Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining! You leave fascinating comments full of experience, curiosity, and passion. As a result, your comments make this site grow with more knowledge and advice.
What’s not to like about that?
This Week’s Comments
Here are this week’s comments in no particular order:
1. Zack Austin on Working as a Local On Location: Good or Bad Idea?
I’ve found myself in this situation before several times. Especially when work gets sparse around here, I’m constantly searching the internet for a new lead. In my mind, I can justify not making a lot of money (after travel and accommodation expenses) if I get to visit a new part of the world and make MANY more new connections on the project. I think everyone can feasibly do this 2-3 times, but as we’ve pointed out, this is a job, and we can’t survive on freebies and/or extremely low rates due to overhead expenses.
In the long run, I’ll likely get a call for another gig that IS willing to pay for some travel and other expenses, based on the connections I’ve made.
2. Teddysmith on Working as a Local On Location: Good or Bad Idea?
If it’s a union production and you are hired in a union position (and any feature with a budget over $1m will be union in Louisiana) it would be illegal for them to not pay for your travel, hotel, and per diem. Even if they say they aren’t paying it I take the job and just have my union rep get my money for me. The last big feature I worked I got six weeks of housing and per diem paid for only because the union made the production pay. On a union commercial we worked my second AC flew in from Iowa on her dime just because she wanted the experience. Production said they werent reimbursing her for anything. One visit from the union rep on set and everything was taken care of.
3. Tom C. Hall on Warning: Keep Your Clutter Off the Camera Cart
Be polite? I’ve seen Camera Assistants throw hot coffees right off the cart at people for placing them on there. Don’t fuck with a man’s cart, son.
4. FB on Film is Dead, Film is Not Dead
That’s why I think everyone who works with moving images should at least once in their lives try to shoot some film. Doesn’t matter if it’s 8mm, or 16mm short ends. Everyone would benefit from such an experience. There is a reason things are done a certain way on a film set, and there’s a reason for the discipline that comes with it. I’m not saying ALL digital crews are less disciplined, but they could benefit from some “old-school” methods, at least to undersand some procedures better and compare.
5. Kuni Ohi on Film is Dead, Film is Not Dead
My job is to help realize the director’s vision, regardless of what I shoot it on, or how ugly / beatutiful / plain it needs to be. A soul of a film doesn’t come from what its shot on (again, this is another long winded topic that’ll encompass a whole semester of film theory) and as production crew, we’ve kind of forgotten that audiences generally couldn’t give a flying shit what its shot on, as long as they are entertained or affected emotionally in some way by the end product.
Note: The two comments from Film is Dead, Film is Not Dead are part of a much longer, larger and informative conversation. I urge you to head over to that article and read through them. It’s an interesting dialogue to read.
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