Worst...Shoot... Ever...

Wow, So I just finished that AFI shoot that I was gaffing where we were shooting at the Motion Picture Home in Calabasas... and I don't think the cinematographer will ever hire me again(something that I am proud to say that I am not used to)...

*note: I work at Mole and the 2nd year cinematography AFI students come in every tuesday for a lighitng/camera workshop with some guest cinematographer or gaffer or director or whoever. These students are in the midst of shoting their thesis films where they team up with a producer, director, editor and screenwriter from AFI- so they all crew on each others films- so many people on the crew are fellow cinematographers and classmates of the film's cinematographer. I worked on one and many of the students have approached me to either grip/electric, best boy electric, or gaff their films.*


Yeah, so the schedule was pushed back a day, so our actual first day went pretty well, it was day exterior so there wasn't a lot of lighting, just some grip stuff. Then we did a night exterior and it was pretty simple because we didn't have a lot of time... it looked good and would have looked even better if we had time to light up the background a little, but it didn't matter. Justina(the cinematographer) was happy with it, and I was impressed considering we had never blocked it or even came up with a lighting plan.

The next two days we had off but I came in on the second to help them with a few insert/2nd unit shots. That went well... but then we got into day three which was in the rose garden. I thought it looked beautiful because we were dealing with sunlight(but it was a bit stressfull because we had to race the sun). But this is when the crew and I started noticing how she would react when she was stressed. Also, I noticed that she wouldn't realy give me a lot of direction in terms of what she wanted to see... she actually turned to me once that day, pretty frustrated and said, "I don't care what it looks like, just make it look good!" I said ok but was taken by surprise because that doesn't help me light... that only makes things even more complicated... but oh well.

Later that day we moved over to this hospital hallway, which I had a pretty good lighting plan for, I thought it looked pretty good, but every so often she would give me these looks or say these phrases that I could tell she was unhappy... part of it, I was to learn, was because she didn't actually know what she wanted to see and there were even times when her and director were figuring out how the staging was going to be and even where they were going to shoot right there on set, while camera waited and while I tried to light... but I would light and then find out that the staging had been changed or the camera moved or something else came up so it was really difficult. I heard the phrase just make it lok good several times that evening which really put me on edge because I would do something and then she'd tell me that she didn't like it. She would tell me what she didn't lke but not tell me what she DID like...

The next day we were back in the same hallwayy and disaster struck- she started asking the other grip/electrics(her AFI cinematography classmates) questions that should have been addressed to me. I felt useless, the whole communication system was ruined and hardly anything got done because of it. On top of everything, a lot of the crew members started piping up with their suggestions because they were all cinematography students.. chaos.

The key grip(another one of her classmates) was giving me rides to and from set everyday and she couldn't believe that Justina didn't have a lighting plan for a lot of it was advised me to just light how I would light it and not wait for her because she wasn't giiving me any support anyway. So the next day I came in and Justina pulled me aside and said that she was thinking of "trying" Chad out as the gaffer for the day(Chad is an AFI grad who was best-boy electric on the shoot... the gaffer's right hand man). Obviously, it's always hard for anyone to hear that they are getting replaced and I wasn't too happy about it but I smiled and said that if that was her decission then that was her decission. I tried to explain and work out our communcation problem but she still wanted to try Chad out. I understood, especially because she had a lot of her own money involved with the project... so she goes off to ask Chad as people start arriving. Then, about 15 minutes later, she comes back up to me and tells me that I am just going to gaff today, but gave me a stern look and said that we had to move faster or something to that effect.

I wasn't sure if she was going to talk to Chad or anything and I didn;t want anything to be awkward so I went up to him and mentioned that she might ask him to gaff for the day and he said, "Yeah, she asked ma and I didn't say anything because I am not going to have any more luck getting into her head then you are, so why complcate things?" We both agreed that commmunicating with her would be hard and we decided to just watch each others backs and just light it how we would want to light it. So before every new setup, Chad and I would quickly try anf figure out a lighting plan based off of my lighting diagrams and then we'd go from there.

The lighitng looked alot better then the hallway stuff because I had an actual lighitng plan for all of these scenes. Still, Justina was pissy on set and everyone kept asking me why she was snapping at me. Tings kind of escalated to a point when we were shooting in the John Ford Chapel and I was ptting in a little eye light above camera and was putting in a colored gel and knew exactly what diffusion I was going to put in and as I get the diffusion she looks at me and says it's not going to work. he she grabbed the diff and pulled it off the light and threw it on the ground, saying that we needed a silk in front of the light. I rolled my eyes and said alright and put a silk in front of it. She then asked why I couldn't make the light into a slash to hit the actors eyes and I pointed out the fact that she had demanded I put a silk in front of the light which would make the light un-cutable. I then got rid of the sil and put in the original diffusion that I was going to put in all along and then barely had enough time to set the light because of all the time she wasted with the silk. Kevin, one of the elctrics, noted that the light "was the way you(me) originally had it."

I guess I am just used to it or something because the next day the key grip mentioned that everyone else seemed pretty taken back by how she was talking to me... enough that the director(I'm told through the grape vine) soly blamed her for how slow we had moved the previous day. And I'm told that the AD had a talk with her saying that she couldn't use "that kind of language" on set and that she can't talk to people "that way" on set. She was a little more pleasent the next couple of days, but still very cold to me.

Then, on the night before the last day, I was told that we would have to shoot on a bus the next night. I knew there was a bus stop scene and a scene where the character gets on the bus, but I wasn't told that we were actually shooting on the bus. We were totally unprepared for it because we needed a whole battery system for using lights on the bus and I knew that there wasn't going to be enough light on the bus AND I knew that it even though there was no money in the budget for this, she would blame me for not figuring out a solution. So the next morning I did some research and called Kino Flo to see if they had any battery systems(they do but they are $300 a day to rent) and then I called Larry to ask his advice. He said that he;d lend me a 4,000 watt battery system athat I can used tungsten lights on... so, once again, Mr. Larry Mole Parker saves the day!

So the key grip and I went to Mole in the morning and we got the batteries, so we were running a little late. We called Justina when we left and let her know that we had the battery and that we were on our way- she seemed fine with it and said it was ok. Then, about 20 minutes later, while we're on the freeway, she calls me and said that she's not sure how worht it the battery was beacue we were now 45 minutes late... which didn;t make sence to me because the cal time was at noon but we had to wait until sundown to shoot anything. I told her that if we didn;t get the battery then we wouldn't be able to shoot on the bus... she, of course, told me I was wrong and informed me that it was a metro city bus and that it has a lit of light on it already. I said ok and that we would get there as soon as we could(rolling my eyes, of course).

So we get there and find out that they watched some of the footage that morning and wanted to re-do one day exterior shot... which was complicated by the fact that we were three people short on the G&E crew. The scene and light was all set up by the time we got there and all I had to do was hook up the generator and power on the light, whcih I did in a hurry to make up for the lost time that I caused... and then we waited for 45 minutes until the actress arrived. I had enought time to pack up the entire grip/electric truck and move it to the next location around the corner before the actress even got there!!!

But we light the bus stop and a bunch of her other classmates came by to help out and they all complemented me on the lighting, saying it looked beautiful(most of them I knew from the classes at Mole). So that lifted my spirits a little. It was good to see that anything negative Justina might say about me wasn't effecting her classmates thoughts of me. In fact, Larry(who I had told that I was having trouble on the shoot) called me in the afternoon and said that there was a feature coming up that he's recomending for and also, some of the AFI classmates that showed up confirmed with me that I could help on their thesis films.

The bus shows up and the key grip whispers to me "there ARE a lot of lights on that bus" noting the rows of flourescent lights in the bus. I smiled and whispered back, "you'll see." Justina meters the light and sees that there is very little light coming off of those bulbs... not enought for a good exposure. So we rig it super fast, I set up the battery, it looks beautiful... and not once does Justina mention that we needed the battery or that I was right or that she was wrong. I asked her if getting the battery was worth it and she said yeah and then went back to concentrating on camera, not thanking me for getting a battery system(that weighs 350 lbs by the way) for FREE from Mole that we NEEDED and would have been completly screwed without!

Then... she asks me how am i planning on getting thi back to Mole. I said that I was planning on putting in on the camera truck and we'd retrun it the next day while returning all the rest of the gear in the same neighborhood. She said that she didn;t have time to do it and asked if I could fit it in someones car. I said that I'd ask, but I am not sure... I asked Edwin but I didn;t want to make him drive it so I asked if it could go in the camera truck and she reluctantly agreed. I then went to the generator truck to get my tool bag and overheard her asking Edwin again, telling him that she hadn;t planned on getting a bettery system and that "Phill said 'Oh, I have this battery' but its not my responsibility..." So I said forget it, we'd put it in the camera truck and then I'd get a ride in the camera truck and roll the 350 lbs battery system into my paartment and then Edwin and I would drive it to Mole in the next couple of days. Everyone was fedup with her and most of then shook their heads... some of them told me they thought it was bull s#@! what she was making me do. I didn;t care that much, I'd actually rather return it myself because I borrowed it, like a responsability thing- the thing that I was mad about was the total lack of appreciation...

But I had a good crew who supported me, and I was worried for a little bit about my reputaion among the AFI 2nd years but that last night made me not worry at all. I actually think that the shoot helped because they all saw that I was cool under preasure and so alot of them want me to work on their films. Also, it really makes me appreciate the cinematographers that consider me their gaffer(Rob Hauer, Nicola Marsh and Chris Hall) bacause I can comunicate well with them.

PhillM tip-of-the-day:
Never, ever, ever tell your gaffer to "just make it look good"!