interviews for a client for years as an OMB. To do that
setup solo, the client knows I need three hours. If I had
the same client and setup but only an hour to set it all
up, it wouldn’t be a realistic scenario or I’d need crew to
accomplish that.
Working Efficiently
If you’re going to shoot solo, you’d be amazed at how
much time you can waste on location. It’s important
to learn to set up things first at home or in your office.
For instance, my main video camera can pack down
to a very small and light package in a camera back-
pack. The downside of this is that to build the camera
back up to a fully configured build takes me about 20
to 25 minutes, depending on the setup.
It’s obvious that when I’m OMB shooting, I need to
pre-build my camera and carry it into the job fully set up.
It can be difficult to set up lighting and carry the
light, stand and diffusor in when working alone.
But I’ve arrived at locations a few minutes early
and pre-built my key source outside and carried it
into the location, plugged it in and at least my key
was set to go.
Every situation is different, but here’s the takeaway:
Think about the gear you’ll need to use to accomplish
the goal and make sure that all of it is as accessible
and pre-assembled as possible. Setting up cameras,
plugging in mics, formatting media—none of that’s
creative. It’s all mechanical tedium. So do as much of
that beforehand as you can so you can spend the little
time you have being creative with lighting, art direc-
tion, backgrounds, troubleshooting audio issues, etc.
Anatomy Of An OMB shoot
Let’s take a look at a recent OMB shoot I did.
For the assignment, I needed to interview two sys-
tems engineers about a challenging project they had
been working on. Their working area wasn’t avail-
able for the shoot, but I was offered the use of an
apartment to shoot their interview.
Because it was a two-talent shot, I wanted to utilize
two cameras, one in a wide, slider shot of the two of
them. Then I could use a longer lens on my other cam-
era, allowing me to shoot singles as each responded.
Unfortunately, the apartment I was given to shoot
Top: Rigging up your camera with all of its necessary
accessories before you arrive at the location can save
a lot of time.
Middle: A 1x1 LED panel like this Litepanels Gemini
can provide enough output to light up multiple talent.
Bottom: It goes without saying that all of your batteries
should be fully charged when you arrive at the location.