this is don pickard with a brief
description of what i kind of had in
mind when i put these scenes together
the crew you're looking at is a 26 crew
in which
they before their flight got together
and said you know what kind of a story
do we want to tell them what kind of a
movie do we want to make when we get
back and so they gave it some thought
when they when they made their shots
um this is uh a good shot in that it
shows both the commander
and the pilot
they shot it long which gives me as an
editor
more time
to uh
or more footage to select what kind of a
shot i want or where in the shot i want
to go
and
it's better to have
too much footage than not enough
it gives you an option of cutting this
particular sequence several different
ways
now i've let these scenes run from
camera stop to camera stop
so you get an idea of their length
and
the action that's going on so in some
places i won't have anything to say
but it's good as
you show each of the crew individually
doing something
and also
this particular shot was the beginning
of the deploy sequence
right after we came up on orbit
in this sequence
they did utilize a zoom
they went into close-ups which are
good um the pan in uh this particular
type of pan is a is a good length
it goes in it shows a computer shows him
doing something and also you can use it
as a cutaway because once you get in
close to his hand where you can't see
what's going on you can cut to hulk or
you can cut to
lounge or wherever you want to go and it
makes sense
you don't get a visual jump
if like you would if you were on a long
shot
this is lounge who deployed the
satellite
this is also a part of the sequence and
it's good because in this sequence you
can't see anybody
on the ford flight deck you just see
lounge
and even though
it was a little long
i was able to cut it up in really in
three different sections
and make it play real good with the tdrs
deploy
it's important if you're trying to
um here's his close-up you could also
also you could also go in just shoot a
close-up shot not a zoom
go in close focus it and shoot throw in
the switch
then you can immediately cut back to the
deploy out the window
which in the final film i did for him i
used it in in that
mode
now they've been better off to quit
right there because as they came up they
were out of
and at this point in time it had been a
lot better to cut the camera off which i
believe they do refocus it
and start it over again as way so much
film
shooting it out of focus
see that's much much better
now the 34 crew
tried to basically do the same thing but
in the next shot
you'll see where
they had the right idea it's just that
the shot was too wide the commander at
this point in time should be back
at the af station to fly the orbiter
away from the satellite
but as soon as they open the f-stop here
you get the idea lucid is supposed to be
deploying the satellite and throwing the
switches
but don williams would not be sitting in
that particular chair so
you need a tighter shot so it doesn't
show him
they show um
helmers to establish him it's usually
good to establish each one of your crew
members
isolate them from the other ones so you
can use it just about any time and
anywhere you want
they've got some good close-ups
again it probably would have been better
to
to cut the camera off going for a
close-up and shoot the close-up and
rather than just kind of pan around but
that's your choice
i can always work around it
i guess he's throwing release rat uh
latches and what have you
in preparation for uh launching the
satellite now the only thing he
regretted was he he tended to overact
and it's coming up
in a little while uh
after he saw it he kind of said well gee
i wish i hadn't done that
and i'll show you where he does it
because when he looks around he kind of
says
you know oh my gosh it's gone and
in the final film i was able to cut
around that so
this didn't work out too good
you might have to shoot straight down on
it or just forget it
it's a good angle as far as showing
somebody now he's going to come up and
as he makes his turn i believe and comes
up to the window he kind of overreacts
right there
but i was able to cut it from that point
and use this portion of the shot
now this is a good angle
to shoot somebody
looking out a window whether it be the
back window or the front window
you can see him doing something in this
case pinky was taking pictures of the
of the tdrs
and
they shot some others with him looking
out the front window or the top window
which was good i was able to use him in
conjunction with uh the tdrs launch
or the earth scenes
now rick is at the back
station
where he's preparing to fly
the uh
the orbiter back away
from the um from the tdrs
and he looked out the back window and he
looked out the top window now they shot
this
staged it well after
the it was all over with
and it worked out real well because they
were just too busy at the time
that they were
doing it okay real quick
this particular shot shows you what
happens when you shoot too quick
to the front of a roll
and you needed more on the front of this
shot that wasn't fogged
they loaded their camera they started
shooting they should have run at least
10 15 seconds into the roll before they
started their con camera
consequently
the front of it was fogged to the point
where it just really wasn't usable
it would also be nice to have a shot
of the
tdrs laying down in the bay
the other point i want to make and i'm
not quite sure what your training is
they
uh most of these launches are anywhere
from 40 to 40 seconds to a minute
prior
to deploy
and you know you're looking at
36 to 40 maybe 50 feet of film
going through the camera of the thing
just sitting there before you ever
deploy it
and
i would think
unless there was a certain reason i
would think 15 seconds would be enough
but
but don't know if
if they give you that pad in case you
have a camera problem still gives you a
chance to get your camera running or
what but
this is a great shot
they went from the deploy they could
have let it go out of frame and
immediately move up here
that would have been all right but it's
uh it's massive it looks
so big as it comes over the head and
what i did was
let it kind of come up
and before you got that real bad camera
movement
i cut to rick looking at from his
position out that top window as he looks
right up at this
as a tdress as it goes overhead
they did a great job at tracking it
it's great against that earth
earth background
and as it moves out of the shadow of the
orbiter then it really becomes
extremely pretty
it might have been better
to
just cut the camera off
go into a full zoom
focus it and shoot this
as it would be
to kind of zoom as they went in even
though they stayed in focus that that
part of it was good
but here pretty quick you'll see where
they weren't really checking their
camera as they should be at least their
focus
and they shot a heck of a nice shot or
it would have been
had the camera stayed in focus
i guess they forgot because of the depth
of field
that and they're moving away from each
other
to
keep a keep a check on that focus
full telephoto unless you can really
steady yourself
or put it in a bracket now this is the
shot where it would have been a just a
just a great shot
had they just
re-racked their focus and and
and put it in sharp focus
we had intended originally to
lay this all in and kind of edit it down
at the time we were transferring it to
video but they
they ran out of time over there and so
we just didn't have the time
but really this would have been a good
length and uh
that they just
sharpened that image up
this is a pretty shot
with the tdrs to the right and the earth
to the left
you can see how
unless you go
unless you brace yourself good how how
jerky it gets when you go full telephoto
although that's a great shot but
if it's just a little steady or if
there's some way you can brace that
camera yourself
to where you can
hold it steadier
all right this is the 29 tdrs this first
shot was a little bit on the short side
again they
they went 40 seconds before they
deployed
as steady as it is i'd say they had it
mounted in a bracket
now if they're raising it up then you
may want as long as the lead is that but
really 10 15 seconds on the front of
that would be more than enough
most satellites come out fairly slow
these big ones like this and
so you have a lot of time
it's a good shot
there's the pitch
excuse me
where the
commander is
moving the orbiter back away from the
the satellite
you really don't need to carry it this
long once it gets up out
out of your view five seconds is plenty
to go ahead and unless there's really
some spectacular piece of earth down
below it
this is a
a pretty shot
and it doesn't hurt to show the window
you show the window it shows your
relationship between you and them
here they would have been much better
off though i think to cut the camera
and and focus it get it in close focus
it do what they wanted
and then shoot it they
they lost a lot of film here just kind
of
trying to
get it and focus it
they
kind of did what i call i guess
tromboning
in that
if they went in and they got it in focus
they should have held it
for
probably 10 seconds before they started
back they just about got it there got it
in focus and then pulled back again
it's going to be out there a while and
unless it's really moving away from you
in a hurry
you've got time to
to
to get it in focus and then pull back
this is sts-30 believe it magellan
there
there's no evidence of it being tilted
up
so they went 56 seconds hanging on this
shot
before they
deployed it
which is longer than you'd want you
might want them tilting it up
because then you can go back inside to
your
to your
deploy sequence
and you can have it going up
partially up go the inside come back
and have it full up and you accept it
if you cut on the outside from it going
up to it full up
and you didn't change perspective it
would jump like mad and and
it just kind of jars the nervous system
now this is a good deploy
even for such a thing as a sin con
in that there is
sky above the tail the tail is not cut
off
and if i were going to pick a shot and
show the
sin con deploy i think i'd pick it from
about this perspective
and that you can see the
the earth above the tail and you see the
whole tail this is a good example of
full zoom but not
being steadied up to anything
and as as hard as you try it just
it doesn't take much movement on your
account to
to jerk all over the place this is what
i was talking about this morning
as far as i
for this satellite
it was good because you're clear back
although it's a little soft
the focus a little soft on it
it's such a big satellite but i wouldn't
use it for a sin con
it
it would just be too far away
and on this particular one
they didn't get any
tracking which would have been
nice um
they were shooting imax and between imax
and all the other cameras they're just i
guess there just wasn't room to get a
another camera in the uh
in the windows
right this is 51d
this is a simcon deploy
again i think i'd be back a little bit
farther so you can see the top of the
tail especially if there's an earth in
the background
on some of the flights they
they launched it right up the tail and
which went right up the edge of the
earth because you could see the earth
horizon in the background
and it really makes a pretty shot this
comes out of here pretty fast compared
to the other ones when you look at
how fast this deploys
on your flight i believe
you won't have anything in front of it
like you do here
but it's smooth
and it it moves pretty good clip
i think that slight jerk you saw was
when they released it
should have been a it'd be nice to have
just a little bit above that
like they're taking the camera off the
bracket
now they're in the shadow of the orbiter
they realize that their
exposure i guess isn't all that good
here pretty quick
of course this is the satellite that the
antenna failed
had the antenna been going up there they
would probably had trouble seeing it
go up unless it's unless they're out far
enough
this is one of the better cencon
tracking they tracked it for a long time
which is great
we get a lot of calls for
satellites in orbit
just
kind of floating around even though it
it's not where up where it belongs but
it's pretty and most people don't know
the difference
now in this shot
uh you kind of got to watch when you're
shooting something that objects don't
float up in front of your face
and um
ellen baker said you know
you need to lock your feet down she
didn't realize it until after she got
back
that she really needed to put her feet
down and lock him into some place
because your natural position is your
legs up in front of you
and consequently
she got a lot of legs in that one
this shot is
kind of keep an eye on
the angles that you shoot thing this is
a eating sequence
but
you need to watch the pants legs
you got to watch that you don't get
around where you're basically looking up
the pants legs
now the next series of shots this
this one and the next one are really
good in that it's a good angle
uh nothing showing you have to worry
about because we never want to show
anybody in a compromising position or
something that might be embarrassing to
them so we always try to cut the film so
they always look their best
it's nice you got people on the floor
you got people on the ceiling and this
is what turns people on they
they think it's great other than that it
could be shot in a simulator
people floating floating from one place
to another or passing objects
is always good
you