First time

Jonathan Spear · March 7, 2005

Hey,

Just wondering if anyone cares to share any stories, accidents, problems etc they encountered on their 1st day of shooting their first project. Got mine coming up and I want to be ready for annything..

Cheers,

JonS

Jeremy · March 7, 2005

My first ever project was a short I wrote in high school. I dressed my highschool girlfriend's parents' basement out as a set. I cast all my friends and all my friend's parents to be in it and I shot it with my mom's old hi-8 camera and the on-camera mic. I didn't have access to any kind of editing equipment at the time (except for two borrowed VCRs), so I shot the whole thing chronologically and edited in camera.

To mask the in-camera cutting, I would have a character say the first 4 words of a nine word sentence, then I'd cut, I'd reposition the camera angle, and then I'd have them do the next five words. I wouldn't go back and watch anything until we were finished, because I didn't want to accidentally record over anything - even if it was just a half second. So, once it was all done, I remember how excited I was to see that the changing angle in the middle of a line thing worked.

We didn't really run into any problems on that shoot, of if we did, they were just overlooked and ignored... I did credits afterwards by progamming QBASIC to run credits and taping the computer screen. Good times!

Sure, I've run into all kinds of problems since. I've made something like 40 shorts now, and am currently working on my first feature, and in that time we've encountered a location pulling out at the last minute, a great location but horrible background sound, a short that let the NAGRA playing audio through the headphones but not actually record it onto the tape, rain when we needed sun, no extras showing up when they should have, actors getting sick, props disappearing, lenses breaking, filters missing, batteries dying, crazy, drunk people wandering onto your set - you name it.

Basically, you just have to be prepared for anything, and if you're directing this first project, you have to be able to deal with whatever problems arise and find a solution to as best and as fast as possible. Hopefully, you won't have any problems, but if you do, having to deal with them will just give you that much more experience and you can probably deal with even bigger problems when you encounter them down the road for all your future projects.

Best of luck!

Nguyen D. Nguyen · March 8, 2005

Hey,
Just wondering if anyone cares to share any stories, accidents, problems etc they encountered on their 1st day of shooting their first project. Got mine coming up and I want to be ready for annything..

Cheers,

JonS

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Expect mistakes and lots of them. Though that doesn't imply that mistakes are unwelcomed.

March 9, 2005

Earn you're cast and crew's respect. Make it clear that you won't take any bullcrap.

On the project I'm currently doing I made the mistake of not acting a bit tougher. I'm already getting crap from the producer, although I'm ok with everyone else. Just depends how confident a person you are.

(The producer can be a real ass at times, he seems to lack a lot of respect for the cast and crew. He acts too cold infront of everyone, the whole cast and crew are more like a group of friends now, apart from him. It's asthough he couldn't give a damn about anyone but himself. Although if it's the difference between me shooting a TV series and not, I'll put up with a bit of crap)

Edited March 9, 2005 by Daniel J. Ashley-Smith