My evolutionary waterloo and the Infomercial du jour.

I spent two days gripping on an infomercial in Kirkland. It was for a single cup coffee maker like they have in hotel rooms. Infomercials used to be half hour shows where the budget and crews were large. They made up a fair percentage of my income at one time. The times changed and now an infomercial is 60 seconds or two minutes max. It probably makes sense when the name of the game is media buying. We shot with a Canon D5- the zeitgeist camera flavor of the month- a still camera that can shoot 1080P and makes a very pretty picture but is a wild pain in the ass to use. It is an odd feeling watching really talented DPs try and use these things. The AC (really a kid with a lexicon of nerd knowledge about the camera) actually had to use a paper towel to make the follow focus ring work. I was not doing audio, but that is the single worst problem with this camera- no audio inputs save the mini plug. It requires a double system, pretty much like the old film days, there by requiring me to purchase more expensive audio recorders. I really don't want to join this revolution. I want to just live in the old planet where I plugged into the camera and napped. I feel like the neanderthal presented with fire: I want to go back to cave and hope it goes away. Just bizarre.

At lunch I got the call that Carl had been in his motorcycle wreck, a terrible cell connection where all I could hear was "accident- ER- Omak"
It was all good fun.