Basically, "Dead Stoned" turned out to be "Dead on the water"...
DON'T USE YOUR ******* WASTE OF SPACE MATES AS THEY WILL DECIDE LAST MINUTE TO LET YOU DOWN, RIGHT ROYALLY **** YOU OVER AND COST YOU THE ENTIRE ******* SHOOT.
Yup. That's what happened. After I spent 2 1/2 hours to find an arm for the shoot (see "Arm Yourself" post for details), went to Denniston for the camera (which cost loads for the taxi to get it home, got up at 7:30 AM on Sat morn after, like, about 20 minutes sleep, made the blood, got all props, locations, tapes, camera, batteries, crew, sound etc. sorted out, then had to abandon the whole ******* lot because the ******S I asked pulled out.
P-R-I-C-K-S!
Now, I have lost the bloke Im was working with (he said he's just gonna work with Professional, or semi professionals from now on), probably lost the contact I've made with my make up artist, and totally lost confidence with myself. I'm thinking of packing filmmaking in altogether...
So, I'm not a happy bunny this morning.
******S!
[img]graemlins/grrr.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img]
Sorry to here about that - b-a-s-t-a-r-d-s!
Don't give up though. Not sure what I can say to help and you may not even want to hear this at the moment - but have you tried looking into local drama clubs/schools and placing ads to try and find actors/crew that may be a bit more committed for the re-shoot.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ November 17, 2003 06:17 AM: Message edited by: Justin M. ]</font>
Sounds familiar.
Never mind, the next time will go much more smoothly ;-)
After picking up your camera and while on the way back home in the taxi would have been a good time to make cell phone calls to your mates.
"Hey Mate, I'm in the taxi as we speak with the camera, yeah, picked it up just now, see ya tommorrow, right mate?
Never underestimate the value of real background sounds that reinforce your situation.
So when was the last time you spoke to your blokes about their call time for your shoot?
At the very least you've learned a tough but valuable lesson.
Time to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get on with it. [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]
All good advice.
I still believe there is a narrow double window pane of opportunity when it comes to using friends. (although I agree it can be better to use non-friends). It's not just the two or three calls the day before a shoot to each and everyone you are counting on....it's also the calls a couple of days before reminding them AND minding that they be available for any last minute information or updates the day before the shoot.
The killer, in my opinion, is the call one day before the shoot when you can't reach your crew people. If you can't be in touch with your crew the day before a shoot date, you probably are in big trouble. And of course, because it's a low budget production, you are probably running around getting everything together the day before and don't have a lot of time to chase everyone down via phone.
To insure that you are in touch with your crew (as needed) the day before the shoot, you need to be in touch with them a few days prior to that, probably on a daily basis.
Having some sweet female voice doing some of the calling won't hurt a bit either.
"Will I get to meet you on the set" [img]graemlins/kiss.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/girl_hug.gif[/img]
Maybe you can get a female friend to make the calls to your friends. A friendly female voice reminding them of the shoot day and call time just might go over better.
Then the day of the shoot, all of your horrny male friends show, and the girl doesn't! Poetic justice for prior shoots where a low budget filmmaker was left hanging on the day of the shoot by his friends.
dude, that really is ******ing. I hope it won?t happen to me next sunday.
Sunday, the day when everyone wants to sleep their stonedness and drunkenness off. And I?m starting at 11:30.
But I only need a few people per scene.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I second that; also, I think Danny Boyle used topless models to keep clubbers occupied and out of his deserted street shots at 5am in London for '28 Days Later'! Girls are so handy!Posted by Alex: Having some sweet female voice doing some of the calling won't hurt a bit either.
[Disclaimer: Kev Owens is not in any way sexist but does enjoy the odd poke of fun at the female of the species. He donates regularly to the Sexist Pig Society, conforms to British Law, always pays his taxes, is polite to strangers and gives up his seat on public transport to seniors.]
Sounds familiar.....
This is the life of the low/no budget moviemaker. About the only thing you can do is stop using friends. I did a long time ago.
Keep on going--Get back to the basics--Simple movies that can be made with a group you can depend on.
Good Luck
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