Brazil and Mexico Shoot - Final Day

This is what we came for! The last day turned it on and we finally got what we needed! Smiles all around!

I think I can safely say that there is nothing quite like quiet reflection. As I sit here in the comfort of my office on the Sunshine Coast surrounded by normality, the last day of the shoot in Mexico seems so distant that the craziness of it all seems almost diminished.

However it doesn’t take too much pondering before the road train of memories slam into the forefront of my consciousness. I’m whisked back to the hot, intense, fateful, final day of the shoot where the planets aligned to give us some of the best results of the trip.

The day started at 5am. Bleary eyed and feeling like a piece of petrified excrement, I stumbled into the shower to try and wash away the pain. This was the last day, I was running on empty, overworked, tired and stressed. My body was having a tough time getting used to the different food too, so I wasn’t really able to give it what it needed to repair. I say it every time, but next time I’m going to have to schedule a proper rest day to give myself some time to recover. I know film crews often work 16 hour days, but that’s a film crew. . . .I was a one man band. Locked and loaded I went to meet Luis, who politely informed me that I did indeed look like I felt. I like to think that his empathy was lost in translation.

Sunrise shoot was on. Having scoped a nice arch the day before, we decided to shoot first light and sunrise there. After about ten minutes playing with the arch, using different lenses, filters and everything else I could dream up in my lucid state I got bored and headed to the waters edge. I had been taking the spreader off the tripod for all the shooting I had been doing in the sand. Mostly to keep the it free of sand and working smoothly, but this day, the lower heights achievable without the spreader really made the new 525MVB worth every penny! I shoved the sticks so wide and deep into the sand and got that thing as low as it could possibly go where the waves were washing up on the shore without saltwater splashing onto the camera. I have never been able to achieve this shot as successfully in the past, always having to shoot handheld and getting incosistent results at best. With a blue sky overhead and a sparkling white sand beach before me things started to work really nicely. . .I smiled as I watched back the clip on the LCD the tiredness seemed to lift from me. Done! It was pool time!

The pool was pretty nice to look at, the weather was perfect. No clouds, no wind, bright sunshine coming from just the right direction. Consequently, it wasn’t too hard pulling good shots out of there. With a circular polariser, some Cokin filters to get it looking just right and a bit of 60P love for the caustics, we had another win. It was amazing how well things went when the weather came to the party. In high spirits we left the pool by about 8am to get to the next location.

After smashing down a quick breakfast it was time to shoot the shoot the Chef, a lovely young girl named Maria, doing her thing. With the sun glaring over her left shoulder, her face in pitch black shadow, I longed for my wonderful purpose built reflector that was tucked safely inside my HVX Case about 7,000 kilometres away in Brazilian Customs. I was slightly concerned, but not to be deterred, I managed to procure some tablecloth’s which whilst not ideal were much better than nothing and Oscar, a friendly hotel employee, came to the rescue, holding them in nice and close just out of shot. His arms would have been caning by the end the poor bugger! Thanks Oscar, you saved us there brother!

Straight after the Chef it was off to the the waters edge to shoot some watersports, low on time and resources it was quick and dirty, handheld from a boat. It was a real shame because I had a really great setup planned which consisted of land based shots from across the shallow bay on the 100-400, but we just didn’t have enough time to get it done before we had to go into town to get the helicopter. I shot the Tokina 11-16, the Sigma 30mm and the Canon 70-200, which again, absolutley killed it with the stabiliser. I was very surprised to see it working it such challenging conditions, I mean I won’t pull a 7 second perfectly stable clip out of it, but I will definitely get a nice 3-4 second shot out of it, which is enough for my purposes.

Towards the end of the 30 minutes in the boat, I ran into a little trouble. Staring at the back of the camera, riding up and down the swell, going faster, slower, doing power turns, back and forth. . .My stomach started doing backflips. I don’t normally get motion sickness, but I went down hill fast and when the Jet Ski came to get me to take me back to the beach, I couldn’t get on the bloody thing fast enough. Back on land I headed straight for the room where I was sure I was going to lose breakfast. I was swaying and feeling like death, imagining the terrible ramifications of me not being able to finish the days shooting, wondering if I had food poisoning or something because I felt that ill.

I drank about 2 litres of water, took some Panadol, had a Berocca and readied the gear for the trip to the helicopter, trying very much not to think about being airborne.

The aerials went without a hitch. It appears in Mexico they do not share the same laws about minimum altitudes over built up areas. One shot we almost touched down on the 3rd green of the Golf Course before heading back up as fast as we could. I had the wrong lens on for it, but the look on the golfers’ faces that were playing their approach was possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen. To say they were freaking out would be a massive understatement.

The weather played nice, the water looked great and we got everything we needed.

Following the Aerial shots it was back to the car and then back to the Golf Course, all the while Luis was on the phone trying to pin somebody at Delta to the wall and get my HVX back to us before we left the next morning. He didn’t have much luck. The HVX looked like it was staying in Brazil for a bit longer. I began to wonder if I would ever see it again.

A nasty band of cloud obscured our sunset and the Golf Shots didn’t quite work out as we’d hoped. It was 5:30pm and time to head to the Restaurant for our final shoot, Dinner, Teppanyaki to be precise, for 6. Maybe it’s not so Mexican, but hey, it looks damn good in 60P . Unable to get power for the lights, (which were working very poorly anyway with the 240V globes on 110V power! Oversight on my part! Woops!) it was the fast primes that saved the day. The Sigma 30mm f1.4 was a dream, the Canon 50mm 1.8 II saved my butt and the 70-200, although pushing the ISO a little too far still pulled a couple of nice shots. It was so crazy in there and not lit so well that I shot mostly handheld at 60P just looking for nice moments. As a wide the composition didn’t work, it was just too functional, so close-ups were the order of the evening. We wrapped at about 7:30pm, not by choice either, but because people had complained. Not that we were shooting a video in the place, but because myself and Luis were wearing shorts. . .don’t ask, I don’t know, and I didn’t even care. . .I was just stoked to be finished. . . .

It was over. . .done. . .complete. . . .We headed back to our rooms and nearly died. . . .It was a great feeling!

After dumping the cards we readied for a couple of celebratory drinks and some dinner in Playa Del Carmen with a friend of mine from Australia, Rob. We didn’t feel like doing anything but passing out into oblivion. It turned out that we didn’t end up doing that until 6am the next morning! Wrap drinks were just a bit too much fun! I still now do not know how we did it, but we did. It was fantastic!

I set my alarm for 8am so I had time to get up, pack, shop for some presents, leave at 9:15 and and be at the airport by around 9:45 to catch my flight at 11:45. There were two slight problems with this scenario. Luis was confused. My flight left at 11am, not 11:45am. We didn’t find this out until we got to the airport. . .which we did with only 1 minute to spare because we both slept through our alarms and woke up at 10am. . .with only one hour to shower, pack, get to the airport, through immigration, security and onto the plane. . .I can’t believe I made it. . .With a chaperone through immigration, security and everything I took all my bags to the gate, and checked them there. It was unbelievable!

The rest is history. . .Sure I missed the next connecting flight, left a bag in customs, went back and got it and got put on a another flight, but I still made it home on time to the waiting arms of my lovely lady at Brisbane Airport. . .Let me tell you, after all of that, not much in the world felt good, but that sure did!

It’s now a week later and a very tired and slightly more worldly HVX arrived at my door this afternoon. She looks like she’s been through the ringer, that’s for sure! Man, if that wasn’t a mistake taking that away! Hahaha! Until this afternoon, I hadn’t seen it since I checked it in Sydney! Too funny! I’m just glad it made it home and didn’t become some Brazilian Customs Officials’ early Christmas present!

The footage is all set to go, I will be posting some of the final stuff up on here but I need to wait until Luis has done what he needs to with it. He needs to unveil it to his clients before I can go showing the world in HighDefEdition! Hopefully that won’t be too far away!

Anyway, I think I’ve well and truly crapped on enough about all of this. It does feel good to actually report on what went down properly for at least one day.

In closing, all I can say is that it sure was crazy, but I can’t wait to do it all again!

Until then. . .:)

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