I know I’m out of the ordinary in Austin. I love the South by Southwest festival. It is a lot of hard work and there are a lot of extra people, many of which feel entitled just by being here and/or paying a lot of money for a badge.

I love it though. The weather is beautiful, everyone is excited to be in Austin and excited about Austin. Everyone you run into out in the street is drunk, high, hung over, or just had sex with a stranger. It is madness and mayhem and everyone thinks they are special. The out of towners, the locals all have their sense of entitlement. They either paid for priviledge or can’t get into the bars they go to all the time. It is an amazing time to be in Austin.

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Working at the Legendary White Swan. Money is wearing thin on this round of unemployment. With SxSW coming up I should have a bit more money coming in, and a lot of opportunities for street photography. Might try and pull some street corner portraiture.

Being a bouncer is strange because it is a job you want to be boring. If it isn’t boring, usually something has gone wrong.

Today it just flowed. My 17 year old cat, Miss Henry, treed another cat who had intruded into my yard. She chased the intruder 20 feet straight up a tree. I knew I couldn’t do anything to assist her decent, so I went for my camera. Wrong lens, wrong settings for the situation. But I flew through the motions of grabbing the camera, switching the lens, setting it up as I walked back out the door. I was able to capture 15 frames, of which two or three were good. Between concept and execution there was no thought, just shifting through the motions to get the shot. I was free of the needs of the camera and just able to concentrate on the moment.

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So, Boneboys was my first stunt role. I was on set for a total of three days and got to body double one of the leads. It was definitely a learning experience.

Mostly I learned that movie work is a lot of waiting followed by brief flurries of action.

Other than patience I learned:

  • On set etiquette
  • On set gun safety etiquette
  • Good stunt men are the most careful people on set. They want to be physically capable of doing their jobs as long as possible. Bad stunt guys only think about getting themselves into a bigger stunt. 
  • It is possible to cover my forearm tattoos with enough makeup to be fine on camera. And it only takes about a half an hour.
  • Most dangerous: I learned that standing on top of police cars is fun
  • Be present, be ready to go. Don’t complain, don’t get in the way, and don’t leave without your lead’s permission/knowledge.

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I need to add the following to my ‘Stunt Bag’:

  • Back pad (called an armadillo or razor back for the series of plates that runs down your spine)
  • Hip pads (eventually)
  • Climbing harness
  • Variety of climbing pieces and some rope probably

I’d like to get into being the on set still photographer, but that requires a large money/equipment outlay. That setup requires:

  • Two camera bodys, maybe one at full frame
  • One fairly wide angle lens
  • A custom Sound blimp – a sound proof case for the wide angle lens + camera so the still camera’s shutter noise is imperceptible when sound is rolling.