"The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective." - Henry David Thoreau
A recent project for Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles provided us with the opportunity to arrive a day early and work on a test shoot. The main objective was to have a small group of talent interacting on a boat sailing out into the ocean. Bobbi Peacock, our producer, put out the word and in no time at all we were walking aboard a 40' sailboat alongside talent making introductions and greeting the man who would be our captain for the next four hours. As one can imagine the setting was just right for this type of test; the perfect southern California weather coupled with a gorgeous sailboat full of great talent cutting through the dark salty depths.
The time we spent in the harbor of Marina del Rey was quite calm and gave us time to acquire a temporary set of sea legs, but soon enough we found ourselves rising and falling to the rhythm of 6' - 8' swells which our captain pointed out as being most unusual for that area. We faced a few challenges regarding the high seas, but it only added to the look and feel of the stills and heightened the overall sense of adventure. Sailing is all at once calm, dangerous, spontaneous, rewarding, and addictive in that it's nothing like a land based activity.
Keep your sights on the horizon for a future motion piece to accompany the still imagery.
