We'd love to take credit for assembling the flash mob - okay, honestly, we did take credit for it. But it wasn't ours; someone else set this up, arranged with the city, and somehow ensured eventual removal of a deep bed of feathers from Pershing Square. Major props to whoever made this event happen; we just knew we'd have to ride the coat tails of a very cool event to create our own Ninja spin on it.
This was by far, the most destructive video yet, on our camera, which got smashed from every direction, repeatedly. Pillows don't seem like much, but they quickly took their toll. The viewfinder no longer clicks back into place, and the microphone was loose, dangling, and non-functioning by the end of the shoot. Thank goodness for the Sennheiser warranty, as we got the mic fixed for free (I just used a lint brush to remain all the remaining downy feathers that stuck to the mic's wind sock). Since then, Nick bought a couple of Kodak Flip-type cameras, for POV use, but unfortunately, too late to avoid the abuse we took on the pillow fight.
The other thing that got smashed around was the brand new wide-angle lens. In fact, it got hit so hard at one point that the lens, (despite being screwed on) came right off, and disappeared beneath the carpet of feathers. Thanks to the anonymous stranger, who rescued it for us!
As it turned out, it was also a pretty rough day on my eyeballs (and lungs - little feathers get in everywhere)! We were finding feathers for weeks thereafter.
Here's a pretty nice alternate coverage of the event, by Joel Kuwahara, with some good slo-mo:
Pillow Fight from Joel Kuwahara on Vimeo.
