The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As a filmmaker I am constantly inspired by other filmmakers and films. I was inspired by a few different filmmakers during the creation of Career Courier. One that stands out is Sergio Leone. The great Italian filmmaker who directed The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with Clint Eastwood. In the opening scene a cowboy’s head pops in the screen and takes up nearly the entire screen. All you see are his eyes. In most of my interview’s I tried cropping in on my subjects eye’s as tight as I could. Below is a still from one of Squid’s interview’s in lower Manhattan.

Squid

The other aspect of the job and lifestyle I wanted to capture with extreme close up shots on the bike.  I didn’t go into great detail on verbally describing the bikes messengers bike, but rather just tried to get as personal of a shot on each messengers bike I could. When your bike is as big of a part of your life as a messenger’s bike is, you know every bolt, nut and speck of dirt on your bike. I once came out of a building, jumped on my bike and took off. When I went into a corner really fast I touched my breaks and about flew off my bike. I knew exactly how tight my brakes WERE. Yet a homeless man I knew thought it would be a service to me if he tightened my brakes up a little for me when I wasn’t around.

Pedal-Brakes

I have said this a few other times in my blog, but I can’t say enough how many great angles I shot by simply taping my camera to the end of my wife’s broom handle. (She was out of town.) Rick couldn’t stop laughing and I couldn’t stop filming. Made for some good clips.

Low Profile Shot