OT - equipment in New Orleans

JD Hartman · November 11, 2009

Just back from a trip to NOLA and observed some filming in the city. One thing that surprised me was the amount of equipment that was left un-attended. I don't mean the odd apple box, or stand sitting on the sidewalk during the shoot, but hundreds of feet of feeder cable, 900A distos, lunchboxes, etc., left out overnight after shooting had wrapped for the day. None of this was energized, didn't terminate at the generator and in some cases the cable was coiled and stacked, sitting there, no PA's, no trucks, no Police presence. I've never seen this in New York City.

Ryan Thomas · November 11, 2009

Wow, if only everything could be a walk away! I guess they're living the dream over there or something...

Jamie Metzger · November 14, 2009

Just worked on a feature in memphis...although I didn't experience quite the same things you did, I can say that things are different in the middle of the country. We got away with a lot of things during shooting, stuff that wouldn't happen on the west coast.

Joe Lotuaco · November 15, 2009

Do you happen to know which production it was? It's not uncommon to leave electric distro out after main unit wraps. Usually the electric rigging crew isn't too far behind to clean it up. We never usually leave grip gear out, except maybe stealthed frames. If it's a walkaway, we'll consolidate everything to one area, tarp it, and tie everything down. But we don't do that unless we get confirmation from production that there will be security. Granted it's usually the rent-a-cop type of security. For whatever reason, the electric crews typically rely on their rigging crews to come in and pick up after them, though they are usually more spread out with their gear, especially on exterior sets. But I've only heard of maybe a couple isolated incidents where stuff got stolen.

However, on a show I'm working on, we had a condor with 3 LRX heads parked outside of a bar, when we returned to set the next day, the arm had crashed to the ground and the heads were damaaged. We're not sure if the hydraulics on the arm went out or if some drunk came stumbling out of the bar and thought it'd be fun to play with the condor. It's maybe the third incident I've heard of where something was damaged after being left out after wrap.

JD Hartman · November 15, 2009

Do you happen to know which production it was? It's not uncommon to leave electric distro out after main unit wraps. Usually the electric rigging crew isn't too far behind to clean it up. We never usually leave grip gear out, except maybe stealthed frames. If it's a walkaway, we'll consolidate everything to one area, tarp it, and tie everything down. But we don't do that unless we get confirmation from production that there will be security. Granted it's usually the rent-a-cop type of security. For whatever reason, the electric crews typically rely on their rigging crews to come in and pick up after them, though they are usually more spread out with their gear, especially on exterior sets. But I've only heard of maybe a couple isolated incidents where stuff got stolen.

However, on a show I'm working on, we had a condor with 3 LRX heads parked outside of a bar, when we returned to set the next day, the arm had crashed to the ground and the heads were damaaged. We're not sure if the hydraulics on the arm went out or if some drunk came stumbling out of the bar and thought it'd be fun to play with the condor. It's maybe the third incident I've heard of where something was damaged after being left out after wrap.

The shoot was "Knucklehead". Considering the number of copper transformer grounds I saw missing in the area, local scrap theives could have made off with about 500' of 5 wire feeder with no questions asked.

Maybe the drunk knew how to pop the safety on the Condor hydraulics to lower the arm with the obvious result.