To Monitor or Not

[Guest Tim Partridge]

It does have it's good points. When I was on Tombstone we were doing a Steadicam shot on Sam Elliot in the rain at night and I kept seeing the stand holding the Lightning Strikes. Everyone was gathered around the monitor and nobody except me noticed the stand in the shot. I spoke up and they did another take. Again the stand was in the shot and I spoke up again. It started to get ugly after 3-4 takes and readjusting the stand, people started looking at me like I was crazy. The last take, I didn't say a word. The director said, "That was perfect, moving on." I pulled Bill Fraker aside and I said, "Bill, the stand was in the shot again." He said "No way, are you sure? Nobody else saw it." I said, "Nobody else saw it the first 5 times. Go look at the playback." He stopped the AD, looked at the monitor and sure enough the stand was in the shot." This time they reconfigured the Lightning Strikes and we got the shot. The problem was that the stand didn't show up until the Lightning Strikes struck. The Steadicam operator couldn't see it because her monitor would just blow out when the lightning hit. Once I saw it, I looked for it and nothing else. Everybody else was just standing around watching and really didn't know what to look for. It was late and people were tired. But, we have a duty to speak up. If I hadn't, they would have had to do it all over again on an already behind schedule. The down side was that everyone looked at me like it was my fault we had to do it over, except on the final take when everyone turned and looked at me and I said I didn't see it and we moved on. The important lesson is that the monitor is a tool and you have to use it to your advantage and not your disadvantage and when you see a mistake, you have to point it out. Just point it out to your department head and let him or her be the messenger.

 

 

No doubt Kur... George Pan Cosmatos was very grateful. ;)

[dean s moriff]

My new monitor just arrived a few minutes ago - a Samsung T240 24" 1920 x 1200 HDMI etc - just in time for the new maps and update

 

Ill let you know how it all works out

 

MAJORMAV

[David Rakoczy]

'Glory'.. what part of CHANGE YOUR SCREEN NAME TO YOUR REAL NAME don't you get? It is a rule of this forum. Don't you see everybody else using their real full name?!

 

This is your fourth (4th) notice. <_<