Read the first three parts of the story: Part One Part Two Part Three A golden California sunset glow suffused the stage. A cool breeze revived the audience. The last act played, a Joe Cocker tribute band. My crew and I were in the flow, our minds worked as one. It was the pay off to all of our hard work. After the last song and the last cheers of the audience, the MC took the stage. He thanked everyone for coming, the artists who had participated — even the State Champion kazoo player (who had subjected us to a…
Author: Hanna Nielson
Hanna Nielson
Hanna Nielson is a professional writer-director-editor. She holds a Master's in Screenwriting from the University of Leeds, and BA in Cinema and Comparative Literature from the University of Iowa. Her talents also extend into acting, photography, art, and entrepreneurship. She has previously lived in England, Ireland, and India and now resides in Southern California. After several years at a post-production studio, she gained versatile skills in all areas of production and post-production. She has worked with clients in the music industry, entertainment industry, private and public sector, as well as non-profit organizations. She routinely acts as a "one-woman show" in writing, filming, directing, and editing projects including trailers, webisodes, music videos, short films, and feature documentaries. Currently she works freelance and maintains a network of devoted clients.
Read up on Live Directing A Concert Part I and Part II of the story. It was a full-on cameraman mutiny right in the middle of the rocking blues band’s finale. Desperately, I thought back to the last thing I said to them. What had brought this on? There was no time to figure it out. Masking my panic, I calmly yet quickly ordered each back to his original position. With seconds to spare, I got the shot progression I wanted. It worked beautifully. With the last crash of the cymbals, I sat back and took a deep breath. My assistant…
Catch up with Part 1. The concert was underway, a raucous blues band did a thundering cover of Led Zeppelin. In the control tent, I kept my eyes glued to the monitors showing the live feeds from all cameras in the field. My unmanned camera, “Deadcam,” was set as my wide shot. I planned to cut to Graybead on Camera 2 but noticed he had zoomed out, without my instructions, and was duplicating the wide shot. This struck me as odd. “Camera 2, give me a medium shot. Like you had before,” I said. He corrected a bit reluctantly and…
It was the kind of weather no one tells you about before you move to Southern California. Girls in summer dresses, palm trees, billionaire mansions — all bursting into flames from the dry, crackling heat straight from the bowels of Hell. In other words, it was summer. As part of my internship at a production studio, I arrived at the outdoor venue ready to live-direct a day-long concert series in the San Gabriel Valley. I had experience as crew and assistant director on previous concerts but this was my first time at the helm for an entire event. Live-directing is…
It was a gray afternoon driving home from the Ahrya Laemmle Theatre in Beverly Hills after the memorial service for film director Dan Ireland. Friends and family shared stories and clips from his films, grieving his unexpected departure. Traffic was heavy on the I-10 through downtown LA. To my right, the lane suddenly ended. Several cars were trapped, unable to merge. We inched along and then ground to a halt, gridlocked. When cars moved forward, I stopped and made a gap for the stragglers to enter. It dawned on me this was what Dan always did. He let people in,…
I brought a sweater and hot coffee to work, never mind it was a blistering summer’s day. Inside the production studio, excessive air-conditioning frostily preserved the computer equipment. It was like working in perpetual January. I had recently edited a two-minute promotional video for a travel series. Today I would get the final okay from the director. The project wrapped, he could fly to New York, meet with investors, and raise funding for the pilot. Everything was going to plan. The director Mr. Otter entered along with the cinematographer Mr. Badger (not actual names). They were excited about the project,…