Thinking Small

Staying light and moving quickly...

This documentary has challenged us to slim down the team so we can be mobile and quick. We still have two digital cinema cameras running, somethings a third, once in awhile only one. But the team remains light and tight. We are capturing life moments and massive amounts of information. We are sometimes in cramped spaces (that look bigger on screen).

We pretzel ourselves around medical equipment and dodge health professionals as they work.

We are committed to not be a part of the story. We do not want to insert ourselves but document the moments as they unfold. There are “do or die” shots or “one chance to get it” moments. We need to be in the right place at the right time. We try to get there in time. Every once on awhile Ed will ask, “Can you hold for a sec?” as we slide into the right position to get the money shot.

What’s also different for us is that Ed has picked up the camera and filmed a lot of the material. Ed’s not a camera person, he's a director, but he has managed to learn almost every skill in filmmaking from writing and editing to sound and camera.

He attributes that to a love of production, a fascination with the filmmaking process, and the program at NYU where they put you ”hands on” for every part of filmmaking.

He still remembers experiences in the famous “Sight and Sound” class (he did it 6 days a week over the summer) and we both share the memories of the “Beginning Television” course where everyone took part in everything. We both recall the early days of production, working with professionals who went on to win Emmys and Oscars.

We learned a lot from them. We owe a lot to them. Today, we use what we've learned.

Ed shares his thoughts about learning filmmaking and how saw "small" worked well in this six minute excerpt from an audio interview...