“30 Seconds of Controlled Chaos”…………That is the name that I have given to this commercial shoot produced by Jon Arbes and Ziyad Saadi. To a casual observer it could have looked a bit chaotic, but if you stayed and watched as I did you would have realized that it was anything but.

I had the opportunity to photograph ‘behind the scenes’ of a film set filming a film set. It was quite a creative idea visualized by Jon Arbes, Michael Zaw and Rocio Gimenez. I could have called it “30 Seconds of Perfection”. The crew worked tirelessly unloading trucks and setting up their equipment. It was fascinating to watch them work as they transformed the large cavernous space at Rollin Studio located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to a professional studio set.

Jon Arbes the Director together with Rocio Gimenez (Assistant Director) and Michael Zaw the Director of Photography guided their technical crew and actors through out the day to achieve their final product.

The commercial was shot with a Panavision Platinum 35MM camera with the 10-100 zoom. Kodak Vision 3 500T film stock was used.

Lighting which is one of the fundamental elements of film making was measured and measured again to get the desired look. The way the light falls on the actor’s face, the props, the framing, zooming etc. were carefully thought through.
During the rehearsals, Director Jon Arbes and DP Michael Zaw blocked (decide the exact movement of both actors and camera) the shots as the actors walk through their actions, discussing any special camera moves and lighting requirements.

Each shot is marked up and measured for focus and framing. Precise attention was given to every detail by the very talented Cinematography crew.

Director of Photography: Michael Zaw
1st AC: Sasil Echeverria
2nd AC: Deanna Covello
3rd AC: Nicole Libassi
Dolly Grip: Ugur Becer
Boom Operator: Kalle Dahlberg
Gaffer: Don Gerado Frasco

Let me introduce you to the lead actors.
Steep Daniels shown here was cast as ‘The Director’

Actress Alexandra Rosario played the “Hot Babe on Bike”

The entire cast and crew is shown here. There was a great camaraderie on the set all working together to bring the project to completion.

The day of the shoot is just part of what goes into film making. Next comes the Post Processing.
The film was to be developed at Technicolor which is home to industry leading creative and technical professionals.

The crew would then view the footage at PrimeFocus and determine any finishing touches.

There you have it……….This is what my view looked like from ‘Behind the Scenes’

BTW……..
Traffic/Parking Tickets = $700.00………Oh Well just the price of doing business in NYC! It comes with the territory!

By Patty Marchesi
PattyDPhotography

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