“Tearing Down the Tent” camera man tells story
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a series of articles by Ryan Haggerty, Director of Photogrpahy for the Changing Elevations, Inc circus documentary “Tearing Down the Tent”
By Ryan Haggerty,
rhaggerty@modernfilmzine.com
I’m not sure what was the most magical part about that fateful week in April we scheduled to shoot the documentary with the Cole Bros. traveling tent circus.
It could have been the six and a half hour car ride. Maybe it was the complications to get final clearance on production insurance. Perhaps it was our HDV cam showing a mysterious white spot on our first set of dailies. I think it was probably just the serendipity of how quickly our fates changed and things worked out better than what we could have ever hoped for.
As I said before, it was a long car ride. We arrived in Wilmington late afternoon. A quick stop at the insurance agency allowed us to finalize the insurance and we were off to the circus. There was a beautiful sunset permeating the circus scenery. We approached what looked like the main office and were told our liaison was not on site.
Undaunted, we grabbed some pick-ups of the sunset as Michael Knox, producer, sought out our first interview, his uncle. Chris McLendon, sound tech/camera operator, was checking sound as I prepped the camera to roll on our first interview. Over my shoulder I hear a female voice saying, “Oh no, I do not even need this right now. We just got back from the beach, and this is not what we need.”
Well my brain was in full technical swing and had no idea why this complete stranger was harping on us. Michael raced toward the woman, who’s husband was just approaching, and cut them off at the pass. Turns out the couple were the elephants trainers and thought we were PETA reps. Apparently circuses are easy targets for animal rights’ activists, but you’ll find that out in the movie.
After getting back to Chris’s house to watch dailies on his HDTV, we noticed a strange white spot during the interview. Ahhh! Maybe it was on the TV. Surely our only means of capturing footage was not marred by a dreaded dead pixel.
A quick freak out session had me on the hotel’s internet, frantically searching for a solution. Apparently, there is a hidden menu in JVC’s ProHD cams. This menu causes the camera’s afflicted pixel to “borrow” from one next door. One small problem solved. Only one more hurdle to overcome.
We had been communicating with the administrative end of Cole Bros. Circus in Florida. No one on site in NC knew who we were yet. We were not shunned necessairily (unless you count the elephant trainers), but it meant we had an uphill battle to get everyone to trust us to film them. It was a lot to sleep on that first night.
Oh, that’s right I did say things turned around. Tune in for the next segment of our production log. Things get better, I promise.
