Karl's 4 AM Call Time in Manhattan: What a Day on Set Actually Looks Like

Karl EgbeMay 27, 2026

TL;DR

Karl Egbe's alarm goes off at 4 AM. By 4:30 he is loading the truck. By 6 AM he is in Midtown setting up a 3-camera interview. This is what a real day on set looks like in NYC.

The alarm goes off at 4 AM. Not 4:15. Not snooze-till-4:30. Four. AM. Because in Manhattan, if you are not loading the truck by 4:30, you are not finding parking within three blocks of your location by 6, and if you are not set up by 7, the client's VP of Marketing is going to be standing in an empty room wondering where the camera crew is.

This is a pretty standard Tuesday for me.

4:30 AM — Load Out

I run through the gear checklist while I load. Today's setup is a 3-camera interview in a corporate office in Midtown — two talking heads, one wide establishing shot. My kit for the day:

Sony FX9 (A-cam, interview close-ups)
Sony FX3 (B-cam, wide/cutaway)
Sony FX3 #2 (C-cam, OTF and B-roll)
Two Nanlite Forza 300Bs for key and fill
One Forza 60C for hair light
Softboxes, grids, c-stands, sandbags
Sennheiser wireless lavs x2, shotgun mic, mixer
Sachtler tripods x3
And the gear cart. My nemesis. My best friend. My workout routine.

6:15 AM — Miracle Parking

Found a spot two blocks from the building. In Midtown. On a Tuesday. This is the kind of thing that makes you believe in a higher power. I unload the cart, stack it strategically (heavy cases on bottom, lights on top, tripods strapped to the side), and begin the two-block push.

The security guard at the lobby desk looks at my cart like I am moving in permanently. "Just the camera crew," I say. He has heard this before.

7:00 AM — Setup

The conference room is exactly what I expected: glass walls on two sides, overhead fluorescent lights that create unflattering green-cast shadows, and a window view that the client definitely wants in the background. Classic.

Step one: kill the overheads. Step two: flag the windows to control the backlight. Step three: build the interview lighting from scratch. The Forza 300Bs punch through the ambient light easily — key at 45 degrees camera-left through a large softbox, fill at half power camera-right. The 60C goes behind the talent as a subtle hair light to separate them from the background.

By 7:45, the set looks like a completely different room. The client walks in and says, "Wow, this looks amazing." That never gets old.

8:00 AM — 2:00 PM — Interviews

Six interviews, 20 minutes each, with 15-minute resets between. The teleprompter operator is dialed in. The audio is clean. The talent is... mostly cooperative. One VP keeps looking at the camera instead of the interviewer. Another speaks in sentences that are six minutes long with no natural edit points. You smile, you adapt, you keep rolling.

2:30 PM — B-Roll

The interviews are in the can. Now I strip down to one camera — the FX3 on the gimbal — and spend two hours getting B-roll of the office: people working, conference rooms in action, the skyline from the 40th floor, product shots, handshakes, laptop screens. The gimbal work is where I get to be creative. Smooth tracking shots through the hallway, slow push-ins on product displays, overhead reveals of the workspace.

5:00 PM — Wrap

Pack it all up. Reverse the cart journey. Find the car (still there — another miracle). Load out. Drive home through rush hour traffic that makes the 4 AM alarm feel like the easy part.

By 7 PM, all media is backed up, cards are formatted, and gear is charging for tomorrow's shoot in Brooklyn.

This is the job. The hours are long, the gear is heavy, and parking in Manhattan is a daily act of faith. But walking onto a set at 7 AM and transforming a fluorescent conference room into something that looks like it belongs on a screen — that is why I do this. Every single day.