John Q. Phats Entertainment

So, I have to do some pick up shots for Do Nice Guys Finish Last.  I hate pick up shots with every fiber of my being.  If pick up shots were a person and I had the last two bullets on earth, I would shoot pick up shots in the face twice.  A pick up shot is after you’ve finished shooting, you find in editing that you have to go back and re shoot something or get some extra footage that you missed.  They suck.  There’s a big buzz when you’re done shooting.  It’s like “Yes!  We’re done!”  When you’re done shooting pick up shots, it’s like “I can’t believe I had to do that bullshit again.”  And most of the time, it’s like 2 shots.  So you set up, go through the motions with the actors, set up the lights, get the cameras ready, and then shoot for 10 minutes.  So, I have to do that for one scene.  We had a little malfunction and pretty much all of the footage from that scene is trashed.  After looking at the dialogue in that scene though, I’ve decided to change it.  It wasn’t really working anyway.  So I suppose this is a chance to make an improvement on a weak point in the script.  I’m running the edits by Gabe to see what he thinks and he’s shot down every single one of my rewrites.  He would make a good producer.  If he could only add “besides, that would be too expensive” at the end of his shoot downs, he would be all set.  It’s tough sometimes not to get defensive when someone tells you something you’ve created sucks.  If I start to feel that, I just say “Hmmmm” and give myself a minute.  Then I ask questions like “Well, why does it suck?  What would make it better?”  It just takes me a minute to remind myself that they are trying to help me and ultimately, this will make my short film better.  No matter how negatively people come at me, I always just try to hear their opinion.  It doesn’t help me to be defensive, however getting their opinion helps me a lot.  Big time companies are way more interested in why their customers left then why their customers stayed.  They want to know what happened, why you left, and how they could have kept you.  Just like I want to know why you hated my short film and what I could have done differently to make you like it.  That way I can take that in to account on my next short film.  I often stray from my original point.  What was I talking about?  O yeah, pick up shot blow and somehow, this is all Chris’s fault……  Stupid Chris.

It’s hard to believe this, but every time I do a short film I seem to have some sort of breakthrough revelation in terms of film making.  On Saturday we shot some more of Nice Guys Finish Last and I got my best take out of Caine when I just told him to do whatever he wanted.  I gave him some adjustments here and there along the way, but we didn’t get anything truly amazing until I gave him that freedom.  Caine is a funny guy, it’s one of his talents.  I should just let him be funny.  I told him at one point
“You’re a funny guy, go with it.”
To me, this is a breakthrough.  My favorite part about film making is working with actors, so this is a really exciting to learn for me.  Actors are fascinating people.  Acting is something that looks easy, but isn’t.  As an independent film maker, you often pull people from your group of friends when you need actors.  Most of them say the same exact thing too:
“I can act.”
They really do think they can to, it’s kind of adorable in an ignorant sort of way.  Then the camera gets on them, you yell action and they go blank.  Either that or they fumble over their lines, look at the camera, and giggle like crazy.  News flash, acting is really hard.  You think you can act?  Get about 6-7 of your friends, have them all stare at you, then, what you do, is cry.  Don’t laugh, don’t say anything to them, just cry.  Serious actors can do that.  I can’t do it.  I could with some practice, but I belong behind the camera, not in front of it.  Whenever I attempt to act, I just giggle like a stoned school girl.  If I were playing a stoned school girl, I could probably pull it off quite nicely. 
So, my breakthrough revelation this time is that I need to start a new career as an actor who plays stoned school girls.  Just kidding, really it’s that sometimes, all an actor or actress needs to act is freedom to do it.
The shoot went great on Saturday.  I transferred it all on to my computer today.  That’s always a fun process by the way.  It’s kind of exciting to watch all of your footage from a shoot while transferring it.  It’s kind of the moment of truth.  Sometimes, you see something that you didn’t pick up while shooting.  Like an obvious boom mic or the reflection of my stupid ass in a mirror or window standing there with headphones on, next to a camera man.  Stuff like that.  When something like that happens, you need to do pick up shots or fix it in post.  I fucking hate pick up shots.  They are such a pain in the ass.  I try to avoid them at all costs.  Maybe that’s why I always have so many takes of each scene.  Because, I want to make sure that I get everything right.  I think I hate pick up shots so much because on the last shot, when I say “That was the last shot, we’re done!”  Everyone cheers and it’s just an awesome feeling of accomplishment.  Everyone is all happy and anxious to see the first cut.  It’s almost like a graduation party for like an hour because everyone just sort of hangs out and congratulates everyone else.  When you have to do pick up shots, all of that is taken away.  And when you finish your last pick up shot, you don’t get the same response at all.  It’s more like “awesome, lets get the fuck out of here.”  A pick up shot is kind of like if tomorrow, you got a letter in the mail saying that you actually failed PE in high school, so now you have to go back in order for any of your college degrees to be valid.  O, and they’ve notified your boss of this so your job will be docking your pay until you finish the class.
Imagine what that would feel like.  That’s what I feel like whenever I have to do pick up shots.