30 Seconds of Gold, 1 oz. of Heart-Freezing Paranoia
I worked on the set of one of those Big Hollywood Films last year. Here’s a story about that.
One of my jobs was to drive from the production office to the set so that I could courier the film stock. Sets are gigantic events, requiring scores if not hundreds of people, all coordinating their responsibilities to prepare for that golden 30-second interval between “action” and “cut.”
You’ve got to understand: it’s like mustering a battalion. The amount of gear these folks lug, drive, shuttle, and ship out to a set boggles the mind. There’s the big stuff you’re used to seeing — huge lights, expensive cameras, boom poles, and whatever — but that’s not one *tenth* of what a Big Hollywood Shoot has to put together. All those people need feeding, trailers for offices and resting, transportation, communication between the set and everyone else *and* the production office, toilet facilities, lights at night, shelter during the day …
It is an amazing endeavor, just to get those golden 30 seconds. An amazing, hideously expensive endeavor. Every single one of those 30 seconds is bought at thousands of dollars a piece. Put an hour’s worth of footage together and do the math. A roll of film is easily worth my car, my house, and every paycheck I’m likely to earn for the next decade, put together and multiplied by ten.
My job was to drive from Los Lunas to Wherever-the-hell, sign off on receipt of the film, inventory however many rolls were shot that day, pack it all securely, drive to the airport, meet a bonded courier, insure the film’s delivery to one of five place on Earth that will develop the film, and deliver the receipt to the production office.
For the hour that would take, at minimum, I had about a million dollars of footage riding next to me in my 2001 Saturn. How does that sound?
If it melted in the blazing New Mexican sun: my fault. If it got knocked around and scratched up : my fault. If the courier wasn’t there to pick up the film and insure it, or if he put it on a plane to Ecuador instead of LA: well, not really my fault, but then, I’m still the guy who swings from the tallest yardarm. If I got in a car wreck, the first question might be whether I survived, but the next would surely be, “Is the film okay?”
That’s what delivering footage is like in the Big Hollywood Films.
And yet ….
I was never as nervous delivering film stock like that as I was last night, when I packed a tiny MiniDV tape lovingly into a flimsy plastic case and drove to my home 10 miles from the set of In The Wind. I swear I was praying that cosmic rays would find convenient detours around me and my precious, precious footage.
You’re going to see an amazing film. I guaran-fucking-tee it.
Photos of the first shooting weekend: coming soon.
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