Perspective
Yesterday’s post produced some interesting comments. Capn Cookie said that, while Bale’s outburst was uncalled for, the DP was still kind of a dick. Which called to mind an incident that happened on set only a few weeks ago. As you probably know, it’s standard procedure to turn your cell phone to vibrate when on […]
Classy
That’s how one of Nicky Finke’s commentators described the Christian Bale tirade that’s been making the rounds. His little outburst illustrates a number of things that bug me about actors. First of all, actors don’t seem to realize this is a collaborative medium. Notice his use of my: “You’re fucking up my scene.” He refers […]
Thanks for Ruining my Day, JohnD
Last weekend, in response to my post regarding a story producer who asked me to do his job, reader JohnD said: They have jobs because they are smart enough to go to the pool of assistants and solicit them for 50 ideas for free. They’ll stay a story producer. And of course, assistants who just […]
Do Your Own Damn Job
Reality TV shows don’t have “writers,” per se. They have what are called “story producers.” Their job is pretty much twofold. First, they come up with the wacky situations for the contestants to get into. They’re the ones who send the rich debutant to a farm, and the ghetto-fabulous girl to Morton’s. Once all this […]
Voice Mail
Pardon me if I’m stealing an old Seinfeld bit or something, but seriously, what is the deal with voice mail? When I call my voice mail at work, it asks for my number and password, as you’d expect. Then it says, “You have… ONE… message,” and you wait. And wait. And wait. “If you’d like […]
Placement
I was helping a friend with a short film over the weekend. I was the camera assistant, or “AC.” Don’t ask me why the letters get inverted in the acronym. It’s been a while since I’ve ACed, and to tell the truth, I forgot how much influence a camera assistant can have. I knew an […]
Poking the Frog
Every once in a while, the hype surrounding 30 Rock overwhelms me, and I decide to give it another chance. This is always a mistake. I can count on my hand the number of times I laughed at the show (“Did a Korean person die?”). I tend to turn it off after the teaser, when […]
Metric Time
Here’s a favorite joke from one of my student films– PRESIDENT: I want the file by oh-twenty-four hundred hours. CHIEF OF STAFF: Sir, twenty-four hundred would require a twenty-five hour clock. We’re not on metric time, here. Imagine my surprise when I was filling out my time card the other day. I had worked the […]
Networking
After working in low budget film for a number of years, I started running into people I’d worked with before. At a certain point, I realized this was a bad sign. As they say, you’re the average of the five people closest to you. Professionally, the five people closest to me were all working on […]
Self Perception
I ran into someone I knew from another show. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we caught up on the usual “How ya doin? What’ve you been working on?” stuff. Then she said an odd thing. She said she always remembered me as the guy who smiled a lot. Me? Really? Don’t […]
After Film School Special
There is an important thing that I neglected to mention in my discussion of film schools last week. It has more to do with what happens after you graduate than choosing a school. See, the thing is, you don’t know anything. Well, you know a lot, but you also know very little. Film school can […]
Practical Jokes
There’s a lot of downtime on a film set. Sometimes you play games. Sometimes you play practical jokes. Here are some of my favorites– A friend of mine had one of those screensavers that plays a slideshow of pictures from your computer. Naturally, he chose a file that consisted mostly of Rebecca Romijn in a […]