Commercial videography project with AutoReturn in Kansas City, MO - Day 1. This will be a series of blog posts that will cover our experience, plans, gear, and more from the work trip. We are hired on to create a few videos going over the product AutoReturn. This trip was phase 1 and will have more trips in the near future. To follow our journey in realtime follow our Facebook and Instagram accounts as we regularly post projects and BTS shots. The next blog post will cover the Las Vegas film days and will finish up with another post about San Francisco.

Planning Ahead

This was the first project that required travel by plane and presented the challenge of bringing the right gear and the right amount of gear. First travel tip -

Travel Tip #1 - know how much your luggage weighs and the airline’s weight limitations.

We flew with American Airlines the majority of the time and in our case, 70LBS was the limit. When checking in Panama City Beach (ECP) airport I had to place some of my gear in my Pelican case over to my clothing case. It worked out, but I didn’t know any better prior to the trip.

For this project we are filming interviews and b-roll footage. Therefore, we needed a great portable setup for cameras, audio, and lighting. I was able to fit everything I needed in a Pelican case, camera bag, and backpack.

Travel Tip #2 - remember to place all batteries with your carry-on bags.

Main Gear Brought

For a full list of my gear check out my Kit page, but for an overall look at what I brought see the list below.

Cameras | Z Cam E2-S6 cinema camera, Sony A73, Sony a6600, GoPro Hero8, Mavic Air 2
Lenses | Sigma 17-50mm, Sigma 18-35mm, SLR Magic 50mm Cine, Tamron 28-75mm, Sony 24mm G Master. Mind I sent back the Sigma 18-35mm with my wife, I’ll explain a little later.
Audio | Zoom H6, Tascam 10L, Sony shotgun mic, Saramonic shotgun mic, Rode Wireless Go
Lighting | small LED lights, one LED panel, and diffusers.
Stands | Tripods, fluidhead, Feiyutech AK2000s gimbal.

That pretty much wraps up the meat of the gear I brought. There are obviously cables, batteries, and other little accessories that I took along with me. I’m gonna have to just make a video with everything included. So stay tuned for that video over at my tech channel. If you have questions, leave a comment below.

Plans and Execution

This project we are filming interviews and b-roll footage. All locations we were at we filmed the interviews first and then worked on b-roll. Our interviews had two cameras and two main audio sources rolling. The Z Cam E2-S6 was the main camera and the Sony A73 was the backup/ extra angle. Audio - we used a boom mic with the Sony shotgun mic and the Tascam 10L recorder for another audio source. All angles and audio sources worked great! It’s always a good idea to have backups in case one source malfunctions or even user error.

For the interviews, we had the talent look at the interviewer while I monitored the video and audio. We also had the interview questions answered twice. This idea gives us two takes to work with, which allows for even different answers at times.

For b-roll, I either used the gimbal + Sony A73 with the Tamron 28-75mm lens combo or went handheld. All footage, interviews and b-roll were shot in Slog 2 color profile to allow better dynamic range and color control. Being that were are using two different camera brands, filming in a flat profile allows us to color match the footage more than if we filmed with no color profiles aka straight out of camera. We also used ND filters for outdoors and overexposed by 2 stops.

Locations

The first location was located at the Kansas City Impound Lot. There we interviewed and filmed b-roll of the lot.

The second location was a EW Towing for the interview. B-roll we hopped in the tow truck (which was a BOSS tow truck!) and drove around the city to get some action shots.

After the main filming appointments, the creator side of me had to get some b-roll and time lapse shots of the Kansas City. I took about an hour to get some extra creative shots and then ate dinner, backed up all the footage, recharged the batteries, and packed back up to head to Las Vegas for the next film day.