This is a new TV show I’ve been camera operating on. It’s very different from the documentary style of work I usually do but it’s been fun. I’m one of the handheld cameras near the ring, you can see me a few times in the edit. The wrestlers rarely stay in the ring, they come flying out and fight on the floor a lot, barely missing me. They move fast and the moves they do are pretty impressive.
The camera they give me is a Sony HDC1500 which has no internal recording mechanism and a tiny black and white view finder. It’s a 2/3″ CCD but keeping my focus sharp is the hardest part of the job even with peaking cranked up. We are shooting in an old warehouse in downtown LA and it gets really hot when they turn on the show lights. I invested in sweat bands after the first day and they help. Eight cameras are tethered to the control room and we are all on PL headsets with our director calling the shots.
From Executive Producer Mark Burnett and Robert Rodriguez, This is Lucha Underground. Premieres Wed 10/29 at 8pm ET/PT, on El Rey Network.
PL headsets?
I’m not sure why they are called PL. It might be the company that makes them, Plantronics.
It’s like what airplane pilots wear, David Clarks, but only for one ear.
I asked a union guy the other day, it stands for “Private Line”.