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Beastie Boys on Letterman


Charles Papert

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Did anyone here operate the segment on Letterman a while back which brought the Beastie Boys out of the subway and down around a city block into the studio (where the performance continued, although with the appearance of a cut)? It was low mode, on video (obviously) and with a fisheye lens...

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Charles,

 

Didn't see it, but I'll guess it was Claus Stuhlweissenburg. He is on staff at CBS, but owns his own rig and works freelance from time to time as well. Done a bit of Letterman, if I recall. Nice guy and from what I've heard has the constitution of a horse when it comes to being stuck with the rig on.

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Oh, I enjoy them, but not what I would call a BIG fan. The question was raised on another forum about this shot (it can be viewed here, by the way). The controversy was whether or not it was shot live and continously--to me, the cut once they get backstage is an excellent indication that the front end was pre-recorded and rolled in, despite Paul Schaffer's exhortations to the contrary! What do you guys think?

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Hi Charles (how are you?)

 

There is totally a cut there - the shot is very nice and was shot during the day - I thought letterman was taped at night?

It looks to me like a very nice shot played in - cut to wide, then the boys come running in after getting up to speed with the playback.

 

What do you think?

 

Cheers

H :rolleyes:

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I think Letterman is taped at like 6pm I believe, so it certainly COULD have been live. The one thing that strikes me, and makes me think that this was pre-recorded, is that the steadicam did not lead them onto the stage. They cut to the wide shot before the guys come out on stage. If the steadicam had led them out onto the stage and then they had cut to another camera it would have certainly made it look like it was live, whether it was or not.

Either way, it's a great shot. I'm wondering whether it was don juan or not.

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It could have been live, Letterman is shot early enough to still be daylight, but the big question for me is, if it was shot live, did they have a SERIOUSLY long triax cable, or a wireless triax system like the D-Cam or Link system. I doubt they used wireless, and I doubt they would risk cables... leaning me towards pre-recorded.

 

My opinion,

Jason

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To my steadicam collegues,

Thanks for the kind words regarding the steadicam shot on The Letterman Show. The shot was done in low mode with an Ikegami HD camera and a Fuji 4.8 lens with a fish eye adaptor added to it. The shot was designed to look like their music video. It is one continuous shot until the boyz break onto the stage at which point there is a cut to a wide shot and I am no longer used. The shot was not pre-taped. The Letterman Show goes live to tape every day from 5:30 to 6:30 which explains the daylight. Obviously if there was some major problem they would have done it over again however this would not have made Dave happy. I was hard wired into the studio which means I had 4 guys helping me with my cable. They did a great job. Lastly, they had an army of audio guys out there carrying RF equipment to make sure the boyz could hear their music and we could hear them. They did not lip synch that song. Once again thanks for the kind words. Sincerely Claus

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I opted to do the shot backwards considering how much was involved and that I would only get one chance at it. Essentially I went to what I was used to. The photograph that Charles makes reference to is CBS camerman George Rothweiler who did one of the rehersals for me while I switched the rig into low-mode. Granted I could have turned the rig upside down and then have them flip the image electronically however i do low-mode so infrequently that I thought it would be good practise

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very cool shot indeed. at the beginning of the shot it seems you could see Claus very well and it looks like low mode from looking at the shadow.nice switch of the filter as they stepped into the studio.

 

very nice... the beasties still sound like themselves after all these years....

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