The Camelbak - A DIRECTOR’S Ward against Getting Sick

Here you can see me wearing the CamelBak. In my right hand I’m using my water bottle for coffee - another must have drink on set.

One issue I have had while directing my short films was that the directing job was so involved, so non-stop, so demanding for so many hours that I literally would forget to drink enough water and by the end of each day I was very dehydrated. Compound this over a series of unrelenting days on a feature film and you can get sick very quick. In fact, it’s pretty common for many directors on features to get sick. And I would bet it’s mainly from being dehydrated.

Which is why for Skycrash I brought along my CamelBak and made a point to wear it every single day of production. Now, I’m fully aware that I probably looked like the world’s biggest dork on set, but I didn’t care and after a month and a half of filming (29 production days with some travel days and a day off every 6 production days) I can say that I never got sick.

Other personal items I found helpful on set was a red binder with the script, storyboards, and notes. Because we were filming in the forest in Oregon, and many times we’d have to hike for 20 minutes to our location - a rather strenuous hike - one thing that was enormously helpful for our production was that virtually all of our gear was placed in camera backpacks. This included the partially built RED Helium, follow focus rig, clapper, mini-mags, matte box, lens cleaners, 6 V-mount batteries, etc. The only items in a pelican case were the four Ultra Prime lenses.

Camera gear backpacks, which can be found at places like B&H Photo Video, are particularly useful for any sort of location that requires even a modest walk to. When you’re filming in a house, or interior location, it’s pretty easy to pull your car up close and unpack. But having to walk a few minutes to a location can become very challenging, time consuming, and tiring on a feature which doesn’t have the luxury of extra grip hands to carry everything.

Another useful item we had with us was a bunch of Cap-it rain covers for gear and the camera. These are very cheap to purchase and super quick and easy to put on. One of the challenges of filming is Oregon is that the weather can change on a dime, and it’s frequently wet there. There’s a reason it looks so lush. When it would start to sprinkle or rain we would cover the camera, and many times were able to continue filming despite the water. And for our cast and crew, I made sure we all had water proof rain jackets and shoes, as well as layered clothes, so that when it rained everyone was fine without umbrellas, and when it would get sunny and warm, we could just strip off a layer and continue on.

I always saw a non-studio film crew as needing to be similar to special forces. A small group of people wearing multiple hats, able to move nimbly and efficiently as compared to the slower large army crew on Hollywood features.