Shooting video for Beartooth

It was a rainy monday afternoon, when I saw the story of Ray Duker stating that he is looking for an additional videographer for selected dates on the upcoming Beartooth EU/UK Tour. I was like: „I might give it a shot, he will probably not even read my DM anyway“. So I texted him, that I could make the date in Hamburg happen. Funny enough, I got a reply within two minutes and even more insane, I was on board two more minutes later! So off we go, here’s how it went:

Before going into detail on what I did to prepare for this gig, I want to state, that I am a passionate overthinker of gear. I question every little piece in my kit before every gig. So it will be no surprise to you, that I was a bloody mess preparing for this one. Needless to say: this is my biggest gig to be ever involved shooting directly for an artist. I even tried to get a 24-70 or a 70-200 in my kit for this special one – just in case Ray needed me to shoot some special „zoom-in“ shots. I asked him about this and he wrote that my primes will do the job. Thanks anyway Jess and Gianluca and Cyrill, you would have been my lifesaver haha.

This time around, I had to book hotels and the transport to Hamburg aswell. Because it would be my first big international gig, I planned to travel to Hamburg on the day before the show and will be travelling home on the day after, just to get some stress away from show day. My girlfriend Noëlle said she would even come with me to give me company, so much support from her, this is wonderful and I appreciate the heck out of it.

As this is a video only gig, I’d only need one camera body. But Ray and I decided, to put my second A7IV up to the FOH to get a static shot of the whole stage. With that shot out of the way, I would be able to run around the photopit during the whole show. I decided, I would bring my normal range of prime lenses to either cycle through or have options to choose from. At this point, I am still hoping, that I would be able to shoot some photos during the shows of Polaris and Landmvrks, the two support bands.

Two days before I was leaving for the show, I got contacted by Ray. We fixed the last couple details: I had to only bring the usual gear. Two bodies, a couple lenses and a tripod for the FOH shot. I also asked, if I was allowed to shoot the two other bands on the line up: Landmvrks and Polaris. He told me that I could shoot them. So big yay! Some content for my page aswell. By that time, it was still unclear, whether we had to do a multicam recording of the whole show, or if we had to do different stuff. I packed everything into my Peli case and my backpack.

I did not know, when I should arrive. I texted Ray after lunch when I should come to the arena, but received no answer. So off we went to a sight seeing trip around Hamburg. I took my Fuji X100F along and shot a bunch of frames of Hamburg City. I kind of was a wreck because my nerves were going crazy – I did not know nothing, I was expecting being called in any moment. It turned out, that I was supposed to come over at doors – I was on the guest list. I received a normal photopass and they told me, that I was not able to shoot Landmvrks and Polaris. But I knew, I will be able to, I just texted Ray everything and we met up right afterwards, to set up the FOH cam. We scrambled for a little bit and settled on putting the tripod onto a flight case shell, which will turn out not to be the smartest choice – foreshadowing. We discussed a bunch of stuff about how I should shoot the videos. He then went to get something to eat. I turned around to shoot Landmvrks.

Shooting Landmvrks was both fun and hard at the same time. Obviously, there was no problem getting enough light on my sensor. There was so much light going on – but they move around fast. There were also a lot of pyro boxes at the edge of the stage, which I had to consider during the shoot.  No easy task shooting in between them… But hey, I managed to get some cool shots during their set anyway!

The same could be said about the set of Polaris. A lot of scrambling while trying to get an unobstructed view of the band. No easy task.

After shooting Polaris for three songs, I had to meet up with Ray again. He handed me an AAA pass, so that I would be able to start the FOH cam. Now I really felt being a part of it, because I kind of felt out of place being surrounded by such amazing creators and musicians (Shoutout Ray again of course, Alex, Shaun, Hayley and many more – there were so many!). We fixed the position of the FOH cam. Ray told me to start the cam five minutes before the show would start. Until then, I was free to have a little break. And so I went to share some moments with Noëlle, who was near me, waiting for the show. I was in a good mood and then I went to start the FOH recording as planned. Then, I went back to the photopit to prepare for shooting from there. Last minute, I noticed some dust spots on the sensor (I was shooting at F9 – the show would be that bright!), I cleaned it off with my dust removal tool. Just as I finished, the lights went out and I snapped the lens back on it and rushed towards the photopit. With the lights going out, my anxiety towards „have I really started the recording at FOH?“ vanished and I focussed on my main task now: shooting from the pit. It was kind of difficult shooting good video between all the obstacles, security and the crowdsurfers. I was just operating in autopilot mode. I had to follow the setlist carefully, so I was at the right place the right time and NOT in the pit when I was not allowed (fire). There was a time in the set, where I was supposed to check on the FOH cam – my anxiety about starting the record came up again. But all was fine: 67% battery left and recording went smoothly. And so I went back to the photo pit, squeezing myself through the packed crowd. I finished the rest of the set shooting from the pit giving my absolute best.

My cam at the FOH, the most prominent it probably will ever get haha:

After the set, I went to grab the cam from FOH, as the stage teardown started right after the set was finished. After that, I followed Ray to his temporary office to dump my footage. That’s where we found out, that the FOH cam vibrated and therefore made the footage kind of unusable. Ray even made sure, that Noëlle was able to join us in the backstage so that she would not have to wait for me in the cold night, what a nice guy. We never thought, that this was an option. After finishing everything, Noëlle and me said goodbye to Ray and we went back to the hotel. That concludes my little adventure of shooting for Beartooth.

This experience marks my absolute highlight in my content creation journey this year. It was so amazing seeing behind the curtain of such a big production. This was only the beginning and I hopefully will be on duty for some other big concerts next year. Thanks again for everybody involved for making this happen. The videos I took during Beartooth’s set are still to be released, so keep your eyes peeled. I will be posting something aswell in the future. Until then, feel free to enjoy my regular content.

If you read ‚til here, thank you so much! You are a real one. Much love to you and see you hopefully soon. I am filled with amazing memories!

Eric over and out.