May / 2010

Making of a Freelance Cameraman

by Barry E. Springgay,
Associate Member

I stood staring at the barren yet mystically beautiful landscape of monochromatic grey-brown against a cobalt blue sky. No, maybe not truly monochromatic if you looked closely. Every metre or two, a hint of the palest slim green leaves could be seen hiding in the gravelly soil. I found out later these were a hardy type of poppy whose seeds would blow in from around the world to settle on a composted polar bear dropping.

I walked a bit farther down this Arctic valley through some moraine to take a closer look at a crystal stream that sourced from a huge sheet of Aqua Velva-hued ice that meandered away into the distant horizon. Stark beauty gilded by huge silence, tickled by the occasional gurgle from the stream. It’s hard not to drop into hyperbole trying to describe this scene.

The Discovery Channel producer calling me from the top of the plateau broke my trance. It’s July, thank heaven and we’re shooting a story about a deep-thinking rover for NASA’s Mars Mission. We’re about 30 kilometres from Base Camp, in the Haughton Crater on Devon Island, about 4,000-plus kilometres from Toronto and way beyond the Arctic Circle. She calls again. Our break from shooting on top of the world must be over.

As I crest the edge of the plateau, about 25 metres from the valley floor, the head of the Rover project is waiting for me. “Oh oh,” I thought. We had been asked to be careful where we went, and to be very aware of leaving any sign of our visit behind. I had checked in advance if I could explore the area, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. “You camera people sure never seem to sit still for long,” he said. Naturally I took it as a compliment. Then looking down the side of the plateau, he continued, “That area there, where you were walking by the stream. Last year most of the valley floor was covered in sheet ice. The ice flow that feeds the stream has receded quite a bit here, just like everywhere else.” Perhaps then he noticed the look on my face, like I was waiting for a scolding about watching where I went, because he said, “What I’m trying to say is, the footprints you made down there by the stream? They were probably the first footprints made by a human.” He waited for a moment then said, “Ever!”

I looked at him, then back down at the valley. Besides obviously being awed by that fact, I thought for the hundredth time, “What an amazing job I have. What privileges my chosen career has given me.” I know many other camera people would echo the sentiment as they read this. On this particular trip, we had spent time in Iqaluit, Baffin Island, and on an archaeological dig 50 kilometres from this spot, where famous paleontologist Mary Dawson discovered the remains of a mini-rhinoceros. Preparing for the trek to the dig shoot, the producer and I had packed a simple lunch at base camp. As we sat on the hillock with the crew, nibbling our sandwiches, we caught each other’s eyes and just smiled. Big smiles. “Look where we are!” It didn’t need to be said out loud.

Barry Springgay

I’ve always been a cameraman. Back when I was a kid in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, I had to babysit my younger brother during the summer while my Mom worked. I pretty much I ignored him of course, but made sure I was around to catch the CJIC-TV afternoon movie on our black-and-white 19-inch Emerson. I just naturally watched the camera moves; how they did high shots and low angles and moved the camera around and sometimes through things. At 12 years old, I‘d seen Citizen Kane enough times to appreciate its production values way before I figured out the
Rosebud thing. I didn’t know what production values were; I just understood there was something amazing there and I wanted in.

To make a long story short, I saw a ‘million’ films, took a lot of pictures with my Russian Zenit 35 mm, studied film at York University, and got my first job at CFTO as a news cameraman after digging swimming pool holes for the summer. I was on my way. Someone actually paying me to shoot! I should mention here that after graduating from film school, there was no way I was going to work for a televisio n station. I was going to shoot and produce documentaries about the world; probably that few would ever see. A summer of ditch digging and passing by the CFTO studios every day changed my outlook a bit. With an amazing amount of chutzpah I still find hard to imagine, I wrangled a job at CFTO News. My first professional footage was seen by hundreds of thousands of people, with a later story I shot going around the world. Maybe shooting for television wasn’t so bad after all.

A few years of shooting film for CFTV News with a CP 16 taught me how to light quickly and respect the gear. Video has its idiosyncrasies, but shooting film, light meter in hand, and judging colour temps by eye always kept me on edge. Exposures, remembering to change filters in the camera, low-light situations and always under time constraints, would I ever feel comfortable, like I’m sure the more experienced camera guys did after a shoot?

The term freelance originally described a knight that held no particular allegiance to a noble, and hired out his services as required, to those willing to pay on a daily or short-term basis. In my field, not much has changed to this day except we are seldom called “sir” unless addressed by a young PA, and we long ago traded in the lance for a camera. Some freelancers prefer to work on a series where there is at least a modicum of security, and a steady paycheque. These gigs still have their challenges, of course, from making a repetitive scenario interesting to dealing with
talent that may or may not possess various levels of real talent.

I’m a freelance cameraman that has always loved the variety this career can bring. I’ve never been interested in series production. I’ve had an assignment where I was shooting a profile for CTV of the then prime minister at home and at work in Ottawa, and the next day was working on a PSA about a homeless man living in the allies of downtown Toronto. I’ve tripped through Australia staying in five-star hotels shooting for Nortel when the cash flowed, to surviving a W5 shoot staying in a motel room smelling of mold, with flies buzzing around the wooden garbage bin conveniently kept nearby.

Freelance jobs are endless in their variety, and one of the most enjoyable kinds of shooting I do, with a few exceptions, is working on behind the scenes or EPK on movie sets. I’ve gone from a single-day shoot on a television movie, to being “embedded” (the producer’s term), as promotional and BTS DP on Disney’s Camp Rock II for 45 shooting days. Our crew of producer, camera assistant, soundman and myself would shoot the amazing dance routines documentary style, from heatstroke rehearsals in a Toronto studio to principal photography at the Camp Rock set in Northern Ontario. This was contrasted with nicely lit full-length interviews with all the cast and filmmakers. Disney knows promotion, and if truth be told, our footage will likely have more accumulated air time than the run time of the movie.

Working on movie sets, as I did almost right from the beginning of my freelance career, helped me realized two very important things that would influence my future as a cameraman. Perhaps first, was that despite my love of movies and production, I realized I was happy to be involved with the periphery and not the actual filmmaking. I had thought I would go from general camerawork to camera operating and hopefully eventual DOP on feature films. I soon realized it wasn’t for me; however beautiful or amazing the final result, it took too long and was too repetitious to achieve. I loved the smaller crew and the challenge of creating shots that would say a lot with a little, with a limited time to do it in.

“What an amazing job I have. What privileges my chosen career has given me.” Barry Springgay Photos courtesy of the author.

The other important influence of working on movies was watching and learning how the DOP lit the scenes, and how often less is more. Most DOPs and camera people are forever willing to explain technique to a willing listener. Here I was working on a movie lit by Jack Green asc, of Unforgiven fame, being shown by the master how to bend a piece of white cardboard into a parabola so a light source bounced into it would just creep into the subjects eyes, looking ridiculously like there was no specific light source at all. I’m sure I never worked on a movie set where I didn’t take away some bit of information to file away for a future shoot.

One of the many things I love about the freelance life is how, for short periods of time, we become intimately involved in people’s lives. It’s always amazed me what people will reveal on to a camera, and how truly the camera never blinks. I get to see a lot of things most people never get to see, from the inside and out of the Darlington Nuclear Plant to behind the scenes at the ROM, and from the boardrooms of corporate Canada to volunteer workers at the local food bank. I’ve travelled the world numerous times, with the crowning trip being a circumnavigation of the planet shooting for a bank, believe it or not.

Even the shoots I look forward to and enjoy can have an occasional negative turn though. Debbie Reynolds is one of those Hollywood icons that I grew up with and never dreamed of ever meeting as I watched her a hundred times in Singin’ in the Rain. I had been shooting for Entertainment Tonight quite a bit, and had developed a lighting style, using a subtle eye light and chimera that generally pleased the fastidious actors. (I even had Milton Berl once ask to look through the viewfinder to check the frame.)

We had just finished a long TIFF shoot, and the gear was packed
up. The producer answered her cell, and immediately said “grab the camera and your sun gun, Debbie Reynolds is headed to the airport but will give us five minutes in her hotel room. No time for lighting.” She knew me well. I wasn’t going to use a sun gun, but I had a two-light mini-chimera kit with at least a backlight that I could set up very quickly. You sometimes have to compromise in this business, but not to that extent, and certainly not for Debbie Reynolds.

The hotel room was small, and believe it or not, we had to set up with Reynolds sitting on one side of the bed, facing the camera across the other bed. The PR guy was looking at his watch and us and frowning at both. There was barely room to put up the chimera between the tripod and the bedside table. Just before we started, as the sound guy checked the mic, I asked if there was anything we could get her some water or whatever. “An eye light,” she said. I lost about two inches in height. Recovering, I said that the chimera gave a beautiful soft light. “I know”, she said. “What I’d like is an eye light.” No point giving excuses. Feeling like a complete amateur, I said I didn’t have one. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s do this then.” It feels like it happened yesterday. I know now once you’re there take the time within reason to do it right. It’s the result that counts.

The psychology of the freelance life could probably fill a university study paper. When you have a good year, you argue against taking a break or vacation because you must make hay while the sun shines. When things are slow, you argue against taking a break or vacation because you have to be there in case someone calls. It’s a real Catch-22, and as Yossarian said, “it’s a pretty good one.” All the more so because we have all had the experience of turning down work because we just committed money and family to being away exactly when that shoot was scheduled. The other thing that hurts the brain when you think about it too often doesn’t have a name, but there are a number of four-letter adjectives that help describe it. It’s that lean week with nothing booked but a Wednesday, and you get two or three other calls for that day, including a two-day shoot. All you can do is be thankful people are calling.

Going through an economic period like we are experiencing now can shake the foundations of the most confident believer in our unfettered freelance life style. Variety and quantity of calls shrink, and rates are pressured down. I was recently advised by one of my regular clients – a network – “this is the rate we’re paying for HD; take it or leave it.” A silver lining here is that usually a freelancer has a number of clients, from broadcast to corporate to documentary and commercial. So, if one area slows down, the others might still be doing okay. You have to keep this positive attitude if you are going to survive. We are always swinging in the wind, you might say. We never know if we’ll be working tomorrow or not. But nowadays, who does?

Freelance life is like most others in a way, with highs and lows, but the highs can be pretty high and lows are seldom that bad. After all, there’ll be another shoot tomorrow… I hope, anyway.

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