December 21st, 2008
We packed ourselves top to bottom into two mini vans. One with the crew and gear and the other with five wrestlers and one unlucky, or depending on how you look at it, lucky crew member. Our our way to the nations capital, Ottawa, Ontario to shoot 3 wrestling shows and finish off shooting for our television show "Kardinal Sinners" for Rush HD.
This road trip wraps up shooting that has spanned over the last 6 weeks. Its basically the 2nd season of our "Wrestling Reality" show. But since the Fight Network screwed us over, Rush HD picked up the show and we changed the name to "Kardinal Sinners"- the name of the "greatest wrestling faction in history" of Brody Steele, Kowboy Mike Hughes and Trash Canyon. So essentially we were to follow those three, "Wildman" Gray Williams and Frankie Sloan (who hails from Liverpool, UK) to Ottawa where we were scheduled to shoot 3 nights of matches and everything that happens in between.
Shooting a documentary series like this is kind of like guerrilla warfare. The smaller and more mobile and tactical group (in this case, the filmmakers) maneuver, weave and bob our way around "shooting" the bigger, more powerful, albeit, less mobile group which are the wrestlers. Although I love following these characters around and have developed an unlikely friendship with all of them, its much like babysitting a group of large children. The good thing is, the more ridiculous they act, the better story you usually have!One thing I have learned from shooting such this last year is that gaining their respect and trust is paramount to getting good content. I always make a conscious effort to be around them as much as possible in any given situation, to build a bond. Once you get that, then you can get the gold. They trust telling you everything, even when the camera is right in their face. Even when they tell you "don't film this", you do it anyway without them noticing. Not to exploit them in any way, because I would never do that, but to get as much "real" content as possible. (Im sure im going to get a black eye for doing this eventually).
I say "real" content because it's very difficult to actually capture something pure and real. Having a camera in any environment automatically changes the majority of situations when the subject knows the camera is present. Once they know a camera is there, they will most often act differently than they normally would if there were no camera in the room.
Thankfully for us though, our wrestlers are all excellent on camera. We often don't have to ask them questions, they will just say what we want to hear. Making our jobs a lot easier.
We shot this season with a 4 camera set-up compared to a 6 camera set-up last year because less of our attention was focused on the matches themselves. We used 3 Sony EX1's and 1 Sony EX3 ( third from the right). So for the events we had a 3-camera setup, then I was backstage with Greg on the main documentary camera. Then once the matches were finished, we would usually have two documentary camera's on hand at all times.
We followed the wrestlers everywhere...you name it. I once again volunteered for the first night shift in Quebec City following a group of drunk englishh giants around a beautiful French town in thirty below zero snow storm. This always makes for a golden opportunity to get some good content, cause they usually love the camera once they loosen up a bit. Its always good for a laugh and this year was no exception.
Things would have been a lot more interesting though for outdoor shooting if temperatures had been more favourable. We still managed to drag them out to the parliament buildings in Ottawa and when they went to get their afternoon tan, we stuck around to get some great shots of the city. It was so cold though. It's really hard to wear gloves as well when you are operating a camera hand held, so I remember my fingers in agony after 5 minutes of shooting. I still remember the look of anguish on Lauchlan's face when we were shooting. It was that "Are we really shooting in this weather?" look. Although he had more things in store for him (can't say anymore about the subject)
It's always a marathon shooting these run and gun style of documentaries, but its what we do best. We always manage to make it work and we do great work spontaneously.It's an exhausting process though. Shooting 16-20 hour days, then staying up most of the night dumping and organizing footage, organizing gear, charging batteries, then crashing for a few hours only to wake up exhausted and do it all over again.
It's a process I don't think anyone gets used to, but I love it. Filmmaking always seems like such a glamorous process, when it fact it is the furthest thing from it. I feel so privileged everyday to do this and get paid for it. I never get sick of that...and after all the shooting is said and done and evreryone is exhausted and tired after weeks of shooting.....
I get to spend the next ten weeks widleing down over 100 hours of footage into six, 22-minute episodes of entertainment. Wish me luck!
Cheers.
