Freelance and cameras and all that awesome

I've been traveling back and forth between Chicago and Michigan this past month to work on a really fun project for Davenport University. They're having a conference for all of their employees and wanted to do a couple narrative videos to project for them. The people involved gave us a lot of creative control and the pay was outstanding. I have two more gigs lined up at the end of the month.

Currently I'm working on a free job shooting my wonderful friend Logan's short film. I got my hands on the Zacuto FAST DRAW Rig with the follow focus, matte box, Marshall monitor and some 4x4 ND filters. It really killed it. I did a near 4 minute walking tracking shot and despite the weight and strain, was really happy with how it turned out. The Marshall monitor cannot be calibrated so it's use of previewing the imagery is a bit worthless, but it works well to pull focus with. We also had a set of Canon L Series primes and I was extremely pleased with the resolution of them. We ended up using a 17mm tilt shift on a "dream(y)" sequence and it turned out beautiful. I'll post some of the footage up when I can. I really dug the rig (you can see it below) and wish I could own one myself, but as of now they are a bit out of my price range.

I ended up picking up a follow focus from JAG35, which seems pretty well made, the gears are exposed and that makes me feel weird, and the lens gear is only adjustable by adding screws to little holders in it, but the price is PERFECT. I tried to pick up some rails from indisystem, but after a two week wait and no response to an email, I decided to get a refund, which came almost immediately. I'm not sure what's going on over there, but I was kind of bummed as they seem like good rails for real cheap.

In other news, I finished a new reel which can be viewed here:

Cinematography Reel Summer 2010 from Cory Popp on Vimeo.

Here's the rig: