The Day Before
Equipment
The day before the race, I placed the following items in the staging area (my front door), as before.
- Canon 5d mkii
- Canon EF 24‑105 mm F/4.0
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
- Canon 580 EX II (2)
- Pocket Wizards (3)
- Replacement batteries for all above equipment (AA, Canon LP-E6)
- Laptop
- Food (protein bars, 5 hour energy shot, bottle of water, garbage bags)
- Gym bag with extra clothing
- Beach Towels
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| Equipment |
Camera Settings
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Camera SAMSUNG SGH-T989
ISO 800
Focal Length 4.03mm
Aperture f/2.65
Exposure Time 0.0263s (1/38)
I chose to leave behind the Alienbees B1600 studio light because of the weather (rainy conditions) and the fact that it was going to be a smaller event. Although I brought both lenses, the one I would be shooting with is the Canon 16-35mm lens. This is because I was instructed to shoot as a zombie, chasing after the runner's flags, which meant that a fixed focal point and a huge DOF was needed.
Back Story
Before I volunteered to cover this event, I was registered as a zombie chaser. I ran this race before, and I found it to be a very different event than the typical OCR event (if there is such a thing). Having people chase after you is an extreme adrenaline rush, pumping my heart rate at high levels (180-200 bpm). Although I "died" as a runner, I still had a good time. Therefore, as soon as the 2012 race was over, I immediately registered to be a zombie for the next race in 2013 for $40.
Until the week before the event came. As part of the Race Pace group, I receive updates on different events happening across Florida, and this one was no exception. One of the members pointed out that the company behind "Run for your Lives" went bankrupt.
I was confused and in a state of disbelief: "They canceled the event? Was there a refund?".
There was no refund, they left with their pockets full with millions. And I had no idea why.
Granted, I have no idea if they were making millions, this is conjecture. I have no access to their financial statements, but on the previous race they had above 1k runners and over 200 zombies and each runner entry was $80 while each zombie entry is $40. For just one event as well. I was also made aware that this is not the only event out there that got dropped.
A few days after, I receive notice that the event was picked up by a company called "Human Movement". This company decided to do the ENTIRE event PRO BONO. This is when my company Race Pace Photos jumped on the opportunity. Since Race Pace has a good relationship with Human movement, they decided to do the race pro bono as well.
This meant that Race Pace needed volunteers to fill the slots to this event. From all the members, the ones available were me and Bradley Eason. Although I was bummed that my race was effectively canceled (yet picked up by someone else), I understood that keeping a good relationship with a partner (in this case Human movement) during hard times is of utmost importance. The fact alone that we took upon the task looked food on us, and hopefully, more future work.
A lot of event organizers try to lower their standards and overhead in order to save money with cheap or free solutions. However, this "model" (if you can call it that) poses issues to the future of the company and it is not sustainable. Good connections and relationships will keep your business profitable across years to end.
Day of the Event
Traveling to the event was the same as traveling to Savage: the event was located at the Little Everglades Ranch in Dade City. This time, however, I left at 4:30 am, for the reason that I had to get my makeup done to be a zombie chaser. This time the parking was nearby one of the obstacles, the creepy barn, which was fairly easy to access and close to the exit.
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| The field |
The staff was mostly composed of Run for your Lives and Human Movement personnel. They were very helpful, friendly, and resourceful. They supplied us with water and snacks, and later on, with tickets to get lunch (that pita was AWESOME!). After a quick tour around the course for possible locations, we went ahead to the makeup stations.
Make up Station
We were greeted by 8 Make up Artists (MUAs) professionals. They were ready and fully awake at the dawn of the event. The MUAs had a process to transform many zombies at once. They had fake blood, eyelashes, plastic skin and skin colouring at their arsenal. A zombie transformation take about 5 minutes, which is great considering they had to deal with many people at the same time. The human-to-zombie pipeline was divided in two groups of four, which means that they can churn out 8 zombies every 5 minutes at their max capacity (people who studied Operating Systems and/or Computer Architecture will understand this quite well).
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| Make up station |
Camera Settings
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Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ISO: 3200
Focal Length: 20mm (20mm in 35mm)
Aperture: f/2.8
Exposure Time: 0.0166s (1/60)
We were the first ones to be transformed, the willing guinea pigs. This was my first time having makeup applied to me. Women, I do not know how you do this every morning, it is quite inconvenient! And I even had someone do it for me! Having to put on makeup on every pore of my face was a hassle I do no want to experience often. The MUAs did a fantastic job on putting on products to this makeup-virgin. They placed something to make our skins completely pale, some more stuff under my eyes and an assortment of products I can not even name. Finally we were splashed with fake blood across our face (glad I brought a disposable shirt!) We were now the official zombie photographers.
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| hi |
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| Brad-Zombie |
Strobist
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- 580 EX II modified with a Lumiquest Big Bounce
Camera Settings
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Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ISO 400
Focal Length 35mm (35mm in 35mm)
Aperture f/4
Exposure Time 0.005s (1/200)
Lightroom
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- Shadows: +100
- Contrast: +33
- Clarity: +100
- Saturation: -33
Zombie Hangout
We were ready quite early, and the race was pushed an hour back (understandable, since they changed the venue from Orlando to Dade City.) Therefore, we went and started taking photos of the zombies already transformed. Many of the zombies opted for the casual look. Some of them dressed up for the occasion.
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| Zombie crowd |
Camera Settings
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Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ISO 400
Focal Length 19mm (19mm in 35mm)
Aperture f/4
Exposure Time 0.0125s (1/80)
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| More zombies! |
Camera Settings
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Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ISO 200
Focal Length 16mm (16mm in 35mm)
Aperture f/4
Exposure Time 0.0125s (1/80)
After snapping a few photos of the available zombies, we hurried up and waited. Then it started raining. This was not good news. A wet and damp lens is a sad and clumsy lens. If a lens gets damp, mold can grow inside it on a 24 hour period. I hoped that my lens would not get damaged.
T-30 minutes
Brad and I scouted the closest obstacles. The closest obstacles to the finish were the mud crawl and the monkey bars. The second closes were Zone 8 and Zone 9. Brad picked the finish lane, which was close to the start lane as well, covering both locations. I was left with the choice between Zone 8 and Zone 9.
Zone 8 was shaped like a funnel, with a tight bottleneck at one end and a big open field at the back:
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| Zone 8 |
Zone 9 was shaped like a big wide open space:
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| Zone 9 |
I chose Zone 8. It was narrower, which means that I would be able to cover more runners (the goal is to get the most amount of runners being chased by me), and the concentration of runners will be at the start, which offers great photo opportunities. It also enables me to take photos of the obstacle before it gets used by the runners (something I should do more often). Zone 9 was too wide open, which means that I had to run for longer periods of time to try and catch everyone, and additionally had no real obstacle before or after to buffer the runners.
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