Tony the Production Assistant: As I Lay Dying

We Are Movie Geeks welcomes guest blogger Tony Fernandez, a production assistant taking us inside the underworld of indie filmmaking.

This past December, instead of being stuck inside my home in Boston, I was in San Diego. I wasn’t on vacation; I was working on the new As I Lay Dying music video. I was happy to be away from the twenty-degree weather and threatening snow storms and enjoy sixty-degree weather and Mexican food.

Mike (Pecci) and I flew to San Diego a few days before Ian (McFarland), he was wrapping up a small European tour with his band and was scheduled to fly out to San Diego the day before production.

After six hours of flight travel and a five and a half layover in San Francisco, we finally arrived at San Diego International Airport. During our layover, Mike and I met a woman in our terminal. She was also flying from Boston to San Diego, and coincidentally enough – she was working on a music video. I forget her name, but she was very nice, a little older, and attractive and seemed to know some of the same people Mike knew. They compared work and talked shop until Mike received an important phone call, then I had to talk to her.

“I really like the two of you, we should hook up in San Diego for some drinks. Where are you staying?” she asked.

I became instantly nervous. I told her where we were staying and she smiled. Oh my God! Are we really going to meet up with her? Are we going to get drinks? What did she mean by “hook up?” I don’t know this woman. Mike doesn’t know her, she’s a complete stranger. We met her at an airport. All sorts of thoughts started rushing through my head, all of these unneeded anxieties; is she looking for sex? Is she going to ask us for it? Was she flirting with me? I couldn’t stop picturing her naked. Her body strewn about the faux leather chairs and lying on the stained airport carpet. I sat anxiously, my head filled with unclean thoughts as I waited for our flight. I have an overactive imagination; five and a half hour layovers are dangerous. They shouldn’t be legal.

Mike and I finally landed in San Diego that night. The both of us went to sleep immediately after checking into our hotel room. Twelve hours of travel had wiped us out.

The next day was the first of three pre-production days we had while in San Diego. We needed to test our gear – a custom built POV helmet rig, a Nikon D7000 and we needed to build a green screen for a POV mirror effect.

For the green screen mirror I grabbed a black poster frame and cut a neon green piece of poster board to fit inside of it. Pretty simple.

What wasn’t simple was getting around the city. There weren’t any GPS systems available when we rented the car, and by car I mean passenger van, I had to use print out directions using Google Maps. Even with directions I felt like I was trapped in a concrete maze. I hate driving in California.

After building the mirror I had to test the POV rig, which was pretty interesting. The POV rig is a motorcycle helmet with arms attached to the sides that extend out to a cross-bar with a camera plate affixed to it. There are knuckles at the base of the arms and at the base of the cross-bar to adjust the height and angle of the camera. Putting it on for the first time was interesting; the rig was heavy but not so heavy that it was uncomfortable or unstable, it just took some time to get used to.

Mike and I shot some test footage of the two of us walking around the hotel. Guests of the hotel were giving us awkward stares as we got in and out of elevators, walked through the lobbies and around the outdoor pool.

The only drawback to the POV rig is that it sits so close to the face that it’s impossible to see the live-view window clearly. This is why we rented transmitters from Teradek. The transmitter attached to the back of the helmet, sent a signal to a wireless router, to another transmitter attached to a handheld monitor, so Mike and Ian could see what the camera operator was shooting. I was pretty excited to use this type of technology for the first time.

I was quite busy on the set of this music video. I was tasked with building the helmet rig, data transfer, gripping, and getting the wireless transmitter to operate. Thankfully the Co-Producer and locations guy, Ryan, was lending a huge hand in helping things run smoothly. McFarland, Pecci and I were spreading ourselves very thin.

The band was very cooperative and was part of the creative process from the very beginning. This helped out tremendously because they knew exactly what they wanted to do with the video and communicated very well with McFarland and Pecci. I remember the band telling me about how great it was to have directors that know exactly what they’re looking for. They told horror stories of some directors just renting a warehouse and shooting whatever. They were real excited to work with two directors that actually care about what they have their names on and are always looking for ways to challenge themselves.

Making a video entirely in first-person perspective of one of the band mates was quite a challenge. I was wondering how McFarland and Pecci were going to pull it off. Everything being shot has to match the perspective, no chance of covering for yourself with B-roll, not to mention how hard it was going to be to edit.

We started our day in a recording studio that we dressed to look like a radio station. Shot from 9am to 4pm and then headed out to shoot the last portion of the video, which was three hours into the desert, through mountains. Mike and I were up front enjoying the twists and sharp turns up and down the mountainous terrain while Ian was in the rear, becoming nauseas. Mike pulled the car over twice for Ian to puke. Ian was so mad when Mike and I started laughing at him, but we couldn’t help it. How can you not laugh at a giant man throwing up from getting carsick? Children get carsick, not grown men.

We drove around in the desert, searching for our second location. McFarland, Pecci, and Ryan, our Co-Producer, were growing frustrated with not being able to find our second location. It was decided to set up production where we were.

An hour into filming at our second location, we ran into our only trouble during the shoot. A Ranger showed up, he wanted to shut us down. Luckily Ryan had a permit in hand; he and Ian began talking with the Ranger – who turned out to be a fan of the band.

The band posed for pictures with the Ranger and talked about metal with Ian, it was pretty surreal.

The rest of the video went very smoothly, without a single problem. Watching McFarland and Pecci co-direct is quite interesting. They never fight, or argue. They’ve worked with one another for so long that they seem to have a good idea of what the other person is thinking or looking for.

Same goes with editing. Ian will piece together an edit and show it to Mike, and then they go from there. Ian edits, Mike gives an opinion on the cut. Then Mike color corrects and shows it to Ian to see if they are on the same page with coloring. It was interesting to see the back and forth they have in post-production, they’ve come up with a stable system of working through editing and putting the final touches on a product through sound design and coloring. They do everything themselves and often take turns with the same work.

Working on this video was stressful, but fun. I got to work with and experimental rig, test out a new camera, build a green screen, sit through the editing process, and met a group of guys that ended up being the nicest metal band on the planet. I’m very fortunate to be learning the ins and outs of this business through Mike and Ian. I love it.