Travel Gear for a Producer

There’s more to travel gear when you’re a producer who loves traveling. When we decided to take our show on the road, and literally our life, there needed to be some downsizing. Some of my equipment would just not travel well. Luckily technology changes so fast and things get smaller. The equipment can do more with less, etc. By the same token you have to upgrade fairly often to get the best results. I’m kind of a gear-head when it comes to new toys and try to upgrade my equipment as often as I can. Yet, I used to say that you can be creative with anything so sometimes I stretch the life of my gear and learn how to push what I have.

As of this being written some of my gear is out of date and some just needs additional enhancements. Instead of going through a list of things in my traveling studio, I’ll just highlight some of the items that I find I couldn’t leave behind. The essentials as it would be.

Travel Gear | The Producer’s Workhorse

The Macbook Pro is my workhorse. I can only say that it IS my studio. As a producer, designer, photographer, videographer and editor, it is the processor of all that I do. That is the next item that, even as I’m writing this, is being completely overhauled. I’m excited to say that it is getting replaced with the latest MB Pro and the Adobe Creative Cloud.

Travel Gear | Capturing the Motion

Moving pictures – videography is a skill set that every communicator cannot overlook. I started early directing and editing commercials and I love good cinema. I shoot with three cameras at the moment and use what they do best. However I will have a dedicated professional video camera added to my list within the first part of this year.

I use my Nikon 3100 for stills – but it also shoots great video, if you know how to dial it all in. I use the GoPro Hero 4 Black for casual, large-scope wide action shots. It is incredible for that. It is a solid POV video camera. And surprisingly enough I shoot a lot with my iPhone 6S. Yes, you can get pretty creative with it if you know what you’re doing.

Lighting, knowing how to push the tech, and setting up the shot, are the key here to getting successful footage. Getting enough B-roll is key too; just make sure you have extra storage and batteries when you’re out trekking around. And lastly you can do ANYTHING in post! I have four different editing software that I use to get what I want. That is a whole other conversation.

I’ll cover some other travel gear in my bag that are tried and literally tested in the field, in upcoming posts. I’ll follow up with another overview of the above mentioned items once I get the chance to put them through my workflow. Here’s to new toys! I mean tools.

What camera gear do you use when traveling? Do you work on the road?