For this blog entry, I thought I’d share a little taste of the behind-the-scenes short film I am putting together on the side.

I’m sure some of you have gone to the movies and wondered just how they are doing all those fancy camera moves. Well, I’ll tell you: very expensively. Hollywood films generally rely on elaborate cranes and dollies and other camera-movement devises that separate a ‘real’ movie from uncle Jim with his hand-held camera sitting in his backyard and making his kids and grandma pretend to be Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep. But these devises are very expensive. I still remember the days when I borrowed a wheelchair, sat in it with my camera, and had my friend push me to get a tracking effect. Ahh, yes, it seems like only last year. Oh, yeah, it was last year. Actually the wheelchair works very well on a smooth floor.

Since coming to Watershed, I’ve continued my guerilla filmmaking tactics thanks to Daniel Varholy’s interest in doing things affordably but well. Thanks to Watershed, though (and our generous benefactors) I have a bit more material to work with. Take for example the Cobra Crane, a great little devise that I brought with me to the Middle East:

Here’s a still of the crane:

Eric Hinojosa using the Cobra crane for the Cardinal Newman films in England.

I don’t have the Middle East footage taken with the crane available yet, but see how beautifully it looks in the short film I shot about Cardinal Newman’s library:

Look out for the behind-the-scenes short film I am working on where I’ll talk about other wonders, such as the PVC pipe dolly.

Until then,
Ma3 Salemeh.