Adorama>PPECs

So for the project I was working on over fall break I needed to rent some equipment that PPECs did not have. I needed to rent a fast lens that would work on an EF mount. I’ve had my eye on the 50mm Prime in the L series, with an f-stop of 1.2. So I made a reservation online and was going to pick it up in the city on Thursday.

I got down to the building and from the outside it seemed to be like the stores that sell knock off electronics. They were very efficient when I got there, and were able to guide me to grey cards and I was out in five minutes to ride the elevator to pick up the lens.

Upon exiting the elevator I realized that this giant rental company was PPECs on steroids! They had about six people at the register, and at least a dozen people running around getting people’s orders ready. There were super 35s, cinema lenses, lighting, anything your heart could have desired, and it was better than Christmas. And then I just got the $1,500 lens. But it was amazing! They seemed slightly less organized than PPECs, but have more customers and way more equipment to go through.

Anyway, I don’t have anything to complain about, they were super efficient and got the job done at an extremely professional level and I will definitely use them in the future again.

The Morning After

The morning after, or rather the day after, I directed my first project for this class might have been as much or more stressful than the day of shooting itself. I think we certainly have proved Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." After all of the mishaps of the night before, I was actually very pleased with how the footage turned out. The next day, however, I had a problem: I could not get the audio files from the Tascam. Yesterday it took me from 12-5pm to extract the audio data. I think I am the first and only Parkie to have had this problem. Because of how the data is organized in the Tascam, it turns out if even one file goes astray and is not in a new project, but is just a new file, Macs cannot find it. So when I took out the fire wire adapter, I discovered that my project was Project1s, but I could not access the files. It said that there was no data. I freaked out and went to PPECS and luckily Phil was there to help me out.

He told me that the only way to get my files was to find a Windows or PC computer with a fire wire port. This was no easy task. After going through Park and multiple computer labs, I went to the IT desk in Friends, but they told me there were no computers with a fire wire port on campus that I could use. Having to sit through an Intro to Theatre lecture after that was really tough. Then I remembered my friend Sean, one of my actors from the night before, has a laptop with both Mac and PC software. I met up with him and we were able to extract the files. Another problem, since my hard drive is mac oriented, I was unable to copy the files to my hard drive while he was using the PC software. He had to upload the files to Google and share them with me so I could get the files. What a day. All of this happened before I had to turn my equipment in at 5:30 before the files were lost forever. It was pretty nerve racking, but I'm glad at least that at the end of the day, I got my audio files.

After 5pm, however, my day wasn't over. I also had to return all my equipment to PPECS and then return borrowed props back to their owners. Having a cold on top of everything did not help either. I was exhausted because even after this whole debacle, I could not rest. I had to teach a Zumba class from 6-6:45, go to an ICTV post-production meeting from 7-8, and then from 8 on I had test shooting as a 1st AC for a thesis. By the end of the night, I was drained.

Luckily, today is a new day, I'm well rested, and I'm ready for more.