My Attitude
How about a brief time-out from the buoyancy of LucasArts?
Over the 35 years I put up with creative people, many of them, along with hundreds of crew, staff, freelance production help, vendors, city location services employees and above-the-line types, accused me of having an attitude problem. To that I have to address what shocked me about working with so-called other adults. The general mindset about THE PRODUCER could be summed up in one statement from everyone and anyone who ever drew breath on a film set.
“I screwed up. What are YOU going to go about it?”
In fairness, most of my colleagues allowed this, uh, attitude to proliferate on their sets. To the constant further consternation of those with whom I worked, I did not. A few examples.
1. A Steadicam operator showed up on my set, over an hour south from San Francisco where said operator lived and stored gear, without his focus motor. A crucial piece of equipment for, oh I don’t know, focusing? Given the traffic, even getting someone into the operator’s Fort Knox like storage facility would have cost me four hours. The operator spent five minutes blaming me for not putting him in touch with the DP to discuss the lens order. When asked if he had disconnected his phone line, tossed his cell, or forgotten how to punch in a number, his only reply was “You’re THE PRODUCER.” To which I endeared myself by asking the operator if he had gotten a note from his mother in order to skip out of elementary school for the day to join us on set with his useless Steadicam. Eventually the DP told me not to worry because he was planning on using the lenses for the day’s shots that would not require the focus motor. Cold comfort since I had to punch myself in the face to stop from asking him why I ordered a six piece prime lens set and two zooms for the day.
2. A DP hired to shoot green screen for CBS Interactive got the specs that all the talent had to be shot head to toe. Their feet could not leave the bottom of the frame. During the production, I pointed out, more than once, that it looked like none of the takes had that quality. He told me that once I viewed the takes in post, I’d see the full head to toe shots. I did not see one single take that had the actor’s feet in frame. When queried about this issue, he informed me he had no idea anything less than full head-to-toe would be a deal breaker for shot composition. The reason I’m not on death row is that our last conversation took place over the phone.
3. A production assistant to who I’d given lots of jobs, worked his way into the graphics department and freelanced in post-production and on-set display. Hired to do the latter for a McKinsey & Company project, he guaranteed the text that came up on the monitors behind the three consultants would happen in real time. Within the first hour of the first shoot day, he got his initial body of text and entered it. I called for the camera roll. Two things happened next. The former PA asked for time for the graphics to render and I ended up behind the wheel of my car for a few laps about the block in order to avoid the death penalty.
4. Upon completion of a stereoscopic video for Intel’s new chip commercial, the camera rig needed to be returned to the vendor who lived and worked most of the time in Los Angeles. Joyce, my fab coordinator, arranged for the drop-off to occur when the vendor would be at the shop to receive it. He was not. Joyce rearranged for the drop-off with the shipping company for the next day. They agreed not to charge for the delivery failure, though it was not their fault the disorganized dope couldn’t keep an appointment despite reminders from Joyce. A week later the invoice came in. It was several days of shooting, plus an agreed upon extra half-day on either side for the traveling of the rig from South to North and back again. But it didn’t add up. It appeared the vendor charged the production company a full day in both directions. When queried, the vendor deadpanned that the rig was not returned when promised and came a day late. I won’t elaborate on the exchange, but to this day that vendor did not receive the additional day’s rental and like the silver medals the Olympic Committee tried to foist on the 1972 U.S. Men’s Basketball Team, he never will.
There are too many to list, but is it me, or is it the job? Is there really genuinely only one grown-up on every film set? People who can take themselves, their spouse, and three kids on a sub-Saharan vacation which includes no indoor plumbing and food that might move in the middle of a bite, get on a film job and can’t park their Mercedes Silver Special without directional signs every eleven feet or eat anything that doesn’t have a pedigree.
I’ll leave this Cri de Coeur with a quote from my favorite video engineer in the Bay Area, Louis Block. When asked why crew people expect chateaubriand for shoot day meals when they can’t even make a can of soup on a day off, Lewis opined for my entertainment.
“Because they expect it.”
Brilliant.
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