Yeah, it has definitely slowed down a lot recently. This was a non-union feature we shot about 2 months ago, but nearly everyone on the crew was union because none of the normal shows were starting back up, even months before the strike (because the studios knew it was coming) so the union folks were taking whatever they could get. Though this project was a lot of fun and has some very notable talent. We’re actually shooting another week of pickup shots this month to finish it off.

That is Paramount Ranch, not too far away. Though I did find out that Melody Ranch did suffer a major fire in 1962 that burnt down much of this street you’re seeing. When we were there it felt very old and authentic. We spent about a week filming in the same saloon that was used in Django Unchained when Christoph Waltz’s character shoots the town sheriff towards the beginning of the movie. We also had a lot of live animals like horses, oxen, and chickens.

Yep, shooting content for a brand’s social media. We just flipped a Red Komodo on it’s side, and since the image was sideways on all our wireless monitors, I flipped them 90 degrees so I could see it normally when I pulled focus (that’s what the wooden-looking device with the knob in the blue holder is, my wireless focus pulling hand unit Nucleus-M).

Lol, in reality there was about 30 minutes of freaking out and then an hour of waiting for them to dry and praying for the best. It all worked out but I guess it’d be a better story if it hadn’t haha!

Edit: Here’s another story from the same shoot I just commented in my community:

"The producers/director/DP were all from New York and came out to Los Angeles to get crew and film this, so they were kinda out of there element. This shoot was 5 overnights in a row, and one night we were filming on an active bridge/road in LA. They assumed that the weather was always nice in California so didn’t check ahead or prepare, and suddenly we had a lightning/thunder storm starting in the distance. We had a giant Condor crane with lights up over the bridge, and as the lighting strikes got closer the Gaffer got spooked and brought the condor down. Within an hour, it was pouring rain and they didn’t have any pop-up tents so we had to rush to throw all the gear in different cars and get out of the rain. We wrapped early that night (early on an overnight means 4AM instead of 6AM).

I found out later that a woman and her dog died that night in LA from being struck by lightning. Shit can go wrong very quickly, especially when you’re not working with professionals."

Give it a shot now, I made it public on imgur and I think that fixed it!