The Mongerer

2003-08-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

Back To Back Basics

A somewhat eventful day. It started off well enough, the slight dullness brought on by the bottle of wine last night was quickly taken care of by a dose of some of the vilest on-set coffee I've ever tasted. It was also pouring with rain and freezing cold. The gaffer, driving in front of me missed a turnoff because the signs were placed on the corner we were supposed to take, not a couple of meters before so you would hve time to act. Then I did the same a short while later.

The house we were in today is one of those expensive Constantia houses owned by highly paid doctors of some kind. Nice house.

All was going well until about mid-morning, when I reached to adjust an aerial, and felt a really painful spasm going through my back. I was immobilised for a moment, and then it gradually got better over the course of the day. The agency were happy and contented for most of the day, until one of them detected some kind of fish smell. This caused the rest of them to smell it too. (I couldn't detect it at all, and nor could a number of people...) Needless to say, they worked themselves into such a frenzy over the smell, that eventually they were staggering about, hands over noses, pleading for an end to the day. Most of the rest of us smelled nothing.

Just to round the day off, I managed to re-enact my spasm of the morning, and promptly reported to the medic for an anti-inflammatory injection. I am now off work, (with no pay) and am instructed to rest. To a certain degree I'm happy, because listening to those people wind themselves up is more than should be expected of any employee.

2003-08-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

The Director's Secret

Well, well... the whinge-twins seem to have been in a much better mood today. Perhaps the lack of great South African wine the night before has worked its magic. Then on the other hand, the second day of a shoot is alway a lot easier on everyone's nerves. Our director is largely calm and relaxed. He is experienced and he soothes those around him in a way only an old hand can do. Younger directors tend to panic and look wide-eyed and shocked when the first wave of agency criticism hits them. He stood up to the initial barrage well, and now the agency seem to know where they stand.

The crew is having a good time because the director jokes with them and works as part of the team, not a standalone untouchable as so many seem to try to do. (They fall down when they try and score some weed off the grip assistant... he knows the director's secret and soon the power will shift.) Power is what half of this is about. A crew is very sharp when it comes to exploiting a director's weakness. The odd favour and the director owes the crew.

Often a crew will go to the ends of the earth for a director or director of photography if they're treated right. If the director shows signs of weakness, the crew will work marginally slower, relaxing more and thereby increasing the tension the director is feeling. This sometimes leads to hysterical outbursts. These are the stories film crew love to relate to each other on the next shoot. (Together with those of extreme conditions and tales of derring-do.) Its a cruel environment in which to work if you don't know how to deal with some very intimidating characters. Asking a hulking grip to move the dolly track 10 inches to the right can seem like a little too much to ask if you're not confident that he'll do as you ask... especially if he doesn't talk much and has a huge tattoo across his chest.

Apparently George Lucas decided he had had enough of directing after the first episode of Star Wars (epsiode 4). The crew whittled and ragged his space opera into a farce enacted between dog-men and a variety of ridiculously named people from "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." whatever that meant... Sure, they missed much of the story and probably have no idea of how to manipulate the general public into watching a film, but they are very, very good at making a director feel as small as an ewok.

2003-08-16T11:18:00.000-07:00

Grinding, Grinding...

Started a new shoot today for nappies. We're shooting in a nice double story house, with one of those balconies that encircles the house. The baby undresses down to its nappy and prances about happily. Pretty boring stuff ordinarily, if it weren't for the whinge twins. They're the marketing guy and some agency guy.

Picture this. They're german, speaking bad english. They are about 50 or so, and they whinge and moan about just about everything thats going on. One moment the room is too hot, then its too cold, then the PA is taking too long to get the chocolate, the mineral water is too fizzy, the lunch was too much (like they couldn't just have eaten less...), the restaurant they're going to tonight is too small. You get the idea. At first it's fun trying to guess what the next complaint is going to be about, and then it gets quite sad when you realise that these two grown-up men have to complain about something to find some meaning in their lives.

Well, survival is what Video Assist is all about and now I'm going to sleep for 10 hours and drink a fine cup of freshly ground coffee when I wake up.

2003-08-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Peter And The Wolf

There is something about chilli that yanks me hard everytime I have a sandwich. I like sandwiches and I like chilli. Almost any kind of chilli application will do, as long as its there, on the ham or cheese, doing its thing. My mouth waters at the thought of chilli, and the odd thing is, for once I really don't want to know the physiology of it. Theres too much passion and too much fun in chilli to ruin it by knowing too much about it.

I attended a Schubert concert this evening. A symphony and a Mass. Beautiful works, beautifully sung. It occurred to me that I grew up listening to "Peter and the Wolf" and assorted similar works. Somebody needs to put on "Peter and the Wolf", for kids, in Xhosa and for free. I still love to hear it, and I can only imagine how completely absorbed a crowd of 6 year olds would be when a 5 metre wolf stalks its way through the forest and onto the stage to the sound of Prokofiev...

2003-08-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

Remarkable Happenings In Studio World

Yeah, so you might have guessed that the last post was actually about yesterday.

Today we did our motion control shot, two more cut-ins and went home. Yup, we got home early, but only after our Assistant Director called wrap, and then had to "unwrap" us to do a shot he had forgotten about.

I'm going to make an effort later to get my 4 old Compaq Proliant 2000 servers to accept Red Hat 8.0. All sorts of diffulties with SCSI CDROM drives and RAID controllers. Anyone with help out there, please e-mail me...

Our South African motion control assistant was offered the same job on Alien Vs Predator, which apparently begins shooting in Prague sometime this year. That should be fascinating!

Well, its raining today, and everything's is gradually grinding down to its friday afternoon slowness.

2003-08-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

One Move Wonder

Today I spent in a studio, doing very little. We had a motion control rig (Genuflex) running a single move. The camera pulls out from the windscreen of a car, over the back seats and boot, and then jibs down to the floor. We shot the plate on a mountain pass (Bains Kloof) over the previous two days, using a Polaris six wheel tracking vehicle and a Libra mount.

We watch from the perspective of a rear seat passenger, so we see the driver and co-driver and the windscreen.The car is being chased at high speed around the bends. We see the police cars in the rear view mirror. It careens around a corner and spins out of control trying to avoid an oncoming truck. It settles on the edge of a cliff. It lurches forward once, then falls down the cliff. As the car falls down the cliff, the camera pulls back to reveal the co-driver sitting in his chair, watching the wide screen television, on which the action continues. The lurching forward part was done with a Super Techno Crane. We're in the process of shooting the actual car and passengers in the studio.

Everything has been going very smoothly, except for losing most of the first day of shooting to inclement weather. We caught up on the second day. It was very beautiful out in Bains Kloof. Mostly freezing, but very clear and crisp. The studio stuff has been a lot of fun. The crew is great and we're having a good time. The Korean clients are very relaxed and let us get on with our jobs with little interference. Tomorrow is the last day, where we shoot the second half of the camera moving away from the car, revealing the co-driver in his seat.

Our motion control operator is the guy who operated on The Matrix, Mission Impossible and many other major movies. He's relaxed and easy going. We chatted for a few hours today, discussing the work situation in LA and general world affairs.

2003-07-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

First Post!

Yay! I got first post. Okay, so I also got only post. Small pleasures.

I would just like to welcome you to my weblog. It's one of two I participate in. The other is http://www.extrange.com. I wanted something a little more personal, so here it is.

I work as a video assist operator in the film industry here in Cape Town, South Africa. If you don't know what that is, I'll post an explanation sometime. I am also part of a small team of people working for OSS Africa. Its a small IT company offering general IT support and specialising in Linux based server solutions. We're still a baby in swaddling as far as companies go, but this toddler has serious intent.

I have always been fascinated by computers, but only owned one for the first time at the age of 23 or something like that. I still use the very same computer, a P166 MMX with 96 Megs of Ram. Yup, its 2003 and thats the machine I use. Waaahh? Well, its in tip-top shape. I surf the web, check my e-mail and develop on it. I run a dual boot Win98/Debian system. Why would I need anything more powerful? Well, I guess thats a stupid question. There are any number of things I could be doing with a more powerful machine, and hopefully soon I'll have this machine. But until then, I haven't suffered at all. I don't play games or do any serious graphics intensive work, so this is just fine for now. (If anyone wants to donate a machine with the words "Wildcat", "Oxygen", "Dual Xeon" or "4 Gigs" in the description, don't hesitate to contact me...)

Otherwise, I work on many a film shoot. It's sometimes fascinating, sometimes chronically boring. We have a summer season of about 7 months, give or take a month either way. We shoot commercials for just about every company under the sun. I have personally worked on shoots ranging from Mercedes, BMW, LG, Kellogs, Labatt, Orange all the way down to our local supermarket brands. I work exclusively on shoots involving actual (celluloid) film. (16mm and 35mm) I must say that I've had more fun and been to more interesting places and met more interesting people than I'd ever imagined. I've traveled all over southern Africa in dodgy aeroplanes from the second world war, been flushed down the rapids of the Blyde River canyon, drawn and quartered under the Namibian sun and been driven to near insanity in the studio sets of Cape Town. Its been a great deal of fun. Its also been difficult financially and personally. The work is dependant on all sorts of global machninations and trends. Luckily Cape Town is very attractive financially and we can stay in vogue for a few more years... until the world tires of our beaches and mountains...

The people are really what makes this industry. They're a strange and varied bunch. From poor, unskilled workers to wealthy, highly trained business people, it encompasses the whole spectrum, and not always in way you'd expect. If theres one thing that becomes evident in the film industry, its the fact that a hard working, determined individual can be anything he or she wants to be. There are absolutely no sure fire degrees or qualifications that'll gaurantee you a position. There is a lot of the traditional apprentice system still in existance. Its the only industry I know where you address your seniors with the word "sir" and you damn well show some respect, no matter who you are.

So, I guess thats a little about me. I like nothing better than to hear about you. E-mail me... themongerer@shoot.co.za

2003-07-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hello World!

Yeah, so this is where I live now. I couldn't ask for more. Just settling into my shell. Testing, one, two, three... is this thing on?