Rebel Rebel |harry styles| - ongoing

THIRTY-FIVE

"So, I'm filming this acoustic concert in a couple of days, in my back garden actually. And we're live streaming it from here, so I made a list of the things I'll need, and I hope you can help me figure out if it's enough or too much.", Tony assured me, even though it wasn't his area of expertise, he'd do his best.

"Okay, so first up are microphones: the ones Harry will use his team will pick, I think I'm going to go for the Rode NTG4+ for the camera because I've read excellent reviews. I've ordered a video encoder and a camera power system. The tripods that I've found to work best are the Benro single tube style and a new one on the market called the 3 Legged Thing Mike carbon fibre. Now, the cameras are where you'll be able to help most, I think... I've decided to use both a DSLR and a camcorder on mounts so we can alternate between stills. I was thinking – the Canon Cinema EOS C100 Mark II for the DSLR and the Panasonic AG-UX180 for the camcorder. Also, I'll have a Canon EOS R5 for hand shooting. Does this make any sense?", he thought I'd made a good choice with all my cameras and he'd check with some of his co-workers about the mike.

"I don't know why, but when you start listing specs and talking in code it's insanely attractive to me.", I didn't notice Harry was standing behind me and listening in on my conversation with Tony.

"You scared me.", he sat down next to me, "I do sound quite professional, don't I?".

"Now it would be wonderful if you'd explain why we need all those things."

"Okay, the mikes are pretty self-explanatory, the video encoder is a must for live-streams because it helps with the quality and speed. The camera power system is so that I don't have anxiety attacks over something running out of battery, I can't really go around and change batteries in the middle of the stream, can I?", he nodded, "And the rest are just cameras with different specs and uses. I think it's a good idea to mix them and have two different still angles, but I'd also feel more comfortable with a hand-held camera just in case anything goes wrong.".

"It's both incredible and very strange to me how people have such different areas of expertise and I know nothing about cameras with many letters in the name, but I know a lot about sound and what works best in which environment. Blows my mind.", that was one of the cutest things he's ever told me, and funny because I also thought about stuff like that a lot.

"I know, I talk to Jeff and he starts telling me about strategies and schedules, then I meet Becks for lunch and she talks about teaching techniques in primary education and it blows my mind that I know nothing about those thing but could explain lighting and exposition and how location shooting is very different from studio shoots. But that's what makes life interesting, right? The possibility to learn something new every day."

TWO WEEKS LATER

"Hey, have you seen one of the big black bags that got delivered in the last two days?", I interrupted Harry's conversation with one of the sound guys.

"Uhm... Could be in the loft? Why?"

"It better be in the loft because that's the Panasonic and we can't pull tonight off without that baby.", a slight panic coloured his eyes from light green to a slightly cinnamony shade.

The back garden went through quite a transformation today – from plain and simply groomed to a faux brick wall covering our fence, fairy lights being hung all around, an old Aladdin-esque carpet taking over a big portion of grass and wires being carefully hidden throughout. Both my camera bags were, in fact, in the loft. Maybe not keeping a closer eye on them was my fault, but I was ready to label this a close call and move on.

"Essie are you ready to set up your part, so we can figure out where to hide the visible cords and do a test run?", Jeff was one of the many people that sporadically popped up around my house during the past week. I was used to it by now, and Bono figured out the cleverest thing would be to move into the loft for the time being.