In the Navy

Today's shoot was a great example of communication gone awry.  As expected the plans we had at the beginning lasted for about 30 minutes.  We were supposed to be shooting standups in "limbo" which is just a person against a black background.  That was supposed to go on for a few hours and it went on for the whole day.  I still have difficulty seeing how what we were shooting was going to fit into the whole, but for a food show, I feel it's appropriate to use the "too many chefs" analogy. I honestly couldn't tell you who was in charge, I could tell you who thinks they're in charge...and sometimes they actually are.   As with many production issues, everything comes down to the script. Pretty much all the issues both camera teams faced came from difficulties with the script and lack of a clear direction.

It very much feels like it was written by several people and that's because I'm pretty sure it was....then it was translated by several more, and those people don't seem to have been native Mexican-Spanish speakers.  So that makes things a bit more exciting when one of the primary audiences is Mexicans.  So we'll see what happens tomorrow. I think a lot of the issues were ironed out, but I was slightly horrified to hear that everything we shot today in Limbo might have to get thrown out because, and these were the actual words that were used "they're going in a different direction". I thought you only heard those words in Hollywood?

However, even though it was occasionally frustrating, everyone stayed upbeat. And really for any sort of shoot that's the most important thing.  If you stay in a good mood and are just nice to people, it makes it so much easier to fix the issues as they arise.  That's one of the most important parts of T/F. It's a crazy whirlwind and most days we're staying one step ahead of the chaos...but everyone keeps smiling and that keeps everyone looking forward to solve the next problem.

Anywhoo, we'll see what tomorrow brings.  Tonight I made cookie dough and it needs to refrigerate for 24 hours, so tomorrow, Set Striking Celebration Cookies!  My place! Bring milk or a monkey. It's BYOM.

Oh and other film stuff.  Chud posted a very interesting essay about Inception as Film-making It's worth a read if you've seen the film.  And if you haven't, good lord, why not?

Oh yes, I was going to post video of something cool: