Imago Production
June 18
I was contacted by DOP Tomas Karike for a planned six-day YLE Arena Stories production called Imago. My role was to be the 1st AC and handle much of the logistical heavy lifting.
The shoot took place across various locations in Helsinki, and we needed to be fast and flexible with the setup. Almost every day involved a new installation of the film set. To save time and effort, we kept most of the equipment prepped and ready, avoiding breaking everything down to molecules.
We used a Blackmagic Design URSA Mini 4.6K as our camera of choice, and two additional Blackmagic Cinema Pocket 4k & 6k, all converted to fit EF lenses. The setup was quite interesting—instead of using traditional smooth dolly shots and camera sliders, we went with a Vario 5 Easyrig combined with a DJI Ronin 2 gimbal. Keep in mind that with the full camera build—additional monitor, two V-mount batteries, DJI Focus Pro system, and several cheese plates with quick releases—the rig became incredibly heavy. Still, Tomas said it felt manageable to operate, and after all, he’s the one responsible for the picture. Personally, I wouldn’t want to use a camera that heavy myself. During breaks and in between shots, I helped out by taking the camera off his shoulders to ease the burden. For some shots, I operated the smaller cameras during dialogue scenes, in a style similar to how you would shoot interviews.
The shoot days were long and demanding. The fast pace and stress started to take a toll on me, and by the second day, I felt like I was coming down with a fever. Some days we clocked two hours of overtime due to logistical issues, which only made things worse given my condition. I really wished there had been more crew on set to help with packing—after all, it’s a team effort.
On the third day, I started experiencing issues with the autofocus system we had installed. Calibration and range were fine, but I kept losing signal intermittently. It might have been due to environmental factors rather than a technical fault. The best solution was to switch to manual focus and rely on the marks I had made during testing—sometimes just hoping the picture turned out alright.
By the fourth day, I rebuilt the entire camera rig to reduce weight and probably removed close to half a kilogram of unnecessary parts and attachments. It might not sound like much, but when you're operating a camera for 20–30 minutes straight, you definitely notice the difference. The LIDAR autofocus system also had to go, given the issues it had caused, which cost us both time and headaches at the time.
All in all, it was a fun production, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final result. I never felt like there were any critical errors on the technical side, and the camera was always ready before the 1st AD even asked for it. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, and I definitely value the experience I gained on this shoot.
Maybe Tomas had to suffer some back pain and sore shoulders, but he powered through like a true cinematographer. It’s genuinely inspiring to work with professionals.
