camera Equipment Checkout Checklist
• Appendix D: Useful Formulas and Charts
• Appendix E: Film Magazine Takeup
• Appendix F: Screen TimeICamera Running Time
• Index