13 hours in and out of a convenience store. That was the set for the day – helping out with filming of a local independent film. First impressions of the movie business for me were based on asking people what they did, and observing people that gave the air of being too important to be asked what they did.
The director’s job in production is to say, “Action!”. The director can only say this when everyone else has said their phrases, such as, “Speeding,” or, “Frame”. Seems a bit redundant to me. They could do away with the director and save time waiting for the action cue.
The director’s assistant tells everyone what to do, and starts off the chain of phrases which results in the director saying, “Action.” Sometimes the assistant director tells the director that the word, “action!” must be shouted as the cast can’t hear. The assistant director seems to be the boss.
The talent. The people who act in front of the camera are called “talent”. This seems a bit offensive to all of the other highly trained people who also have talents. The talent’s talents are being able to remember dialogue and to face in the direction that the cameraman tells them to. The talent get to repeat themselves over and over again. They disappear to sit about in comfort elsewhere and harmonize their chakras so that people have to go looking for them. This holds up proceedings.
The grips. I’ve always wondered what key-grip meant in film credits. Grips seem to carry things around and push cameramen on trolleys when they are too lazy to walk. Coordination and communication between grips and people who want things done holds up proceedings.
The cameraman points the camera and tells the director what shots are going to be made and how they should be modified. It is the director’s job to agree unconditionally with what the cameraman says. There are assistant cameramen and second assistant cameramen. But they don’t have their own cameras. So that just makes them assistants in my book.
Sound people sit with headphones on so that they can’t hear any instructions that are shouted at them. This helps them hold up progress.
Lighting people run around screening off the natural sunlight so that they can plug in enormous generator powered lights to resemble sunlight. This involves moving many coloured filters around and generally holding up proceedings. They also tape filters over fluorescent lights because they don’t like fluorescent lights. They then put up other lights to resemble fluorescent lights, and then put up black screens to cut out the light from their fake fluorescent lights, because they don’t like the way they make things look.
The production assistants, like me, work for free. Their job is to help wherever they can to actually get things produced. They have no artistic input, so find it hard to hold up proceedings as much as everyone else. Because they are free, they are many. There are few things to do while the artistic crowd are filling up the day with meaningless activity, so much of the time is spent sitting about. This gives time for thinking how things should be run properly, and imagining how the cost of productions must rise exponentially with a larger number of the above time-wasters.