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Comment Corner at The Black and Blue

Comment Corner: Week of June 13th

Every week your opinions add tremendous value to this site and its articles through the form of comments. You have unique experiences that I could never share and so thank you to all who are willing to help us become better filmmakers by sharing what you know.

by Evan LuziComment Corner

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Below you can find five of the best comments from this week that are sure to help illuminate you to something new.

This Week’s Comments

Here are this week’s comments in no particular order

1. Phillip Jackson on How and Where to Place Your Video Village Monitor

Honestly after I set up video village in as prime of a location as we can manage, I don’t worry about who is or isn’t sitting next to it. I have other things to worry about at that point. If people that aren’t supposed to be there are crowding around than an AD should stop in and clear them out.

2. heillight on How and Where to Place Your Video Village Monitor

My “best” experience: I put a 1K or something on a tripod at a relativly free spot. Then I went to fetch something. When I came back, the BNC was running straight through the tripod. And I don’t mean “right next to it”, no, it was running straight through the “closed” part at the bottom.

Meanwhile the (female) camera PA who was responsible stood in the vicinity, trying to flirt with some crew guys. *headshaking*

3. Assistant Director on Three Ways to Keep Your Camera Crew Happy (Guest Post)

As a Second, I really try to know Camera’s coffee tastes and dietary needs.  Every time you go to check in with the First, carry SOMETHING out there.  Coffee, high protein snacks, whatever Crafty can stock you up on.  You’re one of the mobile people on set and you should use it to support those who are stuck at their station. They’re usually unable to make it back to Crafty.  It’s the little things.  They’re working under a huge amount of pressure.  Be their support system.

4. Rob on Five Tips to Find Professional Crew for Free (Guest Post)

A big point is making sure you repay the favor. If your loyal crew needs help on their projects you should help if you can. A good filmmaker can easily shoot a quick interview with a makup artist that she can use to promote herself.

When looking for other directors to work for I tend to shy away from no pay projects that make big claims.

Any directors who is making claims about how they low budget project is going big is either unrealistic or exxagerating at your expense.

I would rather help out on someones project if they were up front that it was just to learn and have fun.

5. James on Five Tips to Find Professional Crew for Free (Guest Post)

I wish Craigslist forced people to read your article before they post looking for crew, have worked for free on many projects but I have seen so many people who want you to work on their music video “that will be submitted to MTV” or other such nonsense but are looking for people with equipment or experience without stating why it would be a good use of your time its amazing.

Your Tremendous Support

This week The Black and Blue passed a significant milestone when it got more than 1,000 fans on Facebook — thank you for helping achieve that and grow this community!

I promise there are some great things in the works at The Black and Blue labs so stay tuned…

Evan Luzi

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Creator of The Black and Blue. Freelance camera assistant and camera operator. Available for work: Contact Evan here. Learn more about Evan here.

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