| camera cranes
you know, if you record music for tv flying stuff's your only chance a lot of times. most cameramen and directors seem to loathe stands to an extreme measure beyond my understanding. producers, OTOH, hate renting those schoeps active tubes that a director might let pass on a good day.
this time having hung my mk21's from the ceiling saved their lives. shooting a documentary about an orchestra the camera crew had a 16-meter-crane for instrument CUs during ongoing rehearsals. predictably, the back of the camera hit my main pair (at about 3 and 1/2 meters' height) after only ten minutes of rolling the tape. It would have knocked the mics straight into the violins had they been on a stand. all they did, though, was to swing wildly on their fishing lines producing the acoustic equivalent of a drunk pan shot. when the crane hit one of my KM130 outriggers a little later, the second cameraman who just happened to be standing there caught it before it crashed into the double bass section. If I ever do something like that again I'll be sure to put foam windshields on the mics and use steel cables to fly them. sorry for the bad pic quality. shot with a cell phone again. |