Los Angeles, CA

For the past month I have been working for Louis Hock, a filmmaker and artist who lives near San Diego. He has a commission for a video installation, and his project involves documenting diverse residential streets all over the city with long tracking shots. My role has been researching, scouting, planning and assisting on the shoots. I’m really pleased that we were connected through mutual friends/colleagues, because the subject matter (as you probably know) is of strong interest to me personally.

I thought I’d share some images of our setup for these shoots, because it’s pretty amazing. Louis bought this 1977 Monte Carlo for a hundred bucks — Craigslist, I think — and installed a mount on the roof with a drill and some bolts. The car is so riddled with rust holes (strange for California; the Scripps Institution of Oceanography sticker on the window perhaps provides a clue) that it needs a cover when parked on the street, just in case it rains.

So the camera goes in the box on the roof, a cable from the camera comes down through the roof and connects to a small screen that I can monitor while we’re recording. I use the remote control to turn the camera on and off; brilliantly, Louis attached a small whiteboard to the remote, so I can slate at the end of each shot by just reaching out of the window. It’s pretty perfect. (If only I’d taken better care of my Thomas Guide! Poor thing.)