cameraman Archives - Christo Montes Freelance Cameraman Cinematographer DOP

2023 – A lot happening in the camera world!

Exterior shooting setup with a Blues player in front of the camera.
Cameraman Auckland Freelance New Zealand

2023 started as a very busy year, with a lot of domestic and international clients seeking for freelance camera department roles in Auckland. With smaller productions asking for a cameraman or larger ones asking for a DoP, it was all go!

At the same time, I can finally talk about some confidential projects I got to DoP! So let’s see what happened!

Passengers – TVNZ

At first, in late 2022 I was stoked to be offered to shoot most of the first episode of the TVNZ show “Passengers” . An amazing 2 days of filming with great Auckland summer weather and an even better group of talented people. A lot of filming around Auckland CBD and Puhoi to tell some very important and touching stories. Directed by Kim Webby and produced by Sarah Zwart.

Below Deck Down Under S1 – Interviews

This is one of the largest reality shows worldwide. But I hadn’t heard of it until I got the call to shoot some interviews. The issue was that due to COVID some of the talent were not able to travel. So we had to shoot them remotely out of Auckland. The tech and studio infrastructure used were those of NEP in Auckland. Zooming in to producers in both New York and Los Angeles was flawless, while lighting and sound was adhering to the very strict guidelines of a show of this magnitude.

The overall result was a very happy client.

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The kit used was my FX6 camera and lighting package, as described in the “about me” page

Green screen setup for BDDU-S1 interviews

US Women’s soccer team interviews

At the beginning of the year a US agency contacted me to shoot some interviews of the very popular US Women’s soccer team. It wasn’t a simple job, as the quality expectations were very high. So I put together a nice package consisting of 2 x Sony FX9 cameras and chose to pair them with the Tokina Vista cinema lenses. And with the help of a great crew we made another client very happy.

These are some of the shots that made it to social, but there are plenty more to be released.

FX6 LUT workflow for FS7 users

By Christo Montes, Cameraman/Cinematographer – Auckland New Zealand

The new Sony FX6 is out and I consider myself lucky as cameraman since I was able to grab one of the first to arrive in Auckland, New Zealand. I immediately put it alongside my trusty FS7 and started shooting on it with excellent results. However, it did take a bit of time to get used to some different ways of doing things, one of which was the MLUT handling.

The FX6 does not follow the traditional system of the F5, FS7, FX9 of applying MLUTs in CineEI mode. It doesn’t even follow the traditional Sony way of doing things in Custom mode either and Alister Chapman has a very detailed and in depth post of how that has changed here .

The big difference is that now both CineEI mode and Custom mode have the same menu setting for changing the look and it’s conveniently named… Base Look/LUT.

In this new menu you will find the first 3 slots marked by the P in the beginning which contain the 3 stock Sony looks, S-Cinetone, 709(800) and Slog3. The next slots marked from 1-10 are the custom slots where you can load your LUTs from the SD card and keep there for using BOTH in Custom AND CineEI modes.

Base Look/LUT can be found under the Paint/Look menu option,

or on page 5/10 of the touch menu

So don’t go looking for an MLUT menu or a way to load LUTs for CineEI. There is none any more. All image manipulating is now done with LUTs that are loaded in this new space (Base Look/LUT) that is used BOTH for Custom AND CineEI modes. But as Alister Chapman explains in his post, in custom you have the ability to change the look of the image while the LUT is on it, whereas in CineEI you can not. So the Hyper and 709 gammas of previous professional cameras are no longer there as options, but instead have to be loaded as LUTs. The cool part is that those same LUTs can be used as monitoring LUTs when you are in CineEI mode too.

And while I mention monitoring, in CineEI mode you can now choose your MLUT options independently from the LUT On/Off option in the Shooting menu. You can apply the LUT on the outputs, the VF/Proxy/Stream and the recording (for burning the LUT in) and this setting will also apply to S&Q and playback.

This took me a bit of time to figure out myself and admittedly it threw me off at first, coming from an FS7, but with the flexibility and ease of how LUTs can be created nowadays I find it an extremely simple and effective way of customizing the look of the camera and definitely the way to go forward.

NZCS Awards

It’s been almost 2 months of intense work. But now that things have calmed down a bit I thought I’d write about one of the most exciting things that happened this year. It’s the highest recognition for a cameraman in New Zealand. And that is nothing else than being awarded with the Gold and Bronze awards in the News & Current affairs category of the annual NZCS Awards for the following stories:

Tagata Pasifika – Tongan chef Touvai Poloniati (Gold)
Tagata Pasifika – Samoan boxer Baby Nansen (Bronze)

Thank you

I can’t really express my gratitude enough to all the people that made this recognition possible. From my parents who gave me the grounding as a cameraman in photography when I first started, to my wife and children who very often have to go through long times of me absent on shoots. To all the people in TVNZ and especially John Robertson, who have given me the foundations in broadcast TV when I first arrived in NZ and who put me on the first shoot for a program called Tagata Pasifika back in 2011, which 8 years later I would be collecting an award for!

A big thank you also to the NZCS committee who recognized the work and who made possible the screening of 2 Pacific stories in front of the best of the Cinematography industry in NZ. And last but not least, a big thank you to my Pacific family. The people that for the past 8 years I have been telling some amazing (and to be honest… a couple of boring ones too!) pacific stories with. My Sunpix producers, Ngaire Fuata, John Utanga and Stephen Stehlin. And of course, their great team of reporters/directors that I have the pleasure to hang out with so often, because it never feels like work!

On a personal reflection, these awards are very welcome and a much welcomed boost in confidence in my work, it would not be honest to claim otherwise. However, I do think that there is very much beautiful camera work out there that goes unrecognized. Recognition just sets the bar and it’s always good to constantly try and set it higher, driving the quality of our work up. That’s what I will be trying to do in the next year for sure and in the process try to bring as many of my peers with me as possible.

Until the next one, stay safe and have a great and relaxing summer break!

New Zealand’s darkest day from an ENG perspective

It was a long week, after I had gotten home from a school camp and straight in to an early morning shoot that Friday, the 15th of March 2019. Returning home I was only looking to get some rest and prep for a live cross on Saturday morning. And that afternoon, everything changed and I mean everything, with my schedule being the least of it. The lives of many families were suddenly overturned as 51 people were brutally murdered in an unprecedented act of violence. An act that was particularly shocking for a small, peaceful country like New Zealand.

News frenzy

News setup in front of the Christchurch Botanical gardens

And as the shock was settling in, the international news frenzy was picking up and in a matter of hours every news agency was looking for people on the ground to send pictures and news from the area of the atrocious act. At the time I was not involved much in news coverage, so didn’t think much of it apart from being glued on the local news and learning all the latest developments. That’s until the phone rung from the UK asking if I am able to pack and head to Christchurch in a few hours, for an unknown amount of days… And when the BBC calls, it’s not a call you turn down, so despite my fatigue from a full on week and shock from the heinous event, I packed and got ready for a 6:30am flight and further deployment to Christchurch for the BBC.

Having not worked with a major international broadcaster in the past I was not sure what to expect, but was prepared to pull out all the stops and do what it takes to just deliver my best work under some surely challenging situations, both technically, but most importantly, psychologically.

A numb city

The moment I arrived in Christchurch I felt the eeriness of a shocked city, possibly caused by the quiet streets on a Saturday morning, the sad people’s faces, the lost innocence of not only a city, but a whole nation. Feelings I did carry too, but had to suppress in order to be able to do my job unaffected and in the most professional way possible, despite that meaning a very hard night at the hotel room… But looking back a few months later from a professional aspect, it was all worth it.

As big as it gets

live cross to BBC news — Crossing live to main bulletin of BBC news UK

Working for the BBC is actually… as big as it gets… We started by doing some stories around survivors of the attacks and relatives. We did various pieces for BBC News and a few live crosses to BBC World. The highlight of my deployment though was no other than a live cross to the Sunday evening news bulletin. (7:00am Monday morning Christchurch time). I was expecting a LiveU setup with my camera and lighting. But arrived on location to find a fully deployed crew of engineers and satellite gear.

Full portable broadcast studio

Add to that, a fully rigged camera with autocue… A direct connection to UK and Sydney with video return… And generally a fully functional broadcast studio that was totally independent of any kind of local facility. The least I could say is that I was intimidated. But having deep technical knowledge and great experience in broadcast situations, I managed to light and shoot what turned out to be the whole 7pm news bulletin coming live from Christchurch. And everything went very smoothly to air, despite the chaos behind the camera.

Fun story… After we wet off air I repo’ed the camera for an interview, without knowing that we hadn’t finished the bulletin. And I had 30 seconds to re-set everything before we go to air again… Funny now, not then!

Setup during Christchurch victims memorial service

Looking back , I see that those days were of very high demand. So every camera operator with some basic industry relations would definitely be working. I do however consider myself lucky to get to work in such a professional environment such as the BBC. But what I found more satisfying is the fact that after my four day deployment, the relationship didn’t end with it. I got called back to do the memorial and then a few more things for the BBC including this story. Something that shows that my hard work and professionalism paid off, as I am currently the first NZ point of call for any BBC vision needs.

And that is a career highlight right there…

TP+ Summer Series

For my next blog post I thought I’d try and do a bit of a project breakdown of something that was a bit of a challenge. And the TP+ series I shot for Sunpix is a perfect example of that. So let’s get stuck in…

The concept

At first let’s see what this project was and the challenges it came with.

Our presenters, Alistar Kata and John Pulu

The team at Sunpix wanted to shoot a few summer episodes for their Tagata Pasifika show. These episodes would be aired in the Summer time, instead of episode recaps or reruns and as so they should be able to be done on a limited budget. The concept was one of a 22min panel talk episode, between a select panel of 1-3 guests and 2 presenters.

The challenges

The concept sounds quite easy and straightforward for the broadcast world. However the challenges were quite a few from a DOP’s perspective. Let’s start with the studio.

The studio

Behind the scenes. 2 x Cineflex light mats, LED backlights and Dedo for presenter key. That’s my son/assistant Theodore, sitting in 🙂

The space we had to shoot this in, was an empty office space in the company’s premises, with a total size of 5m x 5m approximately and a ceiling height of no more than 3.5m. In this space we would have to accommodate the massive, curved background LED screen pictured above and our panel table for 5 people. There was no space for trusses or any kind of ceiling mounted lighting rig.

The coverage plan

After discussions with the producers, we agreed to shoot this with 3 cameras. One would be fixed on our main presenter, in order for this to accommodate an autocue, the other would be fixed on a wide shot of the panel and the 3rd camera would be placed in such a position that it would be able to rove between closeups of the guests and the 2nd presenter. When we agreed on that coverage, we also thought it would be good to have an extra option in post for the wide shot, so we decided to shoot that in 4k, giving us the option to push in or do some pans in post.
An important factor that also played a big role in our camera placement was that we didn’t have 3 FS7’s, but only 2 and an FS700. The FS700 could not shoot 4k 50p (see below) so that was assigned the safest shot, the presenter lock off.
So this is what the camera coverage plan looked like:

Cam 1 – Sony FS7, Sigma 18-35 f1.8 – Locked off wide shot, shooting in 4k (to reframe in post)
Cam 2 – Sony FS700, Nikon 105mm f2- Locked off closeup of presenter 1 – with autocue
Cam 3 – Sony FS7, Canon 70-200 f2.8 – Roving closeup of the of panel guests and presenter 2

One more thing I needed to consider was the fact that we were delivering a show for 1080i broadcast. And as much as it would be easy to just set all 3 cameras to shoot 25p, I wanted the show to have that TV look to it, hence I wanted it to be delivered in proper interlaced format. Because we are shooting in 4k on one of our cameras though and because the show will also live online, shooting interlaced was not an option either. So I decided to just go for 50p acquisition on all cameras and talk to post about how to work on the footage in order to get the best for both worlds.

Lighting

This was the most challenging part. With a low ceiling and no truss the options were limited. The main challenge was to handle the reflections from the background screen panels. The amount of them and the curved nature of the array would create light reflections in at least one of the camera angles. So the only solution would be some ambient, soft lighting that would come from sources high enough and to the sides, at such an angle that they will not produce reflections on the wide shot.
So we set the background screen to warm and decided to shoot it all in 3200K.
For the key, totally up to the task proved to be my 2 Cineflex 100W mats with soft boxes sitting on 3m stands almost all the way up. These provided the main panel lighting. I also rigged 2 LED panels with diff gels on the top of the screen in order to backlight the guests and fill in for my side-lit presenters. The only thing missing was a bit of punch on our main presenter, which I achieved with a couple of Dedo’s, one for key and one as a backlight.

Result

Here is the finished result

Hope you enjoyed this article. I’m always open to discuss ideas and answer questions so please feel free to get in touch, either via email, Whatsapp or Instagram DM.
Thanks for reading!

Welcome

This is my first blog post and the intention is to make a post every few weeks in order to give out a bit of information around recent shoots, techniques, challenges and solutions that I have come across as a cameraman.

As a welcome post I just want to throw out there a bit more info about me so you can get to know me a bit better.

So, I am originally from Athens, Greece. Born and bred in the land of philosophy and tourism from a Greek dad and a mum that was raised in a farm close to Te Kuiti. If you wonder how she ended up in Greece, that’s another story, probably a post on it’s own. So, having 2 nationalities was quite tempting and my family and I decided to give Aotearoa a go by migrating to New Zealand in 2010.

During my time in Greece, I ran a small video production company with my brother and we specialized more in the wedding and low budget corporate video area. Business was good, but one day we both decided to drop everything and f off to the other side of the planet. When we arrived in NZ and having no idea whatsoever about either trade or food, we decided to start up a food importing company. Talking about a massive leap and learning curve! We had to figure out how business works in this part of the world, the relationships, the jargon, legislation, accounting, etc. Everything was totally different and very hard to adapt to, leading to a few tough years to start with.

My restless creativity though didn’t let me focus only on the importing business, so I started seeking work in the area I loved most, which is being behind a lens. So after getting to meet some people I gradually started to shoot some weddings for Creative Video (thanks Craig, you’re a legend) in New Zealand. Then, through some networking and cold calling I was fortunate to connect with TVNZ in 2011. I will not forget the day John, the TVNZ Production Services manager, took me down into the camera store, handed me a camera and said:

“Here are our production cameras… You have an hour to familiarize yourself with them and in a few days we’ll send you out on a shoot”

At the time, although very confident around cameras, I had absolutely no experience in shooting content for broadcast, hence my stress levels were running quite high. So after exploring the camera for an hour or so I left the camera store and waited for the call. Sure enough a couple of days later I got my first broadcast job for TVNZ, for a program called Tagata Pasifika. At the time I had no idea that until this day and after 8 years of a constantly evolving broadcast environment, I would still be working with the Tagata Pasifika team helping them produce some very inspiring Pacific stories.

TheTVNZ logo used back in those days!

One of the first gigs I did for TVNZ. Phone cameras were pretty crap back in those days.

So TVNZ aside, I kept on building more local experience and in 2014 I decided to go full freelance and get out of the food importing business. I bought my first large sensor camera, a second hand Canon C300 and gradually started building a shooting package. As everyone knows this is a never ending process, which has lead me to today own a Sony FS7 with a full range of lenses, sound gear, a full lighting package, a small b cam (a6300) on a gimbal, on set monitors, accessories, and it goes on and on.

And that’s where we are today. Where I start a blog and put myself out there with no real idea how this is going to pan out. But hey, winging it has kind of worked so far, so why not keep on with it?

See you in the next one.

All the best.