NEW YORK, NY

Camera Operator, Frank Scacciaferro, on stage at The Garden with Robert "Kool" Bell before the show

ON THE ROAD AGAIN! Last week Ferro Productions took it to the streets, this time not in pursuit of the “pigskin” rather on a mission to document the “FUNK! The journey begins exactly with the formula they love the most. Another one of the world’s legendary stages of both Sport and Concert, Madison Square Garden, with two premier talents. I’m seeing a formulaic theme here. A major event, a duo of major talents enhanced by a world-class venue. Instead of the New York Giants and New England Patriots, the legends for this round of action are Van Halen and Kool & the Gang.

Ferro, in development on an upcoming reality show, Making It Kool (going into network production early fall 2012), will be traveling to numerous sold out arenas up and down the Northeast while chronicling ROBERT “KOOL” BELL AND HIS GANG ON THE ROAD DURING the Van Halen / Kool and The Gang tour. Behind the scenes, all the way from life on the tour bus to the backstage antics of legendary musicians, tour production meetings, sound checks, and on stage performance footage…FERRO will be capturing it all.

“Working behind the scenes (BTS) is nothing new for our crew, given each BTS project tends to come with a new set of inevitable challenges”, said long time veteran of the road and president of Ferro Productions, Joe Scacciaferro. Sure enough, last weeks’ shows at “The Garden” presented challenges of all different shapes and sizes, nothing that the Ferro team couldn’t handle, having been down that road successfully many times before.

Credentials just AINT what they used to be!!!!!

In the age of instant posting (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc) validating who is “real” and who is just looking to exploit the moment takes time. Add to that, much tighter security and scrutiny to building access, Ferro faced a full day of clearance meetings and paper work. “Contrary to myths about working at The Garden and its related Unions, I have never found them to be unreasonable or concerned about issues that were unnecessary. Security and access in today’s world is a real issue especially in NY and even more so at a high profile venue like The Garden. So if it takes a few extra steps to keep everyone safe and the jobs secure, I’m all for it” stated Joe Scacciaferro who was responsible for navigating through all those logistics.

We are capturing EVERYTHING backstage...even the guys getting their wardrobe ready for the show

For anyone on the inside of “the biz”, you already know this. For those who are new to or have an interest in pursing a career, it’s worth mentioning another perspective beyond the traditional meaning of “Security and Credentials”. Specifically with The Garden being such a high profile arena, playing the best acts in the world sometimes back to back or concurrently in both venues, a certain level of expertise and professionalism is expected. You can’t have a bunch of neophytes going around questioning things they should already know about the who, what, where, when and how’s of production, acting like tourists rather than experienced professionals.

Hence the importance of our Union friends requiring an equal playing field of experience and professionalism when working with associates insuring that ALL shows must go on. In summary everyone wants both the personal and business “Security” of knowing everyone here is fully vetted and “Credentialed” NOT only to be IN the build, more importantly credentialed to WORK the building.

Along with gaining clearance, there are a few challenging production aspects of shooting reality/documentary style BTS footage. For starters, the cameras have to be light enough to carry for hours upon end (Thanks JVC). Content can happen anywhere at any time, and Ferro’s camera operators need to remain on top of their

game at all times to capture this content. Secondly, with such a wide variety of content options, and the amounts of media being CAPTURED, we decided to go “tapeless” for the tour.

Tapeless? Let me explain. We are using 32GB SanDisk digital cards to get all of our footage. Nightly we INJEST the cards to our MacBook Pro’s, giving us clean cards for a fresh start at the next mornings call. Although going tapeless adds more work to the list, it greatly reduces costs because we don’t need to go out and purchase expensive XD tapes for every shoot.

We also needed a camera that had the raw ability to shoot in all lighting extremes. For example: shooting backstage, then quickly moving to shoot an interview, and then going on stage for the performance. The JVC ProHD 790 addressed all of those concerns for Ferro, and much more. This is why we chose to exclusively use the ProHD as our camera of choice on tour.

In addition to camera considerations, there are a few audio concerns. Our solution to a very loud constant background noise and very soft-spoken subjects was to use wireless lavaliere microphones. For this job we used Lectrosonics UM400 Wireless packs with Tram TR50 Mic’s rather than booms, granting us better audio quality and also allowing the on-camera talent to go about their normal routine without having a giant boom pole hanging around on top of them at all times.

Next we will be sharing exactly what our “GO BAG” looks like for this job and others with the same basic needs. Stay tuned for a very specific list of what we’re carrying and details of the who, what, where, why, when and how for each component.