On an Island out in the Pacific

That first night, I was closely involved in determining how best to shoot in the dark, and how to simulate the SEAL’s night vision.  With my laptop right there, I was able to process our tests immediately, and experiment with applying various effects until we got a solution that the director liked.  During the down times when the lighting crew was repositioning things, the SEALs taught us how to use their rifles, and how to keep the laser sight steady on target even when nearly running to approach a position.  So there were a bunch of us seeing how steady we could hold the laser while going through the village.

 

We finished shooting at daybreak, and I got a couple hours of sleep, but was up by noon, having trouble sleeping during the day.  We had brought our own caterer, and probably had the best food ever served in that barracks.  Everyone was on the island for the week together, so that was a good time to hear battle stories and such from the SEALs during meal times.

 

That next day, my legs were bad enough to show them to our onset medic.  He gave me some stuff to put on them, wrapped them up, and kept me on a solid diet of aspirin, Tylenol and zinc every four hours.  With four days of night shoots, he kept the crew going with a steady supply of 5-hour energy drinks, vitamin shots, and a variety of other scary products.  The medication he gave me kept the pain to a reasonable level, but things continued to look worse.

 

We spent the next three nights shooting in the village, where I moved my gear between various huts that weren’t in use at the moment.  Occasionally I would be working on footage, and suddenly armed SEALs would burst through the door at the end of their take.  Usually we would hear “Cut” as soon as they had fully disappeared through the door, and they would be like “Hi Mike” before they headed back outside to do it again.  There are a few helmet cam shots of me looking up in surprise as they enter a room, that all disappear due to the magic of editing.  We had helicopters flying overhead, fake RPGs and explosions going off, and vehicles blowing up.  It was all quite exciting.

 

By the third day, I was really not doing well, so the medic took me across the island to the Navy infirmary.  One of our star SEALs had an issue with his ear, so he came with us.  There were two Navy corpsmen there, and they saw us right away.  One of them dealt with his ear, while the other one treated me.  After looking at my legs, he treated them by poking open my infected sores and cleaning out the dead material with a big Q-tip.  I thought the poking process really hurt, until I felt him swirl that cotton swab around inside of me.  Definitely the most painful thing I had ever experienced.  He did about eight of the ten infected bumps that way before the other corpsman had him stop.  They gave me two types of antibiotics to take, and told me to see a doctor as soon as I got back to the mainland.  Having experienced his issue before, the SEAL had been bragging on the way there about how crazy the stuff they were going to need to remove from his ear would be.  We didn’t hear anything about his ear on the way back, after what he had seen me go through.  The medic pointed out that without modern medicine and specifically antibiotics, I would probably have died from that within a few days.

Out in the Ocean

When I got back, I only had a few days before the next big shoot, this one on San Clemente Island, below Catalina.  I spent a day or two getting the crew in the office up to speed on the new footage, and then got a day off.  I had been talking with H about getting together for quite a while, and at some point the idea of jet-skiing had come up our conversation, so we decided to go do that when she came to visit me.  She was still dealing with her infection, but she assured me that wouldn’t prevent her from enjoying herself.  We rented a wave runner in Marina Del Ray, and headed out into the ocean with it.  I am always a little nervous about those out in open water, after getting stranded on one in Folsom Lake after the engine failed.  But we had a great time, and H seemed really excited to get to drive it.  Sometimes I think girls are even more into speed than guys are.  She came back to my place after that, and we spent the next few hours having a pretty intense conversation.  I realized after she left that I hadn’t even gotten a chance to change out of my bathing suit, and that the sea water was not having a positive effect on me.

 

My legs were covered in little bumps the next morning, which was a little unsettling, but I had to head down to San Diego, to catch a Navy flight from Coronado out to the island.  It was my first time and only time in San Diego, but we went straight to the naval base.  Once again we had decided not to bring my trailer to set.  There was a barge full of production vehicles that we shipped out there, but it was pretty full, and my trailer was not essential.  The crew was ferried to the island on a Navy airliner, and we had the flight to ourselves.  It occurred to me to ask for a seat in the cockpit, since it wasn’t a commercial flight, but I didn’t think that would fly.  Turns out I should have, because someone else had the same idea, and their request was agreed to.  I am probably not going to get too many more opportunities like that, and I hear they had a pretty good view from up front.

 

When we landed, we were taken to the SEAL training facility, where we would be staying for the week.  Unlike our private rooms at a cheap hotel in Slidell, we were stacked eight to a room in the barracks, with garbage bags over the windows to keep out the light.  Some of the guys took a nap before our shoot that night, but I can’t sleep like that, so I just explored the place.  My legs were still a concern, and some of the bumps were getting worse.  We shot all night for the next three days.  The first shots were of a helicopter drop in at sunset.  They went around a couple of times, and we got some of the best shots in the movie during that scene.  I got a great still shot of the directors running back to the cameras as the Seahawks were landing in the dust behind them, that ended up being their profile picture on our website for the next few years.

 

We had built an entire village on the island, which would be used as a combat training environment once we were done with it.  Unlike the fake city nearby, that had blocks of five story buildings for urban combat simulation, but no detail besides bare concrete, our village was meticulously dressed to look like a third world country.

Working with Real Navy SEALs

Being on set in Mississippi was the first time I actually got to meet the SEAL team that was starring in our movie.  The platoon we worked with in Key West was just a side unit for that specific mission.  And I still hadn’t seen the script, primarily because we didn’t really have one.  There was an outline for what they wanted to do, but the SEALs basically made up their own dialog as long as they hit certain key points.  Then my old roommate, who was not the director’s assistant, would review the footage that I was compiling, and transcribe the recorded dialog into an actual script.

 

The first two days were spent filming the guys trekking around in the mud and swamps, primarily at night.  After that, we split our time between shooting in the compound that they were assaulting, and filming the extensive car chase that was their escape from that location.  I did meet all the SEALs, and most of the crew over the course of the trip, but I spent most of my time processing footage and backing up files.

 

I usually didn’t get my first card to process until close to lunch, but was expected to be available any time before that, to be consulted on any technical issues that arose with the equipment we were using.  That meant I was usually headed to set by 6am.  I used the first few hours to log footage from the night before, and was usually done by the time they started rolling cameras.  So that is when I got to hang out to observe the action, and take behind-the-scenes photographs.  I then spent most of the afternoon sorting through the morning’s footage.  I didn’t usually get the last batch of footage until an hour after wrap, so I was always working late to get it backed up, and usually departed in the last van to leave set that night.  That led to a series of very long days, and nothing was open in Slidell by the time we got back, so when we wrapped before dinner, I was usually going to bed hungry.  I got good at snagging lunch before the crew got back to base camp, so I would be ready when the directors wanted to review our footage during their lunch break.  One thing I didn’t get to do, that I regret not requesting when the opportunity presented itself, was to take a ride in the SWCC SOCR jet boats.  I hear that blasting through the swamp on one of those was quite a rush.  There was one night that we an endless swarm of bugs covered the whole set, unlike anything I had ever seen before.  Every surface was so covered that it looked like a layer of fur on everything.  The swamps are definitely teeming with life everywhere you look, but some of it is just gross.

 

On the flight back, there were about thirty crew members on my flight to LA, distributed around the back of the plane.  The other people onboard must have thought it was the friendliest flight of seemingly strangers, and then wondered at the level of profanity the crew was throwing around with each other.  We all stayed onboard during the stop in Houston, and grouped together a bit once the plane emptied out.  On the next leg to LA, I was drifting off to sleep when I heard a loud noise right in front of me, followed by the sound of rushing air, and an ear piercing cry.  The rushing noise sounded like something had pierced the aircraft hull directly in front of me, so I was REAL awake real quick.  It turns out the toddler seated in front of me had been exploring a bit, and pulled the CO2 inflation tab on the life vest that was stowed under his seat.  The sudden release of energy came as a big surprise, and it took them a bit to calm him down once they had extracted the inflated vest from under his seat.  Commercial flying is always an adventure.

Shooting in the Swamps

I landed in New Orleans after a layover in Houston, and was driven to my hotel in Slidell Mississippi.  It was across the river from Stennis Space Center, a rocket test facility surrounded by a lot of uninhabited swamps.  The military uses the area for training when tests aren’t going on.  We had to get individual clearance badges the next morning in order to access the base, and then since we were shooting night scenes the first two days, we had a call time at noon.  When I finally got to the set, I was given a space at the back of the production RV, about a mile from the compound we were shooting in.  I had opted not to drive my trailer across the country for the shoot, but I was given a decent workspace.  I didn’t have much to do as the media manager until after we had actually shot some footage, so I usually spent the first half of the day as the onset photographer.

 

The initial safety meeting was quite interesting.  In most jobs, OSHA required safety meets are pretty much a joke, but not here.  First off, they told us that three of the most poisonous animals in the US lived in that swamp, in the form of snakes and spiders.  And there were lots of other huge spiders, as well as alligators, and many other fun things we could run into.  Then they went over safety around the jet boats we were using, and then the helicopters.  And then we discussed the explosives and pyrotechnics we would be setting off.  And the live ammo they would be shooting, and the list went on.

 

By the time the meeting was over, I was a bit worried about all these huge spiders they were talking about, poisonous or not.  I didn’t have to wait long to get a good look at one.  The roads were basically narrow gravel strips cut out of the swamp, with a jungle of plants within reach on both sides.  I had to get around a cube truck in the road, and was edging along with my back to it when I looked up and came face to face with my first banana spider.  It had a web in the bushes about a foot away from me, and was about four inches long, with eight shiny legs.  The body was yellow and pretty much shaped like a banana.  It definitely got my attention, and I hurried past it, but after I saw twenty more that first day, you almost get used to them.  If we setup a canopy anywhere for shade, within a half hour there would be multiple spiders making webs in each corner.  Sometime there would be webs built between vehicles that were parked ten feet apart.  I have no idea how the spiders got that first strand across, but it meant that you had to be careful no matter where you were walking, if you didn’t want a face full of spider web.

 

I discovered that a feature film set is much different from a commercial set, and there are a lot more people around.  I had worked with some of the crew members on previous commercial shoots, but most of them were strangers.  And that was only time I was on location with our featured actress, who wasn’t real popular with the crew.  I thought my brief interactions with her had been quite pleasant until I realized I had only been dealing with her stunt double, who was quite friendly.  We also had a new producer, who I shared an “office” with in the RV.  He was very new to the Bandito style of film making, so I helped orient him to how we operated, and reassured him that “yes,” we actually knew what we were doing.  He was a very hands-on producer, so we had discussions about everything from our highly debated naming convention, to the technology we were using to process the footage.  He had just had the initial meeting in LA that eventually led to the production of “Ted,” so all I heard about for two weeks was this stupid talking bear.

Becoming a Member of the Press

Around that same time, I was contacted by NVidia about my website, HD4PC.  They recognized the level of technical depth in my posts, and wanted to send me one of their cards to evaluate and review, as part of the launch of a new line of products they were releasing.  I was all for it, always interested in new technology, and more that happy to receive one of their highest end products to play with.

 

Once I received the card and the software they wanted me to test with it, the resulting dialog quickly went over the head of the marketing representative who was the primary point of contact for us journalists.  They eventually connected me directly with the engineers, which led to some very informative discussions.  I discovered a few bugs with their software, which they were eventually able to fix after a few months.  In the meantime, I did an exhaustive test and review of every feature of the card and the programs it was designed to accelerate.  The resulting article was thorough and balanced, with a high level of precision.  NVidia ended up using it as the featured review on their own website for nearly a year, which increased the reach and popularity of my own site.  They were quite pleased, and sent me the very next card they were developing to review a few months later.  And the contacts I had made in their engineering department were helpful in tracking down solutions in the future.  Unfortunately my relationship with that division of the company has tapered off, but I still do a lot with them through my position at work.

 

Around then, I also got invited to Rockstar and Sunshine’s wedding.  I had known about it for a while, but didn’t receive the invitation until a week or two before the event.  I would have liked to work my monthly trip to NorCal around it, but the catch was that it was on a Sunday afternoon, and I had a flight out of LAX at 5am Monday morning, to head to the first combat shoot for the movie.  I eventually decided it was unwise to try to fit it all in, which turned out to be for the best, since I would not have been very happy on that overnight drive back down south when they called off the wedding at the last minute.  So early Monday morning, I was flying out to Mississippi, to meet up with the crew coming back from shooting in Puerto Rico.  And then the real fun would begin.

Good Luck Preparing for the Unexpected

There was a large guest groups scheduled for the week after camp, and as much as I would have liked to stay, I needed to get back to work.  They were going to be returning from another big shoot on Thursday, and I needed to be there to process the new footage.  So I said goodbye and headed home on Tuesday afternoon, with a long drive ahead of me on Wednesday.

 

When I got to my parents house Tuesday evening, we all had dinner together.  When the meal was over, they sat me down, and said they had something to tell me.  In the conversation that followed, they informed me that now that my Mom was done taking care of my aunt, instead of returning home, she was actually going to move out to my grandparent’s old house.  My parents were not necessarily planning to get a divorce at that point, they were just going to be living separately for the time being.

 

This came as a bit of a shock, since while I had no illusions that my parent’s marriage was perfect, things had seemed fine when I was there the previous weekend.  They had at least discussed this topic with me once in the past, six years before.  They had told me then that they were at least going to wait until my brother graduated from high school.  That event had passed three years before, and after a few months of waiting for the other shoe to drop, I had stopped worrying about it.

 

Ironically the straw that had broken the camel’s back was an argument about their shared email account.  Technology had a way or stressing my parents out, and if things didn’t work the way they expected, the frustration level increased exponentially.  Regardless, it’s a pretty ridiculous thing to be fighting over.

 

What followed that evening was a very strange conversation by any measure, and still left things pretty open ended.  But one way or another, I had to leave for LA the next day.  I did put the journey off for a few hours, long enough to meet H for lunch, to get her perspective.  I had actually quoted a few of her past observations about my family to my parents the previous night.  She had no experience with that situation, but it was still good to have someone from the outside to talk with about everything.  At the same time, she was also dealing with a major recurring infection, which was scary to even hear about.  We also had a discussion about trust between males and females, which was very interesting and enlightening.

 

Once we had finished lunch, I continued south to LA, to my other home.  I got to my apartment late that night, and headed to work the next morning, trying to put the family issues out of my mind for the time being.  There was no shortage of distractions at work, and they had just finished a shoot on a large Navy ship off the coast of San Diego.  I had missed out on that shoot as well, due to budget constraints, and that was the only time we lost any data on the production.  We didn’t discover until months later that an entire media card of footage had disappeared without being copied, which is exactly what my role usually prevented.  Between editing the footage we had already shot, and preparing for the combat shoots coming up that fall, we had lots of work to keep us occupied.