Anatomy of a 100,000 $ short student film – II
When we last parted company our intrepid protagonist namely moi was deep in the kingdom of Morpheus after a honest day’s work.
The story continues on Day 2……….
I’m normally a pretty sound sleeper and was pretty much dead to the world until Raoul banged on the door and woke both me and Eric up. We got freaked coz we were late and the fuck up happened coz we had forgotten to set our watches to the daylight changing switchover. I still don’t think I get the hang of the concept but wtf, I’m a fobbie anyways. Eric should have known better but he blamed it on me saying I should have reminded him. Whatever dude.
After getting ready in record time we go outside to the parking lot where most of the crew had already assembled. Raoul gave us a huge grin and apologized for scaring the shit outta us but it was pretty clear that he enjoyed it. Loaded up on coffee and got into C’s car with Eric and Raoul.
I was still pretty groggy and the coffee was decaf as well. What genius serves decaf coffee to a crew at 5.30am on a freezing winter morning. Could have taken a nap during the ride coz it was a hour long but it’s bad form to start snoring while the director is busy thinking bout the day’s shots. Listened to Paul Oakenfold’s remix of “Last of the Mohicans” to wake me up. That song can stir the dead into action. Always sets my pulse pounding.
The drive was way cool and peaceful and halfway up the song had made me a bit too hyper and to get back to my normal laid back self I listened to Ayub Ogada’s “Kothbiro”. Amazing the power music has to transport us back into time and space. Whenever I hear it I’m 4 years old again and can feel the sun on my face and see the elephant grass sway in the wind while mother’s sing lullabies to their children. Sigh…..Africa….I shall return……one day.
Suitably serene and raring to go we reach base camp which is a new location half a mile up the road from the previous day’s one. G&E breathe a collective sigh of relief after getting a look at it. Compared to the day before it was gonna be a walk in the park to haul stuff up. No rocks, sweet incline and most importantly the set was only bout a 200 metres away from the truck. Day 1 had been nearly a km over mush. Hallejulah. We got so excited that we pretty much stripped the entire truck and hauled everything up the hill. We of course left the Western Dolly alone. I’ve never seen anyone ever using it and it’s such a fucking beast.
So we get up everything and chill while C and the DP decide which angle would be best suited.
Meanwhile a fucking gust of wind blows the flags and silks which were reclined against the tree like it was hurricane. A flag barely missed the camera body by 6 inches before getting wedged in the bushes halfway down a very scary incline on the other side. It was almost a sheer drop bout half a click down. One Opal frame got torn into shreds which meant bout 30 bucks in expendables as a write off.
We all looked sheepishly at each other knowing how close we had come to wrecking the camera. Raoul looked longingly at the incline and proclaimed that if he had his skateboard with the off road wheels he would love to ride down. Paul and I didn’t believe a word of it. I wouldn’t sit in a Hummer going down there let alone dream of anyone skateboarding down.
Raoul was a pretty fun guy. Quite older to me at 32 who was going to USC in the fall for his undergrad as a Guitar Studies Major. He likes gripping coz he finds it fun but doesn’t really want to make it a career. Paul was in his 40’s I think and on a old hand at this and had been gripping for bout 10 years. I think I forgot to mention Kallis who was the 4th member of our merry band.
Brandon had only been available for Saturday so Kallis switched from grip to 2nd AC on Sunday.
I was pretty much the least experienced compared to all 3 of them. Whenever I’m faced in such a situation I keep my mouth shut and ears and eyes open. Best advice I ever heard.
Damon was a union gaffer so was the DP and they normally work as a team from what he told me. Very very cool guy with no issues at all bout showing someone like me the ropes and I mean that literally. I need to practice tying superknots and trucker’s hitches a lot more as well.
Ian was the 1st AC while Chris was the loader. Nice enough guys but I didn’t get to hand that much with them.
Meanwhile while all this male bonding was taking place a minor crisis had been developing. C had chosen a spot which was absolutely bereft of snow coz it was clearly the best angle apart from that minor problem. The PD on this shoot was an absolutely incredibly talented guy who had won the very prestigious Coke award. I had watched his commercial online and I can easily confirm that this guy is a special talent. You will watch his commercial nationwide this summer in halls all across North America. Really nice guy too.
It’s really funny that I’ve noticed that the truly talented filmmakers who are confident in their own abilities are gen very easygoing, humble and modest. It’s the insecure types who feel obligated to act like Idi Amin-esque tin pot dictators.
So anyways major crisis coz the snow machine was fucked up and we would have to physically bring snow to the set to dress it up while C went off shooting some other shots with the camera crew. Hence it came to be that G&E were commandeered by the Art dept to help in the transport of snow.
Now I grew up reading Archie comics and never understood whey Jughead and Archie used to hate shoveling snow. It’s fun right ? WRONG. 10 minutes into breaking snow banks and filling sleds with snow to be dragged across to the set our backs were breaking. It was my first time ever at shoveling snow and if I never do it again that will be just fine for me. I eventually gave up using the shovel and started to pick up boulder size pieces of frozen ice by my hands and dunking em on the sled.
The 10 year old girl who was the main lead in the film was really excited and pitched in by carrying snow on a little baby sled. Very sweet and cute of her and we took care to not put too much snow on her sled. So after a good 45 mins of backbreaking work where we pretty much demolished half the snowbank the set was deemed satisfactory just as C was arriving back. She was kinda stressed coz we were behind schedule and there were a lot of shots planned for the day.
We rigged the slider on apple boxes so that the camera could track bout 4 feet across in the master. I peeked a look at the monitor and I gotta say it was a very very cool shot with great perspective. Master done we puch in for the CU and we bring in a 12×12 silk to diffuse the light which was quite harsh at that time.
Now I have said earlier that I had no clue whatsoever bout the film before I came on set and I was dying of curiosity to ask somebody what the budget of the film was but it’s really really bad form to ask that coz it may look like you are hankering for your pound of flesh. Oh I think I haven’t mentioned yet that 75% of the crew and 100% of the cast were working for free. No big surprise coz that’s generally the rule in most student films as it’s a great way to make contacts and try some tricks.
I was dying to ask the budget of the film and my curiosity was getting bigger by the minute from day 1 coz of some very un-student film like characteristics. They were
1) Apart from the Moviecam which was A camera, we also had a B camera for high speed shots. Almost unheard off to have 2 35mm cameras for a student film.
2) Instead of using short ends and sticking to one stock, we were instead using new 1000 ft rolls with a combination of both Fuji and Kodak.
3) The VFX guy Tony was on set both days and we asked him what kinda effects were they gonna be in the film and I was pretty much shocked at what he heard. Could it be….I wondered but dismissed the idea as unlikely.
4) Craft service was pretty damn good. For someone who has nightmares of food cooked at Natraj canteen, the food was manna from heaven.
Still I kept my peace and worked diligently alongside my brothers in arms. It was really windy and the frames started to shake a bit so we did the human sandbag thing by standing on the combo stands holding the frames up. Used some new equipment like mirror boards which I had never even seen before. Realized how limited the equipment is to normal low budget filmmakers I worked with in NY was due to budgetary issues.
The NY indie scene is a great learning ground but if anyone wants to play with the big boys on a more regular basis, LA is the place to be coz there is so much more shooting happening here around the year. Right now business is booming coz of the mad rush after the writer’s strike and I’m sorta nibbling at the edges as well in non-union / student / low budget world. Need to get a fucking car though asap.
So we shoot is going along ok despite us having fallen almost 2 hours behind schedule. The 1st AD Tristian insists to C that we break for lunch and she agrees. Lunch was even better than the previous day as we had Chinese. I love chinese food the orange chicken was delicious though I didn’t care much for the noodles and rice. Didn’t feel the need to load up on carbs as I had adjusted to the high altitude. Long leisurely lunch with amusing conversations.
After lunch the shit sorta hit the fan. Somehow some very imp props needed for a CG shot had gotten missing and C got really stressed which was really unfortunate coz we got distracted while raising the silk and took our eye of the ball. Result was that one of the combo stands got bent on it’s top riser and it was pretty much a write off. Insurance would have to pay for that one. Bad idea to have stress on a set.
Moving right along we knocked off some shots pretty quickly but we were also losing light. It was pretty clear that due to the delays in dressing the sets and the search for the props we wouldn’t be able to finish the shot list and C would def have to triage. This is where exp is invaluable coz filmmaking is basically controlled chaos and a director needs to know what improvise on the spot as things almost never run according to plan. Murphy’s Law was invented for the sole purpose to describe filmmaking.
Time for some high angle shots and like before a high hat was rigged on a 12 step ladder and the camera mounted on it. I had never seen that before and here’s the reason why. In India when you rent a camera it comes with a team of attendants who build the camera, load it, change lenses and guard it with their lives. Jobs that AC’s normally do around the world. Only in India is film equipment not fully insured which means that as a safety precaution the rental house sends the attendants along to protect it.
In my opinion this is the biggest drawback in the development of innovative and risk taking cinematography in the country. AC’s and DP’s don’t get to play around too much with the cameras or any equipment. The attendants pretty much guarantee that the camera will not be placed in any dangerous or risky situation which means that we can’t rig 435s and 535s on cars,boats and helicopters. It also means we can’t put nets behind the lenses or do a lot of other stuff.
Compare that to the rest of the world where after the AC’s have done a camera checkout they are on their own and free from any restrictions. If any equipment does get fucked up the insurance takes care of it. This means that no production can rent out any sort of equipment without adequate insurance in most cases. There is a much higher premium on the safety of the cast and crew rather than that of equipment. Spike Jonze once broke 3 Super16 cameras for a Beastie Boys video and then won multiple awards for it. No pain no gain baby.
Apart from the above what’s a bigger drawback is that the AC’s don’t know the cameras inside out which is a prime requisite if you wanna master the craft. One has to know the absolute breaking point of any equipment to utilize it to it’s best. I didn’t say that but Harris Savides did in American Cinematographer. He bitch slapped the Thompson Viper before he shot Zodiac at the behest of David Fincher who is a hardcore HD convert.
We keep on shooting and suddenly the sun starts going down behind the mountain and it’s pretty obvious that the shots aren’t gonna match coz the color temps are all diff. Then the DP said the words which I had been suspecting all along unlikely as it seemed.
“Let’s just shoot this and we’ll match it up in the DI”
DI !!!! Are you fucking kidding me ?? A fucking DI on a student short !!!! Holy mother of god !!!
What is the fucking budget on this show ?????
Of course these were the words that were racing in my head but nary on my mouth. I was shocked coz that meant the film would easily cross the 50k budget but I was also puzzled now over the choice of Anarmophic. In any case ours is to do and die and not to question why.
Now the G&E team had a few tricks up our sleeves which we were eager to try out. Since morning we had been plotting that when we wrapped the equipment, instead of carrying it down we would load the non-fragile stuff on the sleds and slide it down the slope. Yes sir it was gonna be our revenge on the snow. So while the shooting progressed we quietly and quickly wrapped equipment during a particularly gorgeous magic hour and gleefully proceeded to push it down the hill on the sleds. Very very satisfying and fun.
Soon it was too dark to shoot and we wrapped the day’s shoot. There was another day of shoot planned for the next day ie Monday but the majority of the crew was going back including me, Eric and Raoul coz we had school/work. In any case it was B-roll and inserts and the first team wasn’t gonna be there either. Took some time to pack up the truck coz some of the stuff was going back to the rental house.
We leave in the cars and head for the abandoned town where a surprise belated birthday cake is planned for the little girl. Though none of us want to really stick around we really don’t have the heart to ruin a kid’s happiness. Cake gets cut and eaten and we all vamoose in our cars.
Eric and me ride with C where I shall finally get some answers bout the film, the budget and most importantly the DI / Anarmophic mystery…….
————–To be continued————————————-
I realize it’s a pretty cheap trick to leave the denouement poised on such a cliffhanger but I feel inspired to emulate one of my all time fav moments in movie history. A moment which basically changed cinema as we know it.
Some years ago a young, brilliantly talented but obscure filmmaker was in the office of Bob Shaye of the recently defunct New Line Cinema pitching for a 2 part film which had been put in turn around by Miramax. No studio in Hollywood wanted to touch it coz they thought it couldn’t be done and wouldn’t be profitable. This filmmaker then proceeded to pitch the hell out the project and at the end Bob Shaye just asked one question which made everything possible.
He asked “Why make two when you can make three ? ”
As you have probably guessed the filmmaker was Peter Jackson and the project was LOTR. :-)
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
completely agreed sir….saw recently a brilliant short film “from somewhere to nowhere” on Babelgum.com If u really think it is great cinema then go ahead & vote for it.
Wow I remember that article man and it was included in the 4 disc special editions. I remeber watching Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners when I was in 7th grade in Ahmedabad. It was a pirated copy being shown on cable but I loved it and watched it again the next day as my local cable guy aired it again.
LOTR and Peter Jackson would come to be my all-time favs.
You know a similar incident happened with Michael Davis and his film Shoot em up starring Clive Owen. He went in and pitched the whole movie with animated storyboards. He got the greenlight alongwith Clive Owen and Monica Belluci. Too bad the film bombed. I loved it though.
As far as your story gies Mithun, that’s an impressive budget on the film you’re working in. All we got here is basic handycams and digital camera’s. Lol. I’m truly inspired now.
Cheers
@Neha
Thanks for the tip.
@Saad
Bahut saalon ke jadojehat ke baad yeh khilone haath aaye hain aur hum iska pura lutf uthayenge. :d
Mithun,
what are them ’silks’ u keep referring to…
post deux has more of em jargons…
pls elaborate
Big ass cloths to diffuse and bounce light. Indispensable when using natural lighting.
As an interesting tidbit bounce lighting was inventing by the incomparable Subrata Mitra who was Ray’s DP for a long time.
’silks’ Subrata mitra eh? for sure?
dont they use Styrofoam any more?
You can only bounce light with em, not diffuse it. Plus it won’t really work in a wide master. Gen used to bring out eyelight in a CU.