Frank Hegyi

I see a lot of people in this thread saying that society has to choose between: 1. Stopping work and bankrupting everyone on earth who lives paycheck to paycheck. 2. Continuing to work, letting the virus run its course, and killing untold millions of additional people. There is a third option, temporary socialism. All we have to do is briefly suspend what we typically believe to be "fair" in a capitalist system. In America that would entail drastic war-time-style government action: 1. Medicare for all during the crisis. People have to feel safe going to the hospital without the fear of a lifetime of medical debt. 2a. Open up the maximum unemployment benefits to everyone. Everyone outside of the government's defined "critical industries" are going to unemployed for months on end. $400/week in unemployment benefits would act as a temporary universal basic income. That would let people continue to pay their bills while staying home, and they wouldn't feel like they have to choose between bankruptcy and spreading the virus. 2b. People employed in "critical industries" need an immediate doubling of their salaries for hazard pay, plus universal 2 weeks of sick leave. That's pretty self explanatory. People have to stay home if they're sick. 3. Suspend all rent payments, mortgages, property taxes, and associated interest accrual. Land ownership adds no economic benefit to society, yet it's the #1 expense for the vast majority of people. The land owners will still own the land after the crisis is done. Right now, we can no longer afford to pay them. If you don't think we can afford to do all this, consider this. Jeff Bezos's PERSONAL fortune could pay a $400/week universal basic income to every adult in California for 3 months. Confiscate the obscene personal fortunes of America's billionaires, add that to the yearly budget of the pentagon, tweak the numbers until it all adds up, and all of a sudden we can easily tackle coronavirus.

The pitchforks are going to come out once the insurance companies start sending bills to people. This is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back for America's "market-based" healthcare system.

Be careful not to downplay the risk to young people. Yes, it's worse the older you are, but I personally know two people in their 20's who got it and ended up in the hospital. They're not going to die, but pneumonia is no fun. If the hospitals were full right now, they would both be dead. I worked at Harvard Med School for a long time and sat in on plenty of epidemiology classes. There's a reason doctors sound like "alarmists" on this. Our healthcare system is not capable of handling a pandemic. We're hyper-vulnerable to spikes in demand. And we're hyper-vulnerable to disruptions to the global supply chain. We already can't get the chemicals we need for testing, and we've only just begun. The emergency measures that governments are putting in place will save a lot of people, but it's not going to be enough. The poop has not yet hit the fan. But remember, everything is a sliding scale. It sounds stupid, but every hand you don't shake could be saving a life. Seriously.

I just don't see how we're all supposed to sit at home and twiddle our thumbs for the rest of the year without getting paid. No one's gonna be able to pay any bills. I guess some people are lucky to have savings or cushy remote office jobs, but everyone else is screwed. The foundation of capitalism has always been an implicit threat that if you stop working you'll starve to death on the sidewalk, but this is different. I'm already hearing stories about supermarket cashiers working while they cough their lungs out because they can't afford to skip a paycheck. It's barbaric. The inequalities of modern society are about to become so stark that when the bodies start stacking up outside the hospitals, the pitchforks might come out, for real. 36 months from now, I have no idea what the world is going to look like.

Any guesses on how long it will be until productions start up again? The anecdotal evidence I've heard is that most LA shows are down until April 1, but I can't imagine anything will be back by then. The virus is just getting started. What are ya'll planning to do?

I'm a fan of the fuji 20-120. Underrated lens for the price.

Personally, the only time I've ever seen someone pull out a color chart is when trying to match colors between two different kinds of cameras.

Nope. Different roadkill guy.

Have YOU ever found yourself in this situation?!?!? It's the end of the day. You have a bluetooth speaker, but you don't know what to play while everyone's loading out. You'd play your favorite album, but it's either a weird genre, NSFW, too depressing, etc. You could play a non-descript spotify playlist, but you still have to pick a genre and there's no way to please everyone. I have the solution: The Karaoke Hall of Fame. I've spent the last 2 months compiling an exhaustive list of the 200 most delightful hits of all time (aka songs that will get the bar excited on a karaoke night). Each song is guaranteed to elicit one of two reactions. Either, "Good song!" or "OMG this freaking song." This is my gift to you, my fellow cinematography.com forum members. Shuffle and enjoy. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4DByq8kyqiHcr5vr3e7nrg?si=a3mdrGbrRVCJYb9cXiz4nw

What's our stop?

I didn't mean to offend or be controversial. The intention of my comment was to encourage the original poster, not be dismissive of others. The point I'm trying to make is that (in my own personal experience), big budget productions are much less stressful than low budget ones. Of course the stakes, complexity, and accompanying knowledge-barrier-to-entry are much higher on big budget stuff. But you generally have the necessary equipment and (even more importantly) the support of other professionals which allows you to concentrate on your individual job. By contrast, when I'm shooting indie docs by myself, I'm operating, running audio, story producing, getting location releases, AND focus pulling all at the same time. It's damn near impossible. I guess you could argue that I'm comparing apples and oranges...

There are out of focus shots in big budget movies and tv shows all the time. Remember that whenever the pressure starts to get to you. Also: (somewhat counter-intuitively) jobs get easier with bigger budgets, so if you can nail focus by eye on a stills lens with a 3 inch monitor, you can do pretty much anything.

Awesome post! I used to be friends with a prolific roadkill forager in Massachusetts. Not my cup of tea, but kudos to you! I'm relatively young, so the only world I know is where 90% of the population lives their entire lives on the brink of bankruptcy. Vote Bernie, I guess?

I've done lots of jobs like this, and I'd seriously suggest getting a camera with XLR inputs instead of a separate audio recorder. It will save you tons of time and headaches.

Once you go wireless it's hard to go back. Even the cheap teradeks are good enough for simple stuff.