MARCH 2011
Vol 167
Extreme Rigs We are in the offices of Panavision in Auckland with Tim Timlin and Tim’s got a couple of guests. These boys look as though they’re used to the outdoors, they’re both in jandals and slightly furry – there’s freela nce dir ector Jam es McDonald and freelance cameraman Dan Frost. Ed: Now Dan’s the cameraman and James, you’re sort of the organiser of this event I believe? What’s the event? James: It’s a Toyota event to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Land Cruiser and it’s the “FJ Cruiser Top to Bottom Journey”. Toyota’s challenged Marc Ellis to drive the new FJ Cruiser from Cape Reinga to Bluff off-road. It’s a Leftfield production for Ric Salizzo. Ed: That’s a big challenge and I’m sure we’ll see that on our screens or on the Internet very soon, but we’re not here because of Marc Ellis, we’re here actually because you’ve got some pretty clever kit that has helped you support the cameras. Tell us all? James: Well, we’re shooting it on a combination of Sony EX1 as our main camera but also a couple of GoPros to clip on around the car internally and externally to get interesting shots to help us to cut the clips. So we came and saw Tim for the Manfrotto gear to give us that sort of flexibility to attach the cameras to the car and to get interesting angles. Ed:
And so what sort of kit did you find?
James: A whole shop full really. The trick for us was, how do we attach it? Dan knows the Manfrotto gear well, so we came to Panavision to see Tim to get suction caps that are going to hack the weight of potentially the EX1, but essentially the GoPro cameras. So we came here and we’ve scored – we bought a couple of Manfrotto suction caps, the big units like the teacup saucer size –
James, Tim and Dan.
they are no nonsense, they stick around. them on and then they stay stuck.
You pump
Then we’ve got one Magic Arm and one Super Clamp which has been really good as well, really versatile; and Micro Ball Heads just to give us the full range of movement for framing interesting shots inside and out. Ed:
And you haven’t had any bits fall off yet?
James:
Shit no – no, it’s been absolutely brilliant.
Ed: What about the suction caps … surely they must come off at the end of the day? James: No, absolutely not. We had one stuck in the middle of the windscreen, it hasn’t moved in three days, and we’ve had the car airborne – Marc Ellis has been thrashing the car and the gear’s been spot on. We’ve had another suction cap permanently fixed to the outside front driver’s door to get shots and we’ve left that on there for three days, and it’s just stuck like shit to a blanket! Ed: Well I don’t want to know what you do at home, but surely, you haven’t hung the EX1 off that?
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