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From Dallas apprentice, Cooper Patterson: A couple of months into my apprenticeship, I met a man who goes by the name Ivory and has an interesting career. He breeds and sells python and other various snakes. I’ve decided I wanted to interview him and film him with his snakes. I went to his house and immediately started recording with the Sony Fx9 on my shoulder. As I step through the front door, I’m greeted with an alligator on my right. Luckily, a cage was separating us, so I didn’t have to yelp in fear. Ivory would then open the cage and scratch the alligator’s head with a metal stick. I’d zoom into the alligator’s eyes to capture the pleasure the reptile was having from the scratches.
Then we made our way to the ‘Snake Room’, where there are cages for the pythons in all different sizes, he had one that could wrap my entire body, he had others that would barely wrap my hands. I didn’t touch any of these snakes. I’m not a big fan, but I admire how Ivory was holding and playing with each of these snakes. He would talk to them as if they were puppies and kittens. But what stood out was Ivory’s deep knowledge. He would go into details about the pythons color patterns, life and size expectancy, and other types of facts about each python.
After he showed me all the pythons and reptiles he had that weren’t going to try to eat me, we’ve set up the interview having Ivory looking off left of the camera, with two astros as a key and fill. For audio, I used a wireless mic lav pack with a vampire clip that was connected to the audio bag.
