John Q. Phats Entertainment

So, the Pick up shots are done.  It was actually pretty painless.  We had a very small crew and we knew what we were doing.  I went with a little bit of a different workflow this time.  Rather then just having the actors memorize the script and then shooting, I went through the dialogue with them a bunch and made the adjustments I wanted before I pressed record.  So, they memorized the dialogue and knew how to act it out.  It worked out very well.  I also really tried to avoid saying things like “I need you to be angrier.” I’m usually pretty good about that, but sometimes I slip up.  Instead, I tried to direct through situations that the character would be put in.  For example with Caine, I needed him to be more upset so I said
“OK Caine, so this sort of thing always happens to you.  Chris always gets the girl and you don’t understand it.  He has the girl of your dreams practically throwing herself at him and he’s complaining to you that she’s not the right one.  You haven’t been laid in God knows how long.”
Instead of just saying
“I need you to be more angry.”
 It worked out really well.  Not only was it more of a collaboration between me and the actors, but we both got what we wanted out of it.  We actually had a lot of fun doing this.  I’m thinking about posting one of the out takes where everyone was just kind of goofing around.  What do you guys think?  Would that be something you want to see?  The only comment I’ll get, is probably an ad for Viagra, but that’s ok, I’ll take that as a cue to post it.

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.