Mother nature can giveth, but she can also taketh away. For continuity issues with footage and stills shot earlier in the week, we’re now in need of sunshine. And that sunshine is nowhere to be seen. We awoke to the flattest, murkiest weather. Socked in gray. Down side of that is we’re again behind in our schedule.
If there is an upside, it’s that we get to further dial in production related details for the remaining images AND some more time for reviewing dailies. From 10am-12noon my crew liaises with Matt the client data guru to ensure all the files from yesterday are ready for quick and easy viewing. Noon to 1 is AD Jason and I reviewing footage and stills. We’re finding gems and looking for missing assets and preparing for a meeting with Jason’s boss and the client’s strategic marketing leadership team who have just flown in to check out the shoot. That begins right on time at 1pm. Universal agreement – the work from yesterday is gold.
But there is still work to be done. Only hiccup is that Mother Nature isn’t having it right now…
The heavy overcast turns into heavy snow. The heaviest we’ve seen yet. Under normal circumstances we’re celebrating great snow conditions. Today, however, when we need sun, we are not. We are glued to all of our weather sources and the windows of the hotel, overlooking the streets of Telluride. One report we get tells us of more 70mph winds at our location. Another report alerts us that they’re closing several lifts on the mountain for high wind warnings. It’s now 2pm – it’s a complete blizzard outside — we’d been planning on hitting our location at 430 to prepare for some luscious evening light, but all these signs are dissuasive. We call a full scale production meeting to discuss and what comes out of that meeting is the decision to pull the ripcord on the plans for evening light.2 hours later, the skies open up. Not a cloud in sight. Perfect blue sky. But it’s too late for us to scramble together even a light/fast crew, let alone the whole lot of us. We’ve already told the resort we’re off for the day – no safety or support staff available, no special late access to the mountain is available.
Damn.
Professionally speaking, this decision was the right one given all the info we had. All the stakeholders looked at the data and the weather outside (it was still dumping snow and blowing 40mph when we called it) and our thousands of previous experiences/decisions just like this one to made this call. It happens, it’s part of the job, and nobody can see the future. On paper it was the right one – we’d all make that call again. But…
But inside my little brain, I can’t help but wishing we were up there nailing it. Putting the finishing touches on the great work we’ve already got in the can… It kills me a little bit inside. Mother nature once again reminds us who is boss. I’m not sure what the lesson is here, other than despite the fact that we do this sort of thing 20 times a year doesn’t remove the emotions from the script. It’s of course part of the professional aspect of it all to be intentional and deliberate, but it’s human to bummed when you miss a weather window. That will never change.
The rest of the afternoon is filled with re-designing the schedule (again!), fine tuning the gear and the plans and trying to keep up with the other things we’ve all got going back home. There are spouses who finally get a call home, other work emails that get sent, maybe even a nap or two. The crew goes out for dinner in a few medium size groups – and a few more than one drink goes down to put our mind on some other things besides the unpredictable weather. It turns into a late one. I’ll leave it at that.
Call time tomorrow is a comfy 9:45. Must sleep.
Chase. Thanks for taking the time to share all of these insights. I really dig reading them while sipping on my morning cup ‘o coffee. In the past year I have started to make a transition in my career from photojournalism to corporate/advertising. Its been a bit of a learning curve, and this series of posts brings up an issue that I still have a lot to learn about, (dealing with large cast and crew). As a PJ there are no assistants (well maybe one assistant for a higher end editorial shoot), asset managers, producers, ADs, etc… involved. The largest crew/cast I’ve had the chance to work with yet on the advertising side of things added up to a massive 10 people including myself, and even at that level I was finding myself a little stressed having to act both as photographer and producer. Your mention of not being able to wrangle a small/light crew to take advantage of a weather window really struck me.
It seems to me there are benefits and draw backs to both large/small crews. When you have some time I would love to hear how you managed this before having your own in-house producer and other staff, as well as insights on the benefits of shared work load of a larger crew vs. the agility and ability to adapt and go guerilla style of a smaller crew. I completely realize with a client/project like this, a small crew probably isn’t an option. Would also love to hear if you have a preference in working with a small crew vs. big crew.
Thanks again for taking time to share all of this info.
I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed for you and your team.
You and the crew must have been in disbelief when the blue skies decided to make an appearance. What can you do? Make the best of it and plan (ha ha) for tomorrow. Hope the weather takes a positive turn today for you!
The pics that all are wanting to see may very well get to wait until REI’s Fall/Winter 2011/12 campaign. I believe that all that content is belonging to the REI folks and they don’t need any spoilers! Perhaps they shoot tons of stuff that isn’t in that contract package and a few of those are on the way.
I get so motivated when reading your blog, I like the fact that you are organised and plan everything. I get a lot of ideas from reading this and feel like I’m part of the adventure.
Thanks a lot!