Texas Tales: Sodium Power Behind ‘The Wilderness Way’

Texas Tales: Sodium Power Behind ‘The Wilderness Way’

Jody Eldred is an Emmy-winning and Directors Guild of America award-nominated Director, Cinematographer, Writer, Producer, and Editor. With 45 years in TV news and docs, working on feature films and TV dramas such as CBS’ “J.A.G.”, “NCIS”, “NCIS: Los Angeles”, The Tonight Show, Oprah, Good Morning America & World News Tonight. Jody and the crew put Anton/Bauer’s sustainability award-winning sodium Salt-E Dog power supply to work on the ranch in his latest cinematic trailer.

Welcome to the Cowboy Capital of the World, Bandera, Texas – a title earned from the legacy of the epic cattle drives of the 1800’s. It’s the perfect backdrop for Director and Emmy award-winning Cinematographer Jody Eldred to capture the essence of his latest project, “The Wilderness Way”, in an exhilarating teaser trailer.

The story follows the journey of a pastor and his family who heed a divine calling to trade in the hustle of Dallas for the tranquillity of Bandera, where they establish a dude ranch. Their decision transforms not only their own lives but also the lives of those who seek refuge in the wilderness they now call home.

In the heart of ranch life, they offer more than just a vacation spot; they become beacons of spiritual guidance and renewal. Troubled souls find comfort in the pastor’s words, discovering hope and purpose in the vast expanse of nature. For the urban Dallas family, adapting to dude ranch living opens a whole new world of experiences and challenges.

Wearing multiple (cowboy) hats as Executive Producer, Co-creator, Co-writer, Director and D.P., Jody explains his vision. “Our aim was to craft a trailer that exuded the depth and richness of a full hour-long cinematic episode, spanning multiple locations, with professional actors. We wanted viewers to feel like they were watching snippets from a complete narrative, yet had to do so under the extreme constraints of a very tight production schedule, small crew, and tiny budget.” he explains.

“The Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12k Cinema Camera with Sigma lenses and the DJI 4D enabled us to capture this story with the speed, excellence, and no-compromise/cost-effectiveness this project demanded. And we quickly discovered how the SALT-E Dog would also become a very important piece of that puzzle.”

Navigating the shoot presented significant challenges, particularly the logistics of powering and setting up all the different shots swiftly. Jody explains, “Setting up the lighting for each shot demanded meticulous attention regardless of its duration. Whether it’s a fleeting three second shot or a complicated five-minute long take, the lighting setup is equally time-consuming. Despite the fast-pace, our team produced an impressive amount of work in a very short timeframe.”

Dog days.

Shooting in a remote location presented Jody and the crew with many challenges, not least among them, the power requirements. Instead of relying on cumbersome, noisy, and environmentally harmful diesel generators, they seized the opportunity to utilize Salt-E Dog, a 9kW sodium zero-emission electric battery solution. The innovative solution powered their on-set lighting, monitors, and more, revolutionizing their workflow.

Jody explains his first impressions of Salt-E Dog as it rolled off the truck. “This is a very cool tool. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with it. I’ve been doing this for almost 50 years now. It’s not very often that we get excited about a new piece of technology. This is something that makes your life on set easier, better, and faster.”

Filming at a working dude ranch posed unique challenges, particularly with overnight guests on-site. The crew had to carefully consider logistics, especially for the night shoot. Drawing on over four decades of shooting in Los Angeles, Jody understood the importance of minimizing disruption. “I’ve had crews in my neighborhood, so I know firsthand how intrusive we can be, and I am sensitive to that,” he explains.

Jody stressed the need for quiet operation during the night shoot: “I’m telling my guys, people are sleeping. Don’t be slamming doors… don’t be talking loudly. Keep your radios down. When you’re in a place like this, a resort environment, you want to have as little impact on the guests as possible.”

The non-flammable and silent Salt-E Dog can be utilized closer to the on-set action.

Lighting up the ranch.

Jody and the team had some big lighting setups which required a lot of power. He explains, “The nighttime scenes required very significant lighting, an area, probably as big as a couple of football fields. We had some powerful lights. There’s no way of getting around that. We absolutely had to have big, reliable, and easily accessible power there”.

A key challenge was making sure there was enough power for the production to operate their lighting safely. Jody gives insight into how they approached the setup. “We were in an old building with questionable power and running big lights through windows to simulate sunlight coming through. We could not rely at all on the power of the 80-year-old building. The place looked like it had 15-amp circuits, not enough for what we needed. We looked at the breakers with the maintenance guys and quickly decided against house power. Salt-E Dog powering everything on set was the answer and saved us tremendous amounts of complexity, time, and money.” And it was super easy to move, whether on its big tires, or using the liftgate of a cube truck and moving wherever we needed it on the ranch.”

Powering up key lighting scenes with Salt-E Dog.

“The most we ran was a Nanlux 2400 Evoke and a 1200 Evoke which would have been about 35 amps, so with 50 amps available to us, we had room to spare. We would have those on for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, maximum. We just didn’t need them on longer and we would turn them off when we didn’t need them. There wasn’t a time where we looked at the Salt-E Dog display and worried about what we had left. We had plenty of output to spare to play with.” 

Safety First.

“We used Salt-E Dog to power up some smaller LED panels, Nanlite Pavotubes, some fire-flicker instruments, and it charged up our Dionic XT batteries. House power just wasn’t on the cards, safety was on our minds. We said let’s just play it safe with Salt-E Dog because it’s quicker to do that than it is to go find that breaker that we tripped and have to redo a take. 98% of the time we run power off the Salt-E Dog.”

Salt-E Dog charges to 100% in ten hours or to 80% in just six. The EV charging input gave the crew options for powering it back up overnight in between shoot days. Jody explains how they’d planned for it. “Bandera is a small town, but it has some EV charging stations. I told the gaffer Ray that, if we get into trouble and we can’t find a dedicated convenient 15-amp circuit, then that is our fall-back position for charging it. It is an important subject that people need to be aware of. But we never needed to.

Shooting through the elements.

The crew could shoot through the unpredictable Texas Hill Country weather with the durable, rain-resistant gear they had on set. With Salt-E Dogs IP 55 rating, it enabled the crew to power through, and not worry about the dust or light rain throughout the shoot.

Supporting the 12K camera through the shoot was the trusty Sachtler aktiv flowtech system, which in one scene was taken into the river. Jody explains, “We had one angle from the shore shooting a profile shot of a baptism. And then we did it a second time with my camera operator in chest-deep water because I needed that head-on shot. So, we got two angles of him going beneath the water, coming up in profile, then coming up out of the water again straight to camera, all of which we were shooting in slow motion. It was quite dramatic. There were no issues immersing those carbon fiber sticks into the river.”

The future of on-location clean energy.

For Jody and the crew, Salt-E Dog provided invaluable on-location battery energy storage system for the production, powering lights, Small HD monitors and more. From a safety standpoint, having non-flammable sodium and silent on set power enabled the crew to work at speed and get the job done without the need for extra fire marshals on set. And with no lithium ion, there were no shipping challenges either.

Jody reflects on how he would approach the shoot when it goes into full series production, “When we shoot the series, we might have to have a couple of Salt-E Dogs out there because we’ll have longer shoot days and more equipment and we could already have one at the next location, and then when one gets low on power, we can switch over to the other and recharge it. We’re now very spoiled with power options!”