While the amateurs wax unrealistically, here's a topic for the pros! What's your worst experience on set to date; balanced out with a tale of your best one? I'll start...
I worked for about 8 days on an indie movie (4 in LA) with some fairly decent A/B-listers in the cast. The director was some no-name dude who sweet-talked some investors and had rented a RED Epic and some Zeiss glass without consulting me, the DP, first. Everyone was great and had good attitudes but the director and AD were just awful.
Things escalated to the point where one of the leads walked on day 5, the property master and armorer both walked on day 6. On day 8 I walked and the genies, sparks, stunts and effects guys went with me. Left a very expensive Epic on a very expensive Fischer and told the director to enjoy the ride. The next day, I find out from an associate producer that he had these kids doing stunts without supervision and...it was just awful. The only way I got paid for my time was I had to sign a contract removing my self from the credits and all that.
This was October 2011, it has 4 DP's attached to it (1 is the director, 1 is the AD, 1 is the guy who they hired to replace me and 1 is the B-cam operator in LA) and isn't finished yet, though they're filming a sequel already and the first one has distribution in, like, Russia...
Anyway, BEST experience was shooting Death Slate outside Austin, TX in August. Great cast, great crew. Tiny, micro-budget short film with so much heart from everyone involved. We were 500 miles from home, had $2000 and the crew all slept at the director's parents house and the actors made the hour round trip to set from Austin every day for 5 days. It was shot on a 5DmkII with a few 500w halogen work lamps and a few bits of 1/4 216 and opal. I was focusing the lights with blackwrap and grip clips. Pretty good stuff. Very proud of everyone doing 5 or 6 jobs at once. Still not too far removed from the days of shouldering a boom mic with an actual broom and duct tape!
So, what's your worst and best set experiences?
I worked for about 8 days on an indie movie (4 in LA) with some fairly decent A/B-listers in the cast. The director was some no-name dude who sweet-talked some investors and had rented a RED Epic and some Zeiss glass without consulting me, the DP, first. Everyone was great and had good attitudes but the director and AD were just awful.
Things escalated to the point where one of the leads walked on day 5, the property master and armorer both walked on day 6. On day 8 I walked and the genies, sparks, stunts and effects guys went with me. Left a very expensive Epic on a very expensive Fischer and told the director to enjoy the ride. The next day, I find out from an associate producer that he had these kids doing stunts without supervision and...it was just awful. The only way I got paid for my time was I had to sign a contract removing my self from the credits and all that.
This was October 2011, it has 4 DP's attached to it (1 is the director, 1 is the AD, 1 is the guy who they hired to replace me and 1 is the B-cam operator in LA) and isn't finished yet, though they're filming a sequel already and the first one has distribution in, like, Russia...
Anyway, BEST experience was shooting Death Slate outside Austin, TX in August. Great cast, great crew. Tiny, micro-budget short film with so much heart from everyone involved. We were 500 miles from home, had $2000 and the crew all slept at the director's parents house and the actors made the hour round trip to set from Austin every day for 5 days. It was shot on a 5DmkII with a few 500w halogen work lamps and a few bits of 1/4 216 and opal. I was focusing the lights with blackwrap and grip clips. Pretty good stuff. Very proud of everyone doing 5 or 6 jobs at once. Still not too far removed from the days of shouldering a boom mic with an actual broom and duct tape!
So, what's your worst and best set experiences?
Last edited by Jason R. Johnston on Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
JASONRJOHNSTON.COM | CINEMATOGRAPHER | DIRECTOR | EDITOR | COLORIST
RED Komodo | DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.5 | 2023 MacBook M2 Pro 14
RED Komodo | DaVinci Resolve Studio 18.5 | 2023 MacBook M2 Pro 14