Tag: film production

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GOING GREEN ON SET

healthcare in the workplace

A decade ago I worked on a show whose Executive Producer ‘demanded’ his rental car be a Prius, and that there was no plastic flatware at catering (he was actually in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car). I’ve worked on sets that gift crew a refillable water bottle to clip to your belt or bag.  Now I’m seeing projects proudly declare themselves GREEN by banning the plastic water bottles altogether, telling crew to bring their own reusable bottle to refill from 5 gallon jugs or coolers.

So what does going green on set really mean?

It means refilling your reusable water bottles from the lip of the same water dispenser a hundred other people are using all day, unconsciously putting their dirty bottle up to the spigot. Spreading germs/bacteria/virus around the crew like wildfire, going from bottle rim to bottle rim – basically mouth to mouth, resulting in nearly everyone coughing and sneezing on set. …For weeks and weeks because the show must go on and folks be working those 13 hour days, without enough rest between time to heal.

Where’s the green? You mean the color of the gooey infected mucus hacked up out of the lungs, or the few bucks saved by production in not buying cases of individual single serving water bottles that touch your lips and your lips alone?

Shows try to set up recycling, difficult with ever changing locations and funny schedules to drop off the goods.  The AD’s often have paper recycle in their trailer.  Call sheets and maps are often sent electronically. But why not try some real changes like: 

  • use clean renewable biodiesel for the work trucks 
  • film more often on stages or nearby locations, saving fuel
  • have above-the-line self drive instead of passenger vans doing 2 round trips for each Actor, Director, Writer, also saving fuel
  • use non toxic or “organic” paints and materials in set construction, as well as cleaners
  • use more locally grown/raised food for catering instead of corporate food trucked across the country
  • use recycled paper in the office
  • have Director and Producer SHARE a trailer at basecamp

This is just off the top of my head but seem like worthy pursuits, yes? NO. Why not? Because it’s too inconvenient, and too expensive, especially compared to the fake feel good virtue signaling (OMG I’ve never used that term before) of “reducing plastic” while breeding sickness.  I dunno, maybe some show out there is making progress in a real way, creating a healthy sustainable work environment. Sick crew can’t give 100%. The crew crud is nothing new, but why make it worse, creating walking pneumonia? Spreading it through families, missing school or work, slamming over the counter drugs, perhaps Dr visits and prescriptions. Setting us up for that chain of events doesn’t sound green.

Do not get me wrong, I am a tree hugger! I live on a farm, compost like mad, work to reuse reuse reuse -from jars to clothing to grey water, and am conscious of not buying/bringing home stuff that makes waste with crazy packaging.  I drive (and repair) an old car, and buy things used when possible. On set I would bring home my empty plastic water bottles to recycle.  What ideas do YOU have for a greener set and greener world?

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TIME CAPSULE Film Can

message from the past

Hubby working out of town means a chance for some deep cleaning and organizing. While slowly sorting through random stacks and stashes in the office, I came across one of my old films. Like actual film, like in a can.

Finding this is jarring for several reasons. Bound in bubble wrap with a hand written note from a dear friend recently deceased, I haven’t seen this projected for decades. And honestly…I don’t quite remember which film this is, long ago passed to Dave in NOLA to view at a movie theater he managed part time, entrusted to him as a bond between friends moving in different directions.

During that time, at then slightly indulgent, brain expanding, childhood-dream fulfilling graduate school, we scholars watched hundreds of films a week.  Some were shockingly short, some were feature length and beyond, way beyond.

To clarify, this was not like flipping through the internet, or watching on a screen the size of a credit card while multitasking.  This was intentionally sitting in the dark, quietly, viewing each work with respect – extracting anything we could of a message, a tone, an idea, or observing what was stirred up inside of self.

By no means were all the films good. But the process and approach was, creating an environment that encouraged one to stretch and play and strive to express something as only YOU could, on film.

Even though this was not as spontaneous or easy as pulling a phone out to use for camera, editor, screen and distribution method, between friends it wasn’t uncommon to pop off 100 feet, experimenting with lenses or lighting, getting lost in a wee world created in that tiny eyepiece.  For fun. And later, screening those few minutes together was in a sense a celebration.

So many of those faces and places are gone –  passed on or moving in a lifetime that no longer exists for me other than in memory and celluloid.  Almost within the same moment that I reach to tear off the plastic wrapping, I set this film can down, content with a small mystery of my own making.

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MARTINI COMMERCIAL

Film Production Idiom

“WINDOW? We don’t need no stinkin’ window.”

Standard Commercials are a different beast, but tend to be easier work for the Script Supervisor than a long project. The “script” may be just storyboards (pictures), a page of narration, voice-overs and/or description. There may be several commercial spots, or framing formats for social media and different sized screens.

Some crew crosses over with movies and TV, but some folks work commercials only.

Generally, Royalty is not the Producer or Director, but the Agency – the Ad Agency, representing the Client, dictating by very expensive consensus. The star of the show is not an Actor, but a product. A famous Actor will get some pampering, but the no-names are basically props to support the thingy.

I finished the year working on a commercial for a cleaning product. We had messy floors, smudgy glass panes and lots of laundry. Crew came from throughout North America.

Near the end of the 3rdday, the young Canadian DP (Director of Photography) asked the American AD (Assistant Director) if the next shot was “the window.”  The AD looked surprised and explained that we’re done filming the window pane and are setting up for the table top. They looked at one another in confusion. I stepped in with a bit of interesting but useless to me information that had apparently been years lying in wait for this very moment. 

To AD, “He means the martini. In Canada they call it the ‘window’ cuz after wrap crew used to collect their wages at the pay window.”

To DP, “In the States the last shot is the ‘martini,’ named for a Director readying his cocktail for when they call wrap.”

Slang reflecting different priorities. Unless after the pay window came the bar stool!

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FUTURE/NO FUTURE – A General Rant

How Technology Effects Script Supervising

Bloody Hell Photo by Jeff Peterson

A hammer can be used to build or to destroy; it’s in the application. Technology is a tool. 

The on set kit bag for the Script Supervisor of yore consisted simply of a stopwatch, pencil, perhaps a colored pencil or pen, and a ruler, for notating on a paper script. The notes were quite important, as was being present on set for corrections, suggestions, and touches to flesh out the story, working shoulder to shoulder with Directors, Actors and Crew. Much information was stored in the Script Supervisor’s head, as memory for matching, or formulas to assess if enough film was in the camera for another take. Because every frame of actual film costs money to print, care was put into every shot.

With Polaroid cameras, continuity pictures became part of the toolset as a visual double-check of wardrobe, hair/ make up, and settings. That shifted to digital still cameras and thus added the digital photo printer to our gear (and added the extra time to print pictures out!).  Eventually that drifted into the digital cameras being replaced by phones, and continuity pictures often just taken off the monitor.

As film systems became more digitized so did the Script Supervising workflow, using special software and apps with electronic scripts and forms on our laptops and tablets. Now the formats can be more homogenized (ScriptE or Skarrat anyone?), perhaps more convenient for some who want those notes before the word “wrap” is completely uttered.  Even though they may not look at them once the notes are loaded into the editing system. And don’t forget the charging cables and back up batteries, and stands and tables for the machines.

This kit bag is getting heavy!

But external pop-off screen grabs are passé, with converters and down loaders the actual camera footage can be streamed to the Script Sup’s electronic device, and direct screen shots taken from there, to be folded into the script notes. So Script Sup doesn’t even have to sit by the monitors. Now we can capture whole takes, free flowing series of takes that go on and on to replay for the Director to decide what he wanted to match to.  And all the dailies can be down loaded too. The expectation, or pressure, to use this ability, along with the blurring of DITs obligations to pull up takes, despite Union rules, make the original Video Assist job passé as well.

Wait what’s happening here?  More and different work with the technology, making this feel like a chase rather than a craft.

By now there are 2 to 3 cameras minimum filming simultaneously, perhaps a GoPro or 2 tucked in somewhere for a specific “cool” shot. Oh no! What if the boom dipped into frame, or a camera panned off set into a light, or that prop didn’t land quite where we wanted it too! Don’t reset, just fix it in Post.

And while Post is at it, make that 70 year old Actor look young for a flashback, even if she is now deceased. And with digital mapping who really needs the Actor anyway, and the animated films are no longer cartoons but strive to become photorealistic, so that someday there will be no need for a “set” and no need for on set crew any longer.  Progress. 

Progress?

Rant complete, thank you.

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YOU MEAN YOU’RE LIKE A SCRIPT GIRL?

NO.

That’s a conversation opener I’ve encountered more than once.

actress playing a script supervisor as candy in The Life Aquatic

But NO.

I can still hear my little ol’ Auntie basically asking the above. Well, at least this shows there’s an awareness of someone on set at the helm of the script! More than likely this comes from movies about movies themselves, like Singin’ In the Rain, 8 1/2 or Get Shorty, to mention a few off the top of my head.

Particularly in older movies, when a film set was shown in the story, the only woman sitting by the Director as part of the filmmaking process was a secretarial gal with a script on her lap (a more professional example than, uh, what was portrayed in the picture above).

My husband jumps in with enthusiasm as to what an important and influential position this is. I then fill in the gaps, that many men also hold this position, and that it entails much much more than following lines in the script.

In general terms I explain how this is about managing several simultaneous streams of information in a highly organized way, sometimes creating systems to do so. Yes we support, and correct, gently, the Actors, with their dialogue and with continuity to help things match. Continuity causes us to guide or coordinate with several departments, as Hair, Make Up, Props, Set Dressing and Wardrobe, to keep everyone on the same timeline page and matching looks. We work to keep the Directors on point, inform them as to the coverage or shots needed to tie the story together so they can choose how to proceed, and we keep track of their preferences while we are shooting.

All this while also keeping track every time each camera rolls, notating information for each take on each camera, watching for technical errors, and essentially transcribing a map for Editorial, in a way being on-set eyes for the Editor with the goal to get all the pieces necessary to put the project together appropriately, elegantly, if possible.

We keep tabs on what’s been filmed and what’s yet owed for each scene in the script, applying mathematical calculations that translate into scheduling our production days for the AD Department. These numbers also go to the Producers to help them gauge the budgeting for those days.

Our shoulders also bear the responsibility to our fellow crew and cast members in legally documenting our production time on the clock, to ensure everyone gets the appropriate pay, meal penalties and overtime contractually agreed upon by the Union.

On top of the pure logistics, a bit of psychology is involved for there are a lot of egos involved. One must adapt and learn how to earn trust so that people will allow you to help them.

…My Auntie stares at me blankly.

“It’s like being a Junior Director to help get everything right.” Bah.

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ON BECOMING A SCRIPT SUPERVISOR

I Like to Watch and Imagine…Dont You?

Why does one become a Script Supervisor? The short answer, for some: “It’s just a job, Kid. “ The long answer, for me: As an almost-only child in the 70’s, books, TV and an active imagination were my daily companions.  There was an instinctive pull to soak up stories, and in turn create my own through play, drawing, and eventually words. And eventually eventually photography, film and video.

With just a handful of channels to choose from, there was always a desire for more! Sleepovers at my friend’s next door were great for the extra bonus that the Gran watched Television all night long. And from my sleeping bag on the floor of the living room so could I!

Sneakily trying this at home did not go over so well, the sirens from a rerun of Emergency! waking my dad, stumbling into the TV room at 2 am to find wide-eyed little me.

Before VCR’s we had to hope and wait for a movie to play on TV, and were happy to sit through commercials for it. The Wizard of Oz only came around once a year. As I got older it seemed parts of the movie were missing, later realizing the missing scenes and storylines were ones I had made up in my head! But they were so authentic to me.

Hmm what the heck kind of future could this child have? Despite my well meaning parents’ push toward a “safe” trade or degree, Universe took the scenic route to plop me on a commercial film set (better late than never), and eventually at a monitor to observe, take after take, what is, what should be, and with some friendly Script Supervisor suggestions for the Director, what can be the best to bring words on paper to life.

Now as an adult in my downtime I prefer to be in nature, or with friends – away from electronics! Yet still driven and inspired to story – will the sunfowers bloom? Will there be frogs in the pond this year? How can I write a personal struggle into a screenplay best?

Oh and where does that red brick road lead?