Thursday, October 7, 2010

Rowing for Film



I've been planning with a film crew for the past week to shoot on the gondola.
The fall weather, while quite refreshing most of the time, hasn't been that conducive for film until today, so we scrambled to take advantage of it.

As the person in charge of finding a good looking couple who would handle themselves well on board and represent the company well, I did the only logical thing:  I chose gondola people.
Steve and Kat are two of my favorite people.
Steve is one of my solid gondoliers, both on motorized and rowing vessels.
Kat has served as a gondolier several times, but she has been an invaluable staff member on shore.
They met here, and got married eleven months ago.

I'm not in a position to divulge information yet about our camera crew today, but I will say that we had a blast working within the boundaries of wind, tide, and changing light to get the best shots possible.

Every trade has a few applications that are more difficult than others,
In Venetian rowing, one of the most technically challenging tasks is rowing for film.
Getting the gondola to go where you want it to is one thing,
getting it to go where someone else wants it - someone who may not appreciate all the wind and water factors in the mix - that's a bit more taxing.
And you have to do it without making funny faces or using an incorrect grip.  The camera is watching.

I enjoy a good race, and wind-fights are always welcomed by me and my remo, but I relish the task of rowing for film.

In the end, we got all the angles covered and had a great time doing it.
I can't wait to see the finished product.

2 comments:

Tamás said...

> I enjoy a good race, and wind-fights are always welcomed by me and my remo, but I relish the task of rowing for film.

Is there an alternative? Imagine trying to act and row indoors, in front of a uniform blue screen, while the gondola is swung around on hydraulic jack mounts (then spend further time in a studio to record audio tracks, while CGI people populate the blue background with computer-faked scene imagery...)

Unknown said...

You're one of our favorite people too!