AMC taps Zacuto Films for new
Interstices with 150 actors

Zacuto Films partner Jens Bogehegn shot AMC interstices on HD.

Last year, American Movie Classics cable channel filmed its “People Talk About Movies” interstices in New York. Desiring a Midwestern feel this year, they came to Chicago and tapped Zacuto Films to capture the interviews on HD.

The $50,000, four-day shoot revolved around 150 actors, “who talk about movies in clusters,” said Steve Zacuto. Zacuto partner and cameraman Jens Bogehegn shot the actors in Chicago near Buckingham Fountain, Rush St. at the river, and in Oak Park outside the Lake theatre and a row of bungalows.

Bogehegn shot on a Panasonic 24P Vericam, Zacuto’s specialty camera gear. The down conversion to digibeta was sent to New York for editing into one, two and three minute fillers and transfer to film.

Phil Contursi provided grip trucks and was the gaffer; Bogehegn’s digital imaging technician was Daniel Herman; Jennifer Rudnicke cast the actors.

Zacuto Rentals is the partners’ primary business and its stock-in-trade is the Panasonic Vericam, “the closest to a film camera you can get,” Zacuto said. It rents for $1-$2,000 a day, depending on the accessories.

Zacuto Rentals’ $2 million inventory includes three out of about 120 Varicams in the world. They also own all the accessories, four decks and the only frame-rate converter in the Midwest, plus all other HD Panasonic cameras and accessories. They also assemble camera crews and equipment, as they did for the recent LaSalle Bank/Chicago Marathon, pulling together seven HD cameras from three Chicago owners and four sources in New York.

The Zacuto companies lease 10,000-sq. ft. at 401 W. Orleans (the Radar building) and sublets 6,000 feet to a half-dozen related visual media companies.

Zacuto and Bogehegn became partners four years ago after working together for 20 years.

“We do very little production, except for the development of our own show ideas,” Zacuto said. “It’s a rare project, like AMC, that we get into.”

Zacuto Rentals/Films’ phone is 312/863-3452.