Challenge Du Jour: Shipping company retardation and other ramblings

We received the CobraCrane yesterday and we will set it up today to set the balance on it. We have some variable weight bags that use shot so we can adjust the counterweight on the camera using that and then weigh the counterweight bag and determine how much permanant weight to use on the crane.

We will have to re-balance the crane after we put the Micro35 onto the camera since it adds about 5 lbs. I might add a mattebox/follow focus at that time which will probably add another 5 lbs. The crane will support up to 25lbs so we will still be well below the limit. We will do that on the next short (Dr. Wu). We don't really need it for this shoot.

We received the dolly track on Tuesday but FedEx managed to lose the dolly itself. Supposedly it will arrive today. If that happens, we can shoot some tests with the combined crane/dolly setup that we need for 2 of the shots in The Aquarium.

Friday we will audition for the last role in the film and after that run over and buy the counterweight for the crane.

Sunday we will go to the location with the final camera / crane / dolly setup to rehearse the shots. At that time, I will be training my sound guy on the digital recorder, setting a frame line and managing the boom for dialog recording. Going to use one of Nancy's purses to hold the recorder itself since it provides no method for a shoulderstrap or anything of that nature. I hope it matches his shoes :) Should be fun!

UPDATE:

Looks like FedEx has actually lost the dolly - So the vendor is dealing with them and I have encouraged them to overnight me a new one and make FedEx eat the shipping on it.

Fed-Ex: When it absolutely, positively never needs to get there.

I think in the future, any junk that I need to get rid of I will just use Fed-Ex to ship it. Gauranteed to never see it again! OK, I'll stop now :)

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