This article is republished from The Black and Blue newsletter. To get these exclusive updates, sign up for the newsletter.
This week I’ve been traveling with my girlfriend and her family to a ski resort in Colorado.
It is not my first time skiing, but it is my first time tackling the mountains out west. Compared to the Appalachian mountains near where I live, the Rockies dominate the skyline.
At one point we took a lift to close to 13,000 feet of elevation!
As I sat down to write this weekly newsletter, I started to think about how skiing and camera assisting are similar and came up with three qualities that a good camera assistant and a good skier will have in common.
1. A plan of attack
A good skier won’t just blindly bomb down a hill unless they’ve already been on it before. They will stop at the top and evaluate the landscape before jumping into the powder.
This week I’ve been challenging myself with some trails that are out of my comfort zone, but each time I have had a plan. Sometimes that plan included stopping halfway down. Sometimes it involved skiing hard and fast. The result was that each time I was confident that I could tackle the slope because I knew what I would be doing.
A good camera assistant will approach each day or situation the same way. You don’t have to anticipate the whole shoot, but before each task handed to you, you should take a moment to figure out your plan. That can include tasks as simple as finding a staging area for equipment to making focus marks on a complicated dolly shot.
2. Total commitment
One thing I’ve learned on this trip is that while skiing on the Rockies, fortune favors the bold. Apprehensiveness will not reward a skier about to go down a mogul-heavy, powder-filled black diamond.
This is the same with a camera assistant. The best quality an AC can have is total confidence. They need to be aware of their abilities and attack their duties.
But just like skiing, you must know your limits. Challenge yourself and don’t be afraid to make mistakes, but also be aware of the big moments where acknowledging your inabilities is in your best interest.
A skid down the mountain will only get snow up the back, but a tumble down a trail may break a few bones.
3. Ability to go with the flow
We were lucky on this trip to go up the mountain with a man who lived nearby and skis five times a week. When we asked for advice on skiing in powder, one of his most helpful tips was, “don’t try to turn too hard, let the snow carry you through the turns.”
Worked like a charm.
Once I stopped trying to dig my skis into the mountain and instead let it carry me through the natural slopes of the earth, I was golden.
This advice will work well for camera assistants too: Don’t work against yourself. In the end it always works out if you let it happen naturally.
Long days end, scenes finally get enough coverage, and that impossible focus pull will definitely have a last take.
A lot of times productions will be thrown curve balls that all of the crew must deal with — like it or not. Having an attitude that these things can happen and will happen will make you more relaxed on set. And being relaxed usually leads to a better job.
This article is republished from The Black and Blue newsletter. To get exclusive updates like these and a free, 200 page ebook, sign up below:
