I´m be working on the VFXs of a movie called Speed of Thought starring Nick Stahl, Mía Maestro and Wallace Shawn. I missed the later unfortunately, I´d had loved to see Mr. Shawn on scene, he´s already done all his scenes and went home.
I have to admit that it was quite boring most of the time, this is the part of the filming that involves all the green background stuff for the CG stuff, so the work flow is basically, set up the lights and camera, call the actors and film their part; rinse and repeat for twelve hours…
It was specially boring because I had very little to do; I had to take some measurements and place a few tracking markers here and there, BOOOOORING; I can´t wait to get started with the CG stuff to have some fun, it felt very odd not to spend all day in front of a computer.
When I was in the business my average day on the set was over 12 hours, with more than a few 20-hour days. Also, as a day player, I had my share of 2 and 3-hour turnarounds. That’s one part of the business I don’t miss.
Well, that “average day” was actually about 13 hours, but included traveling time, if you want the truth. So probably closer to 11 hours was spent on the set, on average. :smack:
Yep, thank goodness the catering was quite good; but I´ll pack some analgesics next time.
The best time was when one of the crew came over and peeked over my shoulder what I had on the laptop computer, a rendering of how one of the CG sceneries would be like, and he said “Now it (the movie) begins to look good” Gee, I could live for a week with nothing but a compliment like that.
Well, I have worked on a couple of independents and specs where craft service consisted of a 7-year old with a pitcher of lemonade and a bag of peanuts. Ale are you on location, or is Uruguay your home base?
The studio is a few kilometers from my house, in downtown Montevideo. There is a trend for US movie producers to come over here for filming, the quality is very good and the prices quite competitive.
Of the top of my head I can name Miami Vice, but there has been a few other smaller projects and many, many commercials done here. From my side of things, the animation studio I work at has already been approached by the producers of another US movie to make the computer graphics stuff (although in this case it´s much more interesting than simply making scceneries and the like)
What I´ve heard through the grapevine about this particular project I´m working on now is that, for the price of a low budget movie filmed on the US the producers can finance a medium budget quality flick filming here.
Yeah, in Hollywood they refer to that phenomenon as “runaway production,” and many industry people are bitter about it, but they’ll just have to get used to the idea. Free market and all that. You just have to adapt.
Really, I’d have thought the disparity would be greater. To me this suggests that production may eventually spread somewhere even more affordable.
How about we get together and open a studio in Bolivia?
[
QUOTE=Enter the Flagon]When I was in the business my average day on the set was over 12 hours, with more than a few 20-hour days. Also, as a day player, I had my share of 2 and 3-hour turnarounds. That’s one part of the business I don’t miss.
I hope it’s kinder to you.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, I got to do that for two months working on a set. Of course that’s still light compared to my worst hours-per-day for a job. For two months I got to do:
Wake up (8:30am)
Leave home (9am)
Go to school (arrive 10am)
Get out of school (1pm)
Lunch (1 to 1:45pm)
Start work (1:45pm)
Leave work (11:45pm)
Get home (12:45am)
Woohoo!
Of course I had homework to do as well…
And got to had to work weekends…
When I was an extra on The Right Stuff the catering was incredible. Filet mignon for lunch for everyone! Immoral Minority Picture Show, starring William Sanderson, and I think never released, had a catering truck. Much lower budget, but you can still get good food from a ‘roach coach’.
All of the films I’ve crewed on have been no-budget. Still, they had actual food – not a seven-year-old with a pitch and a bag of peanuts! My best fiend’s first feature was catered by a place in New Orleans called The Psyche Deli. The first day of shooting they came out with a very nice selection featuring curries. Unfortunately my friend is highly ‘allergic’ to curry. Makes him spew immediately. He ended up eating a ham sandwich.
I don’t know how much waiting around there is on large pictures vs. indie productions. We extras certainly did a lot of sitting on The Right Stuff. On one student film I gripped I was quite busy. Only we always seemed to be waiting on either camera or sound. On the most recent project, which was never finished because the director flaked, a bunch of us were waiting while the director and another guy spent five hours applying makeup to an actress. And there were a couple of occasions where people had to sit while we set up some shots. I have the impression that there are more people sitting and waiting on a large picture simply because there are more people involved and their roles are clearly defined. On an indie production everybody does everything; so while some people do have to sit while things are being set up, a larger percentage of people are doing the setting up.
On the no-budget projects 12-hour days were the norm, with 14 to 16 hours being common. On my friend’s second feature-length film we had a 20-hour day, and on the aborted project we had one 24-hour day.
Did some extra work on films and television series…talk about boring…had to be there at the crack of dawn, wait for costumes and makeup, then wait for the director to call you, then get about 2 minutes of direction, a couple of run throughs, then wait for the lead actors to re-learn lines that had been re-written, wait for them to walk through the script, then a quick rehersal, then - end of 12 hour day and back tomorrow for more of the same. In a film, you were lucky to be on camera a minute or two…for television, it was all leading up to the Friday taping(s) of the show (sitcoms) before a live audience.
All of that for about $50-$70 a day, plus some VERY good food.
The only way you actually made money doing it was because you were spending every waking minute on the set and didn’t have time to spend a nickel during the shoot.
And when it is all over, you can shout for joy to your friends, “look, that is my elbow next to Kelsey Grammer!”
I also worked for a film studio and would look over the dailies and expense reports - most were quite boring and tedious…14 hours work but just 3 minutes film in the can due to rain, wind, lighting, you name it. How some films ever got completed was a miracle, but I no longer question why other films go way over budget.
