Isn't it funny when you call action!

K

Kugar13

Well-known member
It seems like everything that can happen will happen when you call action! LOL

For example. Last night we found a suitable, secluded, location to shoot a short scene at a curb near a street light. The shoot should have took 20-30 minutes (1/8th a page of material). I had the following things occur just at this location, which stretched us long past an hour.

Locust determined to make noise during takes. They were kind enough to take a break between takes =(

Various cars driving by. Did I mention this location was secluded? Said cars would stop and watch, which let to us waiting for them to leave. Some would turn around and come back, making multiple passes.

Various trollies passing by in the distance.

Horns from boats at a near by river.

Airplanes flying overhead (specifically MD-11s and DC-10s).

Ok, this all to be expected, right? I'm use to this, and accept that it comes with the territory. Seems like we get everything situated and ready to go-go-go and then what happens? What is it now? Can you guess? We've all been there..... what was it?

The street light went out............... =(

We worked around it. Turns out the headlights from the car alone were suitable to allow us to film the scene.... thankfully.


LOL, so, what are your shinning moments?

L8ers
 
How about this, we were filming in an abandoned storage facility about a mile from my house. Its completel abandoned.

1. a train goes by
2. the police show up because of our lights
3. bats
4. mice
5. one of our lights dies

like you said, all of this is to be ecpected

we were then accausted by a homeless man who lived in the facility.
Sadly i did not get the shot, we went somewhere else and set up, i turned my camera on to finally get the perfect shot and guess what? Battery dies.
 
I've been accused of running a drug operation and been surrounded by 3 police cars with police dogs during a shoot behind a friends house one night. As soon as I yelled action and the first line was said, I was told to get on the ground and not to move. Then I was asked where the drugs are at and why are 8 black people dressed in black (myself included, which the scene called for) behind a house at 1am.

Come on...that's suspicious? Give me a break! ;)

When asked the question about the drugs, I mumbled that the scripts were laced with cocaine, which somehow was heard, which then resulted in a search (my smart ass). When asked did I have any needles or anything that would stick them if they searched my pocket, a friend of mine replied "weapons of mass destruction".

The officer wasn't happy, but after not finding anything, they told us they had reports of drug trafficking going on in the area and that we should be more careful next time.

We're lucky to not have gotten arrested after the two pleasent little comments but oh well! We still got our shot!
 
On another shoot

On another shoot

On another shoot we had a neighbors AC unit right outside the bedroom window of the location we were shooting. We had a scene in the bedroom (not that kind of film! LOL). The neighbor had his AC blasting 24/7, so we had to buff the sound. We tacked sound blankets over the windows, hung up plywood with more sound blankets and everything we could to buff the sound. We also had exterior shots that night, so we had to hide the actors cars down the street (their cars were in other shoots and couldn't be seen at this location). The neighbor got angry with us the next day and confronted me about having prostitutes hiding their cars down the street and blocking the windows to hide our pornographic footage from anyone who would pass bye. LOL fun times.... I've been accused of making X-rated films.... LOL
 
We were shooting a bloodied up zombie-girl in a front yard of a very little travelled residential street. Plastic gun, but still we are careful not to shoot the scene with cars going by. At action, a pick-up truck comes ambling down the road and we think we can get the shot of the good guy plugging her in the head before the truck becomes a sound issue...so the actor makes like there is a little kick to the handgun, the girl reacts with a slight body jerk and hits the ground, and the guy in the truck just about runs off the road thinking he's just witnessed a murder. :(
 
Gotta love animals

Gotta love animals

At every single location I have had birds begin to chirp when I say action (usually early in the morning before the rises).

Then you have dogs... ACTION! "bark bark bark"...... ok, shhhhhh everyone quiet... dog gets quiet......ACTION! "bark bark bark" ...ok, ok, everyone wait for the dog to quiet down...... shhhhhhhhhh, it gets quiet..... action (whisper)... "BARK BARK BARK"

Locusts like to start up every time I say action too.


There is something about that dirty 6 letter word that gets animals and insects to act up. I guess they like to be in the lime light as well.... LOL
 
Seems like it was Clint Eastwood or Ron Howard who never say "Action"...they just say "Whenever you're ready..." :)
 
thartley said:
Seems like it was Clint Eastwood or Ron Howard who never say "Action"...they just say "Whenever you're ready..." :)
Click to expand...
It's Clint. :) Morgan Freeman told the story about it on "Inside the Actor's Studio."
 
Wanna know something funny? I tried to adopt that ("whenever you're ready") and found some people still wait to hear "ACTION!". I kinda don't like using the term b/c it feels very authoritative to me. Funny hu?
 
Blaine said:
It's Clint. :) Morgan Freeman told the story about it on "Inside the Actor's Studio."
Click to expand...

Yes! That's where I heard the story. :) I couldnt remember... *old age*

Whenever I've called for Action, I usually just say "Okay, go..." haha!! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
thartley said:
Seems like it was Clint Eastwood or Ron Howard who never say "Action"...they just say "Whenever you're ready..." :)
Click to expand...
This seems odd to me. Everyone needs to start synced - all at once... "not when they are ready..."
 
thartley said:
Seems like it was Clint Eastwood or Ron Howard who never say "Action"...they just say "Whenever you're ready..." :)
Click to expand...

That's what me and my co-director say generally for the more calm or emotional scenes...
 
Try this: go to the corner of Clark and Division and try to shoot a scene with a street preacher preaching to two hookers. Now honestly I will admit we did have some very attractive actresses that night, but we started at 9:00 PM and we finished at 1:00 AM. You'll be amazed at how ignorant people are. People who feel like they own the street. One guy told us he ran that area. (Amazing, most "ballers" have cars he had a bicycle, but I guess he had it like that). Later some cops came and asked two of our ladies what was going on (I think at one point one of the cops were trying to get his mack attack on but there was no incident).

Two men figured they'd interject their opinion of the Bible during a preaching scene that was almost perfect. I'll say this, it does amaze me how people feel safe doing things like this when they really don't know who they may be messing with. Just because I'm shooting a scene with a guy preaching, you don't know who I or those in my crew may be. Here in Chicago people have been shot for less. (I'm serious people have been shot and killed for very small and silly reasons that's why you shouldn't mess with people you don't know). And what gives you the right to ruin my shot? I'll admit this though, race relations have sure changed, the day two skinny white guys feel safe messing with a group of about six African and Asian Americans.

Later a guy acted like he was going to cross the street then jumped in front of the camera (as if he wasn't going to get cut out in the final edit) and a slew of other things. Later still one of the original guys who were curious but not smart enough to know how to be civil, came back to state that he lived around there and had a right to interrupt us. Lucky for us his friend called him away and insisted the guy leave us alone before someone calls the cops. His exact words were "Leave them alone. They got jobs. Do you want to go to jail." Later on as we were packing up to go the guy came over and apologuize. I think he was drunk actually. It was an interesting time.

-Nate
 
thartley said:
Yes! That's where I heard the story. :) I couldnt remember... *old age*

Whenever I've called for Action, I usually just say "Okay, go..." haha!! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
Click to expand...

I do that too sometimes. I do notice this, when we do fights, we really like to hear action though.

-Nate
 
In Finnish "Käy" is often used for "Action!", but it literally means "Roll!" and "Rolling!/".
I've been on sets where you hear "Kamera Käy" - "Käy" ... - "Käy!" (Roll camera, Rolling, Action!) Gaah!
I normally just go with the Finnish equivilant of: "Kamera (Camera)" "Pöyrii (Rolling)" "Olkaa hyvä (when you are ready)"

But alas every shoot is diferent! No winning. :nads:

- Mikko
 
There are problems shooting on a saturday night in front of a college dorm. Drunk people like movies. My favorite thing one of the guys asked was "if I give you a donut can I be in your movie?"

Then in one take of a chase between two actors you can hear him yelling "here. take a bagel" as an actor runs by him. It was a long shot so no one really notices his mouth moving though.
 
Wow! Yeah, I've had people come up to us while filming. It amazes me how oblivious that it is a bad idea to walk up to you and start talking to you when you are rolling. Sure, you can't see any red dots on my camera indicating I'm rolling, but come on the signs are there! I haven't had a run-in with the cops yet. I hate saying that b/c I now know it is on the way. You know how luck is.....

I've had run ins with drunks too. Always happens...... more on that story later on =)
 
LOL.... I've had drunk people try to get involved as well. Sometimes they try to harass the talent (esp the beautiful girls). The older brother syndrome kicks in and I have to ask them politely to leave. The homeless can be an inconvenience too. I don't mean any harm in my comment. I don't mind giving them my time or attention, but it always seems to come during a take. It can be frustrating. Some are friendly and some are belligerent. Once I had a guy wanna talk about a game he saw in a store front window. He wanted to discuss the details of the game. I had been on location for 8 hours and had no clue what game he was talking about. Nice enough guy, but didn't have the time to spare. Regardless I find it all fascinating. It is amazing the people who want to be involved in your films and the people that would do anything to avoid it. It would surprise you sometimes. =)
 
We filmed an exterior tracking scene in a working class neighborhood in Minneapolis and had half the neighbors standing on their front porches watching us. A few of the children came over to get a closer look. We just let them watch a monitor and explained they had to be quiet during "action" ... one little girl rode back and forth on the sidewalk on her bicycle ... in the shot ... we had to wait for her to get off in the distance before we'd roll camera time and time again.

We shot some camera tests in Astoria NY last night and not a single person bothered us despite hundreds of people walking past our shoot. We had a few people stop and watch, but they were quiet and respectful, which is kind of funny, beause we were shooting MOS. I think this was largely because we were shooting without lights or booms. Also helped us remain stealth for the cops, several of whom drove by without a second glance.
 
Ah! MOS... The one time the sky will be clear, no cars approaching, no boats within range, no trollies passing, no pedestrians pestering you, every appliance will be shut off, no compressors kicking in, no one on the block is running their AC, no animal in site, and everyone remembers their lines (LOL). I love MOS!
 
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