Duran Duran Super35 mm Mega Shoot.

[Alister Chapman]

The Berlin Duran Duran shoot was quite an adventure that twisted and turned this way and that. On the Monday before the shoot we were all sat at home waiting for the go - no-go phone call from the producers. The call came at 9pm, we were go, so first thing Tuesday I was off to the airport with 75kg of kit to fly out to Berlin with the very real threat of either Heathrow airport or Berlin airport getting shut down by Volcanic ash from Iceland. In the end my flight left 20 mins early and the plane was even backing away from the gate well before everyone had taken their seats in a mad dash to get to Berlin before airspace got closed. My self and Den Lennie in the advanced party got into Berlin Ok and spent Tuesday collecting some of the rented and borrowed kit and getting it in to the venue.
However by the Wednesday morning the whole shoot was turning into a serious challenge as Berlin airport was closed by the Ash cloud from the Iceland volcano just as key members of the crew were due to fly in. They ended up going to Dusseldorf and getting the train up to Berlin. In addition some of our rented kit was delayed as well as the stage and rigging crew, so everyone was running behind, frantically trying to source more kit locally. We had 6 F3's, 2 FS100's the SRW9000PL and an EX3. The EX3 was going to be used on the back of a 300mm Cinestyle lens from the back of the venue to get some close up shots that we just could not get with any of the PL mount lenses we had on the 35mm sensor cameras. Long, fast 35mm lenses are few and far between.

Two of the F3's were kitted out with Angenieux Optimo 24-290 T2.8 lenses and Pre-Production Zacuto EVF's. What a gorgeous lens, the EVF's aren't bad either! We could get beautiful mid and close up shots from the venue sides. At the rear of the venue as well as the EX3 we had an F3 with an Angenieux Optimo 15-40 on a track to shoot wide shots of the stage through the crowds. The remaining F3's were to be used with Nikon DSLR lenses in the 75 to 300mm range via MTF adapters (thanks Mike) and a prototype Adaptimax adapter (Thanks Steve). The remaining F3's were going to go on tracks at the front of the stage to pick off close ups of instruments and band members. We also had a pair of Sony MC1P mini-cams but we could not rig these until the stage crew arrived and we weren't expecting them until early on Thursday morning, the day of the shoot. The FS100's would be on stage, hand held and on tracks using prototype Birger mounts and Canon L series lenses.

Then the bombshell dropped. The event was postponed. The lead singer Simon LeBon has been suffering from Laryngitis and he still wasn't well enough to sing. So the remainder of the evening was spent packing all the kit away and rebooking flights and schedules. The concert will now be held on the 8th of June, again in Berlin. I'm going to be flying back to London from Cinegear and a 3D event at Samy's cameras on the 6th, passing through London ( 3 hours between flights) on the 7th where I will pick up my F3 kit and then travel on the Berlin, where we will once again try to complete the shoot. Photo's and more gear porn to follow.

[Alister Chapman]

One more note. We were recording to either NanoFlashes at 100 Mb/s of Atamos Ninja's while also recording internally in the cameras.

The pictures below show the F3's getting prep'd and programmed with matching picture profiles and clip numbering prefixes. Plus a couple of shots of one of the F3's with the big optimo zoom fitted. This is a monster of a lens.

[Gary Nattrass]

Thanks for the blog/pics Alister and sorry to hear after the problems of travel it was cancelled, hope the band and management appreciate all the work involved.

We did a few film shoots in france with them for The Tube in the 80's and they were a pain in the backside to work with then but as time went on several ego driven bands inc Mick and Keef's learned not to upset the Geordies on the film crew as we just didn't tolerate their rock star ways! ;0)

[Alister Chapman]

The band are genuinely extremely upset at the cancellations. I think that they are all as keen to get the tour on the road as anyone else. Lets face it these days you can't afford to disappoint your fans and it's live shows where they make their money.

[Gary Nattrass]

The band always tend to be fine, it's the management that seem to play the funny games for no apparent reason!