trying to convince management importance of lighting

[Scott Davis]

Amen, Dennis. My favorite is, “Just go and take the Flip camera. It will be fine. It shoots HD.” I just smile, walk away, and shake my head.

We are doomed by what I call the “Microwave Mentality”. We can’t wait 20 minutes for a meal to cook, we need to nuke it in a microwave and have it steaming hot to the point that our tongues melt from the 3 seconds it cooks. We have to have cell phones constantly stuck to our heads or tuned into Twitter so we can find out Charlie Sheen’s latest implosion. We’ve become too self important and our time is too invaluable.

In the end, we’ll all find out that microwave cooking is what’s spiked cancer and the other maladies that plague us; that airing Skype footage on the national news endangers the lives of hundreds of soldiers and reporters. It’s the same as “grabbing the Flip and you don’t need lights.” It’s not as grave as cancer or those other things, and I don’t mean to sound, excuse the pun, flipant about it, but “grabbing the Flip” to people who don’t understand what we do just makes people accept poorly lit, poorly composed footage because it’s faster. And cheaper.

I was tasked to do a shoot with a celebrity in his office (who shall remain nameless, except he names buildings after himself and may or may not be interested in a Presidential position) 2 years ago and was asked by our VP why I needed to ship lights up to NY. I was stunned. I had a blank stare on my face. “This just needs to be a quick in-and-out. We don’t need anything like that.” Quick in-and-out… with a teleprompter. And a 7 minute script. And we need to shoot it in front of windows overlooking Central Park. On a sunny morning. Idiot.

Aaaaannnnnnd…. I’m off my soap box.