Brian Wengrofsky

More television…

rooster — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:32:05 +0000

Having a busy summer and fall shooting for (American) television series, one for Food Network and another for Bravo. It’s great to be working all the time, but I find myself itching to steer back into independent documentary and narrative work. I think that will be a good goal for next year.

Fortunately, I am slated to shoot two docs which are in development right now. One has guaranteed funding but is currently on hold. The other is struggling to overcome some difficulties with access to its subject. Both are strong stories so I’ve got my fingers crossed they will be able to move forward in the coming months. Stay tuned.

Episode 8: Mexico

rooster — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:21:26 +0000

Playing back a take for host Markus Koch at Volkswagon’s vast Mexico plant. Photo: Ken Kerbs.

Volkswagon’s level of automation was astounding. I still thought robots like this were only in the movies.

Deep underground in a water infrastructure project. I half expected the monster from “Alien” to drop from the ceiling.

Guitarron player, Garibaldi Square, Mexico D.F.

Last day on the road! Mucho tequila con mes amigos. Lots to celebrate. L-R: Leah Dennington-Koch, Markus Koch. Photo: Ken Kerbs.

L-R: BW, Rob Wallace, Ken Kerbs. Photo: Leah Dennington-Koch.

Final approach to NYC. I almost lost it, seeing this after 2 long months on the road. Photo: Ken Kerbs.

You can watch the series (and practice your German) at:
www.70tage.de

Episode 7: Brazil

rooster — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:53:28 +0000

It took a little convincing to get our host to “see the light” with this near-silhouette shot for the intro to our story on the Brazil airline maker Embraer. Shooting by numbers is something I try and avoid at all costs.

Landing on Polvo, the offshore oil processing facility. The week before we were there, one of the choppers was shot at so they had to alter the flight path. Hey, if you had a chopper roaring overhead every minute, maybe you would get a little crazy, too!

Rio de Janeiro. At the peak of the 2008 Dengue Fever epidemic, but life goes on.

Next up: Mexico!

Episode 6: Vietnam

rooster — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:00:43 +0000

I fell in love with Vietnam. Gentle people, beautiful scenery, and a palpable sense of history.

Vietnam is also all about manufacturing and hi tech. Making computer printers, below:

But still exporting enormous amounts of rice. Below: rice farmer.

The XDCamEX, I discovered, has some real magic inside when you boost the gain and play a bit with the color matrix and saturation. The gain can seem quite organic in certain cases, almost like film grain. I was tempted to go all the way with this and shoot all of Vietnam at 18dbs of gain and this sort of reversal retro look. But in Hanoi it suddenly struck me as inappropriate for a people that have moved on, and are looking forward and not back. I’m still questioning my decision but I think it was the right one.

One thing I’m not questioning is my decision to buy the EX. It’s been a very good creative tool for a project like this.

Episode 5: China

rooster — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:00:22 +0000

I’m at a loss to try and sum up China. Crowds of people are in the park at 7:30am doing tai chi…

…and affordable acupuncture is a normal part of health maintenance, yet cigarette smoking is a big problem…

Pollution in the worst spots is an order of magnitude greater than anything else I’ve seen…

…yet one of China’s richest men is making his fortune with solar panels.

I probably have a lopsided view of the country from all the time we spent in cities, but there were some very beautiful areas as well…

We were in the country during the Tibet unrest, and it was hard to find accurate coverage as CNN’s Tibet coverage would get blacked out and certain websites were censored as well. Hungry for information, I read the English language newspapers but the ones I found were distorted by their efforts to paint Tibetan protesters as little more than common criminals.

Episode 4: Make Do, Hi Tech, and Friendly Chaos in India

rooster — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:00:35 +0000

India was all heat, speed and motion. It demands patience of you as a filmmaker. Nothing happens according to plan. You absolutely must sit down and have coffee with the boss, though you may miss your flight. A 20 minute drive may take 90. It seems like everything is out in the open, yet what we saw was surely nothing more than a splinter of a splinter of this amazing country.

Goat herders on one of the new highways under construction

Auto worker, Mahindra’s factory for the Scorpio, a light SUV model.

The CEO of NDTV. I used my Zylight to add a color wash to the background. I dialed in the color and propped it on a coffee table. It’s not my preference to work without an assistant or gaffer but tools like this are very useful when I don’t.

Mumbai sunrise, time lapse shot

Next up: China!

Episode 3: Green Energy, Clean Water and the USA

rooster — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:00:06 +0000

We shot at a wind farm in Illinois in February. When we arrived early in the morning, there was snow on the ground but the conditions were warmer than usual and there was a thick fog over the entire area. As a result, we could barely see more than 1 or 2 wind turbines at a time, from over 100 in the area. Fortunately I have encountered fog like this before, and knew this could be used to our advantage. So I tweaked the camera a little and got the result you see below. In some places the bottom of the blades were visible, but would actually disappear into clouds at the top of their rotation. Giant man-made constructions often seem like a blight on the landscape to me, but these were different. Something about the shapes and motion and whooshing sounds seemed eerily at home in the scenery.

We also filmed inside the structure. Markus the host and I wanted to climb to the top but typical American restrictions did not allow it. We could hardly believe that a 240 ft tall turbine stands on a foundation less than 9 feet deep.

Organic plastic…?

rooster — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:05:16 +0000

We also shot a story in Boston about a lab that is producing biodegradable plastic that is made from both bacteria and a type of grass. The plastic is good quality but after a few weeks it naturally breaks down into organic components. Imagine if all plastic shopping bags were made of this stuff?

Episode 2: Ghana

rooster — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:30:38 +0000

Here are a few pictures from our Ghana episode:

A little windy over the Sahara desert…

Drummers on their way to a wedding in Accra. I waved these guys over from across the street and they gave our host Markus an impromptu lesson.

Posing with loggers in central Ghana.

Filming gold being poured into bars at a gold mine. Got searched as I’ve never been searched before leaving this place. The security man uncorked my Sharpie and wrote on his hand to be sure it wasn’t made of gold.

Set photo credits: Ken Kerbs and Rob Wallace.

A Trip Around the World…First Stop: Russia!

rooster — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:15:25 +0000

This is the first episode to air of my latest project as DP - a series for German TV called 70 Days Around the World With Markus Koch. It covers interesting trends in emerging markets as well as green technologies and alternative energy in the “first world”.

We did an oil story in western Siberia in early March. Just south of the polar circle and the light at dusk was unlike anything I’ve seen: a magical light that slowly fades to the most exquisite blue. We stumbled upon an ice sculpture park and did a story there with children playing around and sliding down translucent ice slides.

The oil fields were -13 degrees F, the coldest weather I’ve ever experienced. The water vapor coming out of my nose actually formed ice on my facial hair. The cameras still worked but the LCD display left trails, and I had a few focus problems. Could the cold have thrown off the back focus? Sony does not guarantee the EX works below 32F, so I guess in running the camera 45 degrees below the minimum recommended operating temperature, we were asking for it!

Frame grabs below:

Moscow stock exchange

Car story in Moscow - Renault factory, car enthusiast.

Ice swimming with Russia’s “Walruses”!

Next up: Ghana!