One Alexa Mini, Two Easyrigs: A 12.5-Hour Day in Columbus
The subject was Sonny Styles, who is being drafted into the NFL next year, and the day was built around him and his family. As the crew put it plainly in their notes: this was an NFL Styles shoot on Sonny Styles. That framing mattered to how the day was covered. Family shoots move on their own schedule, not the schedule on the call sheet, and a long single-camera day means the crew has to be ready to pick up and reposition rather than wait for the moment to come back around.
Jordan Woods served as director of photography, shooting on an Arri Alexa Mini. There was no B camera on this job. Everything came off the one body, which puts real weight on the operator and the AC to stay ahead of the next setup. Tim worked as assistant camera, and with anamorphic lenses on the front of the Mini, that job gets more demanding than usual. Anamorphic glass gives you the wider, more cinematic frame, but it also gives you a shallower margin for error on focus. A Leica Summilux was also on the truck for the day.
Two Easyrigs were in the package, which tells you how much of the day was handheld and mobile rather than locked off on sticks. An Easyrig takes the load of the camera off the operator's shoulders and arms and transfers it to the hips, and over a 12.5-hour day that is the difference between a steady frame at hour ten and a shaky one. Having two on set means the rig can stay balanced for different configurations without breaking down and rebuilding between setups.
Long days that run past sunset mean the lighting plan has to work in two different worlds: whatever is available during the daytime hours, and a fully built look once the light is gone. Sam T. ran audio. Jack P. worked as production assistant, which on a day this long and this mobile is the role that keeps everything else from grinding to a halt. A 17" monitor was part of the kit, giving the DP and anyone else who needed eyes on the frame a large enough image to actually judge focus and composition on anamorphic glass rather than squinting at a small onboard display.
