Upon precious few occasions in a lifetime, a man gets an unintended brush with greatness. On a day like any other, a dream is suddenly realized, a destiny fulfilled, an existence validated. On Friday, January 15th, 2010, Rosey Media shooter/camera tech/ interweb geek and all around great guy Don Downie had just such an experience.
The Rosey Media crew was into the second day of shooting "Laser Cats 5" . . .which goes a little somethin' like this:
As gigs go, Don had actually gotten the short end of the stick on this one. Thursday, during the first night of shooting, John Rosenblatt, Sound Guru Dan Walter, and Brian Townes had filmed sequences with the one and only director James Cameron and Saturday Night Live EP Lorne Michaels for the week's Short. Come Friday morning, however, the producing and directing deities had left the building, the crew had flipped, and Don had been called in for a 7:30am start with "Soundman Rich" Ahlert and the rest of the SNL gang.
Don spent the day providing AC and technical support to Digital Short Director Johnathan Krisel. Any day spent working with Sigourney Weaver is kind of red letter- but the shoot became truly memorable when, in a pivotal moment, Don took up the camera himself to effectively and yet tenderly shoot. . . Sigourney blowing chunks on Bill Hader.
Remember the first time you saw Alien? Aliens? That Prison Planet One??!? The one where Winona Ryder played a really lame android??!!?
Sigourney. Blowing chunks. Like in Alien. And Don got to shoot it.
If you don't get it- well, you probably had some kind of social life in high school. We thought it was pretty cool,though.
