Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538148
28 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Fall 2025 of glass, there was very little room to hide anything. This was made all the more difficult by the shooting style, which dictated we would almost always eventually see everything. Sometimes where you end up in or around a house can make or break your shooting day. It was especially true on "The Oner." Over the course of the season, we pulled every trick, and favor up our sleeves to achieve a work spot at these locations. Transportation would get our sound and video truck up to the location in the first couple of runs. This would allow my team, and Local 695 Video Playback Operator Alfred Ainsworth Jr. and his assistant Evan Hare, to hit the ground right behind the camera department and get the layout of the land. Alfie and I would usually do a quick walkaround and formulate a plan for the sound cart, video playback cart, director's monitor, and video village placement. I pride myself on good spatial awareness and knowing where things should be set up, but with his thirty-five-plus years in the film business, there seems no one better than Alfie Ainsworth at rapidly sussing out a plan for working a location. We were a good team. Occasionally, I could gain key access to off-limit spaces through my relationships with our fantastic location department, led by Stacey Brashear-Rodriguez. Having worked many shows with us, they can trust and speak to my reliability to safeguard delicate spaces for the owner. At one house, our Dimmer Board Operator, Kyle Boorman, had the electric pre-rigging crew "hold" a spot for me next to his by staging gear there that would later go away upon our arrival. In mentioning the electricians, I must also point out the hyper-professional crew run by our talented Gaffer, Russell Ayer. I never had to look more than ten feet for power the entire show. They are Old School in their need to get to you before you've asked, stellar group top to bottom. The episode setup of "The Oner" is familiar to every experienced film crew. Commonly known in our lingo, a "oner" is a camera move that carries the action through an entire scene with no edits or cutaways, in one individual shot. Famous examples can Ike Barinholtz and Seth Rogen be found in films like Touch of Evil, Goodfellas, and Boogie Nights. Where our premise veers slightly are that our entire episode would be a oner (stitched occasionally) capturing our fictitious crew, filming this oner. To complicate matters, this would take place entirely in that little sliver of window approaching sunset, called "magic hour." Most of the location logistics and RF prep had been figured out ahead of time on one of Nick's RF scouts. The use of editorial stitches would not only give the illusion of a complete oner for the episode but also allow us to break the work into three shooting days to keep the filming time of day in an acceptable few hours mimicking magic hour. The opportunity at stretching my definition of "catch and release" would happen right off the bat. The episode opens with execs Matt and Sal driving and conversing, up winding streets through Silverlake in Matt's convertible. At the culmination of the drive, the car stops parking outside the front door of the set in the "Silver Top" home's driveway. At this point, our Camera Operator takes the camera from the car rig and carries our two actors, handheld as they exit the car, they are greeted by a PA, and lead inside the house to video village and meet with Director Sarah Polley, where the scene continues until a whip pan stitch. To complicate the long driving part of the shot, the car would be free driving with no tow, lead, or pursuit vehicles, covering many blocks of streets leading to the house. Our real video Quite the memorable guest cast for this scene!