INT: BAR- EVENING. The misadventures and call sheet mistakes of a Griffin, a 1st AD and Valentina, a 2nd AD. Everything you didn't know about being on a film set and had no idea to ask.
Update on 2nd AD
Turns out he’s a high school student. The Producer claims “He totally misrepresented himself!”
I thought, “When his mom dropped him off, I’m not sure what work experience you were hoping for.”
Anonymous asked: I'll be 2nd AD on a feature in about 2 weeks... Problem? I'm never done it before... Honestly? I should have started at a PA level, or 3rd AD at the very least... I really want to meet up with my first before day 1 to go over things, so I can have a better understanding and have his/her back on set more. I have asked the producer if I could, three days later I'm yet to get a reply. Was my request out of place? I feel like I'm kept out of the loop, so how can I do my best? Fuck.
Wow. No, you’re not out of line and the Producer should be giving you all the necessary contact information to talk to your own bosses. I don’t really know why you would be kept in the dark, and the sooner you can talk to the 1st, the easier your life and theirs gets, because then they can either help you, train you, or frankly know what they’re getting in to, and move you to 3rd and have the 2nd help you. I don’t envy you. I was in that situation once. And the resulting scenario of no one listening to me, did not end well. But kudos to you for recognizing a bad situation.
Trying to talk to people about what I do.
Things you never ever want to hear…
(Production is saving money by flying me out last minute.)
Me: okay, we need to set up interviews for 2nd AD.
Producer: No stress, I already hired one for you. Solid solid guy. Really experienced. Really good… Doesn’t know base camp as much, but really does callsheets well and paperwork.
Me:… Okay.
5 days out
Me: okay, here’s all the schedules. Take the crew list, and the one liner and use your template, and send me something today.
Producer: Hey cool… Can you send us a template?
3 days out
Producer: hey, they’re having issues with your template. We’re going to use one of mine and I’ll send it to you.
Me: I sent him an excel file. Is it not opening? Do you need a new template?
Producer: he’s really not that experienced. He can only open PDFs. I’ll do it for him.
…fuck.
For the love of all that is holy, never lock in a location that you do not obtain full control of. This is rule number one to location scouting. When you have dialog, multiple actors, background, picture vehicles, and other large elements at play, having civilians also stepping through the set and…
Very helpful to understanding shooting in a live business.
When you’re filming an overnight and the sun starts to peek out…
“We can day for night this, right?”
I’ve done day for night, for night, for day, for night. before. The continuity did not match.
Dead. Just dead. Nothing to see. All dead here.
After a fast and heated backlash, the company has withdrawn its attempt to trademark the phrase for a forthcoming Pixar film.
Wow… I mean… does anyone get this? I mean really get this? I hope there’s a general understanding about how bad this actually is. I try not to mix heritage into this blog, but I think people know both Val and I are Latin. And this, it just makes me sick. I’m hoping it was a general knee jerk “business as usual.” approach, and that the person doing this was just a low man on the ladder type of deal.
Edit: Otherwise, it’s like if they tried to trademark The 4th of July, or St. Patricks Day Or Hanukkah. Again… really hoping this was a mistake. Otherwise, even with withdrawing their request, they’re going to find they’re making the first Pixar flop.
