What's the dumbest thing you ever did on a shoot?!

I think the problem is not so much that science-fiction is difficult (from a story point of view; as with any genre science-fiction projects stand or fall based upon the story) as that there is a staggering number of producers who truly believe that science-fiction is a ****-genre, and therefore any old shitty story or script, will do just fine.

On an Amblin/NBC show, years back, I was speaking with one of the writer-producers about one of the scripts, and he stopped me with "Don't worry, Karl, it's just a science-fiction show. The audience won't know the difference."

That attitude is depressingly common.



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Oh, please, you mean to tell me that our delicate sensibilities can't cope with the odd agricultural term, around here? To whom it may concern, here's a news flash: people know very well what 'sh*t' is, even with the cutesy little asterisk. You're not fooling anybody.
 
Well, another problem is incompetent production design -- silly-looking sets, costuming, etc. -- designed with the same attitude -- "it's sci fi."

The movie in question had very believable sets, by the way, which is why I don't rank it so poorly as the "Thomas Lee" appellation indicates I should.
 
Marek (our Production Designer) is very good...and a good guy, too, even if he appears sometimes to run on macchiatos...

Don't forget that Production Designers are highly constrained by budget - convincing high-tech sets are not small-budget-friendly - and that Production Designers ultimately serve the Producers' vision. And low-end science-fiction Producers are not a crowd with particularly impressive average vision.

We had fascinating conversations regarding the spaceship sets, by the way. Originally the entire ship was going to be in free-fall...until we worked out how much all the wire work and Vomit Comet hours would cost. Designing the functional iris valves landed on my desk...the working 1/2-inch scale five-leaf and three-leaf versions I built, are still probably the most complex study models I've ever had to engineer.

If you're interested, there's a related story which is still my personal shining example of why large-budget movies are frequently so insanely over-expensive and wasteful, to make...
 
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Well, sure -- the expense is one of the reasons it's difficult to do well. Still, there are those who don't even try.

Yet, Lucas had convincing sets with relative pennies, so it is, as you say, often a matter of vision.
 
I assume you're thinking of 'THX-1138,' which was very impressive-looking for the money...although it was more location-heavy, than set-intensive.
 
Well, no, I mean Ep. IV . . . $11MM in 1976 would be about $33MM in 2000 dollars. Fairly small-budget, really small for a major sci-fi epic.
 
i say give the art department Carteblache and stop paying actors 33 million dollars......
 
And about THX-1138, I don't actually care for the set design -- especially considering such a supposedly consumer-oriented world wouldn't be all white.
 
White works, so long as the consumerism is state-mandated, and you keep the consumers saturated with tranquilizers...
 
TimurCivan said:
i say give the art department Carteblache and stop paying actors 33 million dollars......
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I would watch MORE movies with no name actors except they give all the Tom Cruises and Brad Pitts all the movies. Did anybody see Superbad? The kid from Arrested Development. The biggest name on the bill.
 
Sad Max said:
White works, so long as the consumerism is state-mandated, and you keep the consumers saturated with tranquilizers...
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State-mandated consumerism is a contradiction, and sedated people don't want to buy anything. But it was a pretty juvenile film, all things considered.

Of course, this is all a digression. :)
 
How does a thread about production horror stories become a serious film analysis?


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- Mikko
 
David Jimerson said:
State-mandated consumerism is a contradiction, and sedated people don't want to buy anything. But it was a pretty juvenile film, all things considered.

Of course, this is all a digression. :)
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In 'THX-1138' a closed economy was dependent upon every citizen consuming a set quantity of produced material, in any given time-frame. If the state mandates what and how much you consume every month, to maintain a command economy, that's 'state-mandated consumerism.'

As for sedated people not wanting to buy anything...take a stroll on Rodeo Drive, and the notion will evaporate.

I didn't find it juvenile, but, hey, different strokes...

A digression from what? I forget.
 
Top three dumb things I've done on a shoot...

3) About 12 years ago I was trying to lower the lift gate on the lighting truck...somehow did it incorrectly and the thing comes flying down seconds after a grip runs right around from the other side of the truck...no one hurt but still makes me sick to my stomach thinking about it...

2) During a late wrap after a long day I was dismantling a c-boom rig...detached the light before taking the weight off the back...whammo that thing flipped around so fast...again no one hurt...not five minutes later the gaffer was disconnecting the distro box (mole pins)...and created quite an arc and one freaked out (alive) gaffer...

1) pretty much the worst thing i've done was during an overnight shoot out on some highway in the middle of Virginia...a pump truck watered down the highway for us...I attached a betacam (about ten years ago) with a canon wide angle lens (about $19,600 at the time) to a hood mount on our rental brand new ford explorer with about 100 miles on it(about the distance we were from the airport we rented it from) I inspected it..walked around it, safeties everywhere...taped down loose straps etc...all set to go...we took off and around the 40mph mark the camera suddenly takes a nose dive straight into the hood ...lens ripped right out of the camera... we get out of the truck and the dp turns to me and says "well, I guess the shoots over"...I started crying and called my mom (honestly, I did!)...what had happened was one of the so-called "safetly straps) had become loose and flopped around and caught in one of the tire treads...put a big dent in the hood of the explorer...lens ripped apart...the camera body was fine though...dp was a friend of mine and never was upset...although he was upset(with himself) when he found he had underinsured the lens...the next day we even tried to fit the lens back together with epoxy and straps...hehehe...needless to say that ain't happenin with a 20,000 lens (or boat anchor in this case)...

Any time I screw up, I take responsibility and figure out how to move on ... and then you end up with a great story...course, sometimes you might not want to mention it for a year or so...

RJS
 
Improperly packed a BetaSP camera, of course the camera flies out of the case cracks the a circuit board inside, luckily wasn't held responsible.


also I left a tripod at a shoot, went back to get it.......... gone

I had to pay for it
 
Sad Max said:
In 'THX-1138' a closed economy was dependent upon every citizen consuming a set quantity of produced material, in any given time-frame. If the state mandates what and how much you consume every month, to maintain a command economy, that's 'state-mandated consumerism.'
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That's my point -- a command economy is antithetical to consumerism, which is about flooding the markets with consumer goods because it's what consumers want to buy, not because it's what the state or economic planners want them to buy. In that case, all that white wouldn't be there.

If it's a planned economy, it's something other than consumerism.


As for sedated people not wanting to buy anything...take a stroll on Rodeo Drive, and the notion will evaporate.
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Haven't seen it. But most of the self-sedaters I've known didn't want to do much other than lie on the couch. If you're sedated to the point of having your sex drive shut off, I can't imagine you'd want to do much else.


I didn't find it juvenile, but, hey, different strokes...
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Indeed.

Anyway, sorry for the threadjack.
 
We were shooting an interview with an elderly blind lady, she was seated by a window and I had a set up a light with lite diffusion on it pointing right at her to try and compensate for the over-exposed window. About 15 minutes into the interview she began complaining that her eyes were hurting. I didn't realize that she had retinitis, and that she had a light sensitivity and shouldn't be looking into bright lights. She went and took about an hour long nap before we could continue. I felt really bad.
 
Once my friend was shooting in my apartment and I helped him set up lights. After I set them up I went in my room and played computer games. One of the chimera screens caught on fire...
 
A few years ago my buddy got a vx2100 when they first came out. We were excited to go out and see what it could do, so we jump in the car and drive a few miles when suddenly we hear a "bump bump bump" travel across the top and trunk of the car. I'm driving (and I must add I wasn't responsible for this mishap in any way) so I look into the rear view mirror in time to see the case rolling backwards on the highway and a huge utility truck fast approaching it. Somehow, the case suddenly hits a bump and flies off the road and out of danger (cough). We make a uey and pick it up. Cosmetic damage is minimal, still fully functional, but all the tapes that were stored in case that had older footage (I don't know why he kept his tapes with him) are exploded. Some of it was captured, most of it was not.

I've heard of people accidently leaving their babies on top of their cars, but their cameras!? For shame. JK.
 
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