Project: Fallon Community Health Plan: “Parade of Benefits” Director: Alan Chebot

DP: Peter Simonite

Camera Operator: David Kruta

On one of the first beautiful days of the year, I met the Parallax Productions crew at an abandoned department store that had been dressed to look like a gym, where we prepared to shoot a parade of various athletes, from bikers to snowboarders to scuba divers and horseback riders. The shoot was for a Fallon Community Health Care commercial emphasizing benefits that “Go far beyond the gym”, extending offers for ski tickets, race entries and other perks.

Over 100 extras were wrangled by the adept production team, allowing camera and lighting to do their job swiftly and enabling director Alan Chebot to crank out an insane amount of footage. Alan’s motto tends to be “Shoot 3 days of material in 2”, which makes 1 day even more intense, but ultimately rewarding.

Lensed by Director of Photography Peter Simonite, we shot on the Panasonic AF100 and a collection of Canon 5Ds and 7Ds. I operated both a 5D and 7D (for 60fps), with a variety of Canon and Nikon lenses. A 30 foot jib carried the AF100 for various swooping overhead shots, while the Canons roamed on tripods, and a low one on a sandbag. Much of the static shots were on long lenses, usually over 200mm (and one at 400mm), to compress the parade and create the illusion that the parade was several magnitudes larger than reality.

The scene was lit mostly with natural light, but two ARRI 18k Arrisuns provided fill through a pair of 12x12 silks to manage the drastic difference between highlight and shadow. The cameras’ ability to handle such a range is one of their drawbacks, but once a bit of fill was added, the image looked solid and we were ready to roll.

The day went by quickly and Parallax walked with more than enough footage, which ended up as this beautiful spot below.

It was a pleasure collaborating with some familiar faces, and wonderful meeting a few new talented people. For more info, check out Parallax Productions’ website.