Santa's Sleigh Ride

[Alex]

The four pictures above represent actual Super-8 Frames from different shoots that I have done over the years. One of the pictures above is my Super-8 Shoot with Santa.

I would market the Finished commercial as a "Season's Greetings" that Cable Companies around the country would "bonus" to their favorite advertisers during the BUSIEST TIME OF THE YEAR...(well, another original "concept" destined to fail!)

I did a sell it to a couple of cable systems, but frankly, I was far too young and inexperienced to understand that market penetration mattered more than maximum profitability in each market. I made two Season's Greetings Promos back in 1988 and 1989, Back then, Video Editing cost $250.00 an hour!

The Sleigh I rented was from the prop department of Disney Studios. I was told the Sleigh I was renting was the actual Sleigh used in the original "Miracle on 34th Street Movie!" [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

The flatbed truck I rented, now that was another story. The flatbed truck had THE WORST SHOCKS IMAGINEABLE.

We drove 75 miles down to Laguna Beach to be near Santa...(He had driven up to my location for other shoots, so I obliged him by driving down to where he was going to be for this one)

My friends Tony and Julie came along and were my valued helpers. The 75 mile drive to meet Santa was HORRIBLE...the darn truck was bobbing up and down like an out of control jackhammer the whole way down.

Either the shocks were just plain terrible, or because it was a flatbed truck, the shocks were designed to work better when the flatbed was weighted down. I have a vague recollection of putting a bunch of sandbags on the flatbed of the truck, but I'm not entirely sure.

Santa had a starring cameo role in my Season's Greetings Promo that I was making and was gracious enough to land on the back of a flat-bed truck I was renting.

Of course, even though Santa landed perfectly on the back of my flat-bed truck, nothing else really went as planned.

I set-up my Super-8 Camera on the flat-bed truck, facing toward the back. We began to shoot some night time-exposure footage designed to look like Santa was flying through the sky with lights streaking above and behind him. The shot was framed in such a way so that "TV Safe" would cut off the part of the sleigh that was actually touching the back of the flat bed truck.

TV-Safe means that when you are watching TV, you don't see the entire area of the picture frame, a portion of the picture on all four sides is "hidden" from normal viewing. By carefully framing my shot, I could "hide" the part of the sleigh that was touching the flat-bed truck in the part of the frame that does not get seen by a normal television set.

When I started filming, I remember thinking, "Wow, I'm actually doing this shoot! I got a Santa, an actual Santa Sleigh from Disney, my friends helping me...this is amazing!"

And it was, for about five minutes.

Our Santa was a hearty soul, so fake pillows were not required. Our jackhammer truck moved down the road, Santa waving to the masses in the middle of a Warm July California Night from the cheery confines of our "Miracle Sleigh"...

....and because all good things must come to an end, the Sleigh started to list to one side.

It was quite loud on the truck, just horrible filming conditions, the wind was blowing even though the truck was not moving that quickly. Suddenly I realized the Sleigh was listing more and more.

The Sleigh was crumbling from the weight of Santa AND the frickin jackhammer action created by our truck. [img]graemlins/wilted.gif[/img]

I was destroying the Miracle On 34th Street Sleigh, and I hadn't even gotten my shot yet! [img]graemlins/devil.gif[/img]

We pulled over and assessed the situation. I couldn't believe that I had destroyed the sleigh so quickly.

The idea that I might have to cancel the shoot with all that had gone into preparing for that night seemed beyond my comprehension.

Tony helped me rig a couple of apple boxes and a solid pelican case underneath the nearly broken underside of the Sleigh. I forget why I had the apple boxes, but I had been "raised" to always have apple boxes on film productions. The pelican case was for my still camera.

The silver stuff pictured underneath the sleigh actually covers the apple boxes from view.

Well, after tying off the crumbling sleigh with rope and shoring it up as best we could, resting the sleigh on the apple boxes and pelican case, AND telling Santa to ride the Sleigh like a jockey coming down a homestretch run who gets up off the saddle, we were able to continue, barely, and everything held together, barely... [img]graemlins/broken_heart.gif[/img]

It's hard knowing when to quit when you KNOW you won't be doing this type of shoot again anytime soon. "Just one more shot, no really, just one more shot".

We filmed for a couple of hours. We kept filming even after the battery in my sungun light had gone dead. Of course, I had ruined the lead battery because it continued to draw a current even after the light had completely disappeared. When a lead battery goes below 10.2 volts, it starts to internally destroy itself.

Even though the Sleigh continued to, uhm, disintegrate, it seemed to settle into a slow-motion tyep of disintegration. We were able to finish the shoot, and I was satisfied that I had gotten something I could use, on Super-8 film.

And that 75 mile jackhammer drive back home was pretty depressing. A 150 mile roundtrip just so that I could be fair to my Santa and save him a trip up to my part of town...what a moron I was!

I had better streets to film what I needed where I lived, and that should have been the overriding factor in my decision as to where to shoot.

Live and Learn.

The next day, when I finally looked at the Sleigh in the light of day, I was pretty sure I was going to never work in this town again...come to think of it.....

I consulted with Dad over the situation, and he seemed to think it was not hopeless. Since the Sleigh was primarily made out of wood, he suggested we try elmer's glue to save the day.

Amazingly enough, most of the damage was to the underside of the sleigh rather than the cosmetic exterior. We used Elmers Glue and crushed, pulpy sawdust as *****r. Perhaps
it was ironic that Santa's Sleigh, constructed to take him around the world in blizzard like conditions, would need the sun's warm rays to harden the Elmers glue sawdust concoction. Waiting to see if the Glue concoction would make a difference was like watching the lotto numbers picked even though you have no ticket. The best I could hope for was returning the sleigh just how I had received it.

Ironically, we made the sled sturdier than it was when we first rented it! The glue really did reinforce the various undercarriage joints.

I was so proud of the "fix" we had accomplished on the sleigh, (probably prouder than the final product I created.) I WANTED TO TELL THE PEOPLE AT DISNEY HOW WELL WE HAD FIXED THE SLEIGH...

Now, that would have been pretty stupid, wouldn't it?

Instead, I waited until I was convinced that the gluing had truly fixed the sleigh before returning it. I held my tongue, changed my name, and never heard anything bad from Disney. (kidding)

However, the truck rental place wanted to charge me an EXTRA day because I showed up something like 30 minutes after the one day deadline. I reminded them that they had immediately stamped my invoice when I had come to pick up the truck, even though they made me wait 45 minutes to get the truck, and that they had waited to stamp my invoice for returning the truck UNTIL it was my turn in line, easily another half an hour.

I was not about to pay an extra day for the down-time they caused.

I finished the Season's Greetings Promo, and managed to sell it in a couple of very small cable markets, but I never recouped my $5,000. in expenses...(that is another story)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 24, 2002 03:21 PM: Message edited by: Alex ]</font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 26, 2002 04:53 AM: Message edited by: Super8 Filmmaking in the DigitalAge ]</font>

[cameraguy]

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ August 31, 2003 08:46 AM: Message edited by: cameraguy ]</font></font>

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Original message reinserted by the moderator to keep the entire topic thread intact.

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I'm tellin Disney [img]redface.gif[/img]

What was the camera used for the time exposure?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 21, 2003 03:32 AM: Message edited by: Alex ]</font>

[Alex]

A Eumig 800 series camera, (kind of like the Nizo 800 series cameras), now don't tell anyone.

[Greg Crawford]

Since Christmas stuff is usually done after the holidays, summer really I thught I would bump this thread.

Go on... you really didn't spend 5K on the shoot, did you?

[Alex]

Well, the still shot I have above of Santa was only on the screen for 2 of the 30 seconds.

Some of my costs...(this was over 10 years ago, so pretty much anything I did, I went to a studio and paid full pop.

These are all approximations and may change should a dormant brain cell suddenly come to life.

Truck rental...(around $150-200, lots of mileage)

Sleigh...(225-week rental)

Editing $250.00/hr x 3.0 hours = $750.00)

Music (I spent way too little for an original score, and I don't really remember if I spent this much or not. $500???)

Sound layback/mix the music with Santa's voice...(I spent way too much on this $600.00)

Voice-Over session (75.00)
Voice-over person ($50.00 plus royalties, um never got that far)

2-Rank Transfers to D-2 plus super-8 gate ($500 to $600 each time)

Film Stock & Processing $100.00 (I shot several scenes on several rolls)

Off-line Edit ($200.00)

Santa ($300) (showed up three times for me)

Location fee (waived)

Santa Costume ($75.00)

Probably drove over 2,000 miles for all of the shoots that I did, and if I factor in the post-production sessions, from creating the song, off-lining, on-lining...probably 2,500 miles. ($ 350.00)

Dressing the Christmas Tree, several attempts at shooting the time-exposure tree. ($250.00)

Then, when I was done, I spent a few hundred dollars on 3/4 copies and Vhs copies. (Back then the prices were higher for video stock and copies then it is now!) $500.00

Then I tried marketing the video, spent a week or so calling to various cable system sales reps around the country. (???)

Keep in mind this wasn't a one day shoot. It was a project that required sporadic shooting over a half year's time. There are several hidden costs not mentioned. Paying for someones dinner, still film developing, some ornaments that went on the tree...

I rented some lights for the Santa Shoot..etc...
It added up.

[Mike Buckles]

The stills you show are extremely cool...very colorful and sharp...nice representation of the capabilities of super 8! It sounds like you were a long time in the planning for this shoot, but things never go as we plan, do they?! I wouldn't feel bad about the sleigh disintegrating...studios typically don't put a high value on props from movies as memoribilia..unless they can make money from it! To them, it was just another prop...the studios felt the same way about their negatives from old films....if they disapeared, who cared?

[Alex]

I believe that after "medicating" the sleigh that I actually returned it back in better shape than I got it.

[TA 152]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 28, 2003 04:39 AM: Message edited by: S8 Booster ]</font>

[Alex]

Thanks.

I think it would make better sense to answer your questions under the "The Alphabet Song" topic post.

http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...ic&f=405&t=556

[Mike Buckles]

Yeah, Alex, that new shot is really cool! Is that on super 8? the combo of the outlines and Hard "R" plus the shading make it look really 3-d..is this some sort of title opening you made?