His name is Robert Richardson.
Most people called him Bob.
We called him White Lightening.
That man has so many great films to his name, it's unbelievable.
He is tall with long white flowy white hair and is soft spoken.
He wears black pants, white shirts and black jackets. He looks a bit like a maestro or a orchestra conductor except for the converse shoes.
And he shoots fast. Really fast. We were using the quietest camera I have ever worked with, so it was really hard to tell when he was rolling. He liked to get lots of sneaky shots when no one was aware of it, and I had to keep on top of it, trying to ID everything... We shot lots and lots of film, and two days out of three, we finished our day early. That has never EVER happened to me before. We never finish early in the film industry.
So with his long white hair and his speed, he really was white lightening.
Also, he uses coms. Big headsets that every important person on set has, like him, the director, Key Gaffer, Key Grip and Assistant Director and Focus Puller. The coms are like all being on the same phone line. You can hear everything everyone is saying all the time. Bob doesn't like to raise his voice. So he gets to stay very calm and very quiet this way. He is basically the one who makes most of the talking.
The shoot was going swimmingly. We were working very hard, but things were going well. On the third day, Bob asked that I be put on coms. Yeah!!! I got to hear everything he said all day and got a good insight on how he works. Learned a few useful things there. It was awsome.
