So this week I added a new piece of gear to my arsenal. Unfortunately this piece of gear won’t make me much money, but it will get me from point A to point B. I bought a new car, a minivan, in fact. As anyone in production knows, having a good sized production vehicle can be essential. Even though our cameras and a lot of other gear have gotten smaller, there is still a ton to take on shoots. My previous (now second) car was a Mazda 3 wagon. A great, fun, zippy little car. I could pack A LOT of stuff in it. I used to joke that this car could JUST barely fit whatever was needed. But it was often very, very tight. If a producer asked me to rent a big dolly or jib for a shoot, I cringed as I knew it would be a tight fit. On a recent shoot in Connecticut, where we rented a Porta-Jib, my assistant could barely fit in the passenger seat, and had to ride with bags at his feet and in his lap. Not ideal.
I didn’t get the new car just for work, though. As I’ve written about before, my wife and I are having our first child (any day now), and we needed to have a second car. Since I travel a good amount for work, I didn’t want to leave her and the baby at home without a car. It took me a while to warm up to getting a minivan, but it really is the most practical car out there. A lot of the compact SUVs aren’t that much bigger than my Mazda and I liked having a third row of seats. Plus, I know several people in production with minivans and they could fit so much gear in it, that I knew it was they way to go. Really, the only thing that disappointed us when we began our search, was that currently, there are no hybrid SUVs. When I bought my Mazda 6 years ago, I assumed my next car would be a hybrid. Well that will have to wait, I guess. When we began looking at the options, the only 2 minivans that seemed to be in the running were the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna. As far as minivans go, these were the “coolest”. And on closer inspection, the new 2011 Toyota Sienna, really took the cake. (Thanks, in part, to their excellent marketing campaign including this great video.)
So on Wednesday, we picked up the new addition to our family. The thing is pretty massive. We really could probably move into it and sell our house. I am excited to take it on a shoot and have lots of room to spare. I also will not hesitate to rent or bring bigger production gear on shoots. In fact, I can probably seat 4 or 5, plus the amount of gear I bring on a normal shoot, which is something I could never do with the Mazda. I am thinking of building some sort of shelving system in the back with compartments for stands, light cases, camera bags, etc., for even better storage of the gear. The dual sliding doors makes loading stuff in a cinch, and the way the rear seats fold flat into the floor is awesome. Surprisingly the car, as a whole, feels more like a luxury vehicle than a family car. Basically, I am sold on the concept of the minivan now.
It sort of bums me out that what is now the most expensive piece of gear in my “kit” won’t really make me any money, but I guess that is how it goes with automobiles. Now my only fear is that I am going to get asked by my friends now to help them transport lots of their stuff.
So in the vein of the “unboxing” videos that are popular online (where people shoot themselves opening up new products), we decided to shoot a funny little video ourselves. Enjoy!
Tags: car, equipment, freelance, Mazda, Sienna, Toyota, travel
haha, nice Ben, and I’d love a big car for gear, that’s going to be a big factor in my next vehicle.