My first proper on set experience

MileCreations

MileCreations

For the next week I am being a runner on a short film which is significantly more professional then anything I have ever been involved with. While I have been on my own 'sets' before they have consisted of mostly skilled (and un skilled) friends with an extreme skeleton crew and myself falling into a number of the roles.

Anyway I thought I would document each day here, see if any others have advice and perhaps help give a small insight to other people at an earlier stage in their film making journey.



Day 1 (Friday) - Runner / sound logging

Firstly I got the role through going to a 3rd year film school (and masters etc) crewing night as encouraged by forum member jax_rox. As I currently live two hours from the major city, I signed up to shoots that were planning a more rural location, hopefully closer to me, so I ended up only signing up to 3 projects. Basically I walked up to them, introduced myself, said I was interested in healing out and explained my location situations and all that. Well only one director got back to me and that's the shoot I'm on now!

About a week ago I got basic times and locations but no call sheet until yesterday midday. The call sheet in itself was a learning opportunity! One or two abbreviations I didn't know (ie MOW: make own way) a quick search helped me a lot.

So I had to help a prop guy get his stuff so this meant leaving my house at 6am. Got to this insanely run down house but full of crazy props and expensive paintings and such, with an interedting and cool owner. We stacked up some stuff and headed to the location. We were about 15minutes earlier than anybody else. The cast and crew rocked up in four cars and a bus between 8.30 and 9ish. I introduced myself / the introduced themselves to me with about a third of the crew at first meeting, and slowly met more of the 25-30 over the rest of the morning. One awkward introduction consisted of
Dude: Brendan
Me: yes, er
Dude: *confused expression*
Me: oh are you Brendan? I'm Brendan too!
Basically the way he introduced himself I thought he already knew who I was.

First I helped set up the dressing room and food table and power and all that (on location) and then headed to the producer, I was then handed down to the first AD, next gaffer and then finally a grip who I helped reorganize the rental van with the lighting equipment and camera boxes. Enter first decent find out about a person chat with the grip.

When we got started filming I was given the role of filling out a sound log for each take and the time code and such. This is when I came as close to a Red as I have ever been :P as the filming day went on it turns out that 3 16GB cards are really really inconvenient when it comes to using a Red.

Because I was the runner I was also sent down the hill to the set up area numerous times to get random things or take them back.

Finally when I was nearing to leave I was asked to drop somebody off at a train station which was kind of the opposite direction to my house, so my journey home was just under 3 hours rather than just over 1 hour.

At the end of the day I would say they I know a out 4 of them to a good point, knowing the name of probably at least 85% of the crew too.

Tomorrow is the day off and I have a 15:00-23:00 shoot on Sunday.
 
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Day 2 (Sunday) - Runner / sound logging

Ill be on for four more days :)

Today's shoot was 14:30-22:00 though we didnt start filming anything until probably close to 16:30. We shot at a fancy old building which is used by many which delayed us slightly at the start.

After random moving of equipment my first job was to go collect somebody who had missed their bus, when I got back I spent a good ten minutes driving around blocks looking for a new park.

Today we actually had lighting equipment with a giant Arri HMI and a few red heads and bounceboards. We spent a while decking out the room to make it look like an 1800s photography studio. Some of this time was just spent on covering things like the exit sign and other un removable modern items. Our light was dying quickly too so all our wides shots had to be done rather quickly. Again I was filling in the sound log sheet. A bunch of the ACs and gaffers had actually changed from Friday too.

We were in a much more public location this time and in a public building and so had a few sticky beaks poke their head in. It sucked because the floorboards were super creaky. Later in the night we had a loiterer around the van too...

As I discovered Friday, but thought about more today, the director (at least on this shoot) has little contact with the crew. She talks to basically the DP and the actors and sometimes the production design guy. The first AD seems to control it all, he also keeps the director up to date with time, schedule and if we need to move faster and that kind of thing. Occasionally I do go to the director or producer for directions, buts its basically always to the first AD. Previously I think I did know this, but didnt expect it at this level.

We had a decent 45minute break for tea and somehow I ended up having a good chat with the director and one or two other crew members. I also talked to the cast a little today. My opinion/view/perspective on actors has not changed ;) one of the crew members (the gaffer) told me that yesterday was his first day off in months. Wow. I heard later he charges $350-550 a day for shoots.

Right after tea I had to go purchase something from a shop, now I don't know the area at all. I took actually the directors car on the trip and ended up going the opposite direction on a street because I was never really given an instruction which way, was just told 'high street' then look for 'such and such'. So I spent at least 20minutes driving in the wrong direction. Anyway eventually got it and got back to the set nearing the end as it was anyway.

Surprisingly we wrapped when we were told it would end and we spent a few minutes securing a bit of equipment and then we began dispersing. Just like Friday's shoot we only really accomplished about 10 shots over the course of the whole day.

On the train home a chic offered me beer for some cigs.... Tomorrow we shoot at the same location at 8:00!
 
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Day 3 (Monday) - Runner / sound logging

Continued at the same location doing pretty similar things, although now I was running the card to the data wrangler every now and then when the 2nd AC was busy and I was free.

We used the dolly briefly as well for a slow move in for the first time on the project.

The DP tried some interesting camera tricks with the 19th century camera.
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When packing up we had a slightly awkward moment when one of the expensive antique clocks got dropped when packing up (I wasn't involved in the dropping) which the Director had spent a bit of money on and so she freaked out a bit.
 
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Day 4 (Tuesday) - Runner / sound logging / production design assist

Today's location was over an hour from where I was staying plus I had to pick up the hair & make up lady and the production design dude. So this meant a a 6:30am start for a 8am call time for days 4, 5 and 6. Because we only finished about 7/7.30ish each day I didn't get back to where I was staying until 8.30/9 each of these days.

Today I helped the production design guy a lot, so only did a little bit of sound logging. In an old shed behind an early 1900s house we wallpapered the walls and basically made a set where there was previously nothing. Wallpapering is now near the top of the list on the list of frustrating things to do!

This time unit was about a 100-200metres away from where we were shooting but through a garden and around a corner so I did a lot of running today, also running the cards a bit more.

Near the end of the day we started wallpapering another room, one that would need a lot of the room covered. We started it in the afternoon and after getting better double sided tape continued it Wednesday morning. It took over 3 hours to do.
 
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Day 5 (Wednesday) - - Runner / 2nd AC

This morning I had to pick up one of the actresses on the way. Unlike the other crew members I had picked up, we actually had a really decent chat in the car and so it wasn't an awkward trip to the location!

Today I got to 2nd AC :D Which for those that don't know involves marking actors, using the clapper board, moving about the camera and lenses, taking notes about the camera settings for each take and (not in this case because we were using digital) loading the film.

I was on my feet significantly more and always had to be ready for when we shot with the card number, scene, shot and take numbers updated on the slate. One slightly frustrating thing with doing this job now was that a lot of crew still kind of treated me as a runner (goto) which I still was but at times it meant that I had more than one instruction at once with both similar priorities which had to be done immediately in most cases.

One awkward (and supremely annoying moment) I had been sort of trapped in a room as the camera was set up in the doorway. I was in the room as I needed to be in front of the camera ready to clap it, but then everyone on the other side of the door had a few minutes food break. Unfortunately despite requesting food to be passed over the camera it didn't happen. Well in the end the camera wasn't needed directly in the doorway anyway and so I finally escaped and went to grab some food. Of course conveniently 2nd AC was then needed (I still don't even know what for, I think for a lens change that didn't even happen) right as I was getting food so when I appeared back I got in trouble from the 1st AC and 1st AD. It was kinda awkward and imo kinda unfair. At the end of the shoot the 1st AC said that was probably the only thing I needed to remember and work on for future films is that my food doesn't take priority (which it didn't really anyway...) This was probably my only negative experience on set.

On that note talking to the production designer and hair & makeup people when giving them a lift they said that it was quite a good crew to work with.
 
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Day 6 (Thursday, final day) - Runner / 2nd AC

In case you didn't notice, I wrote the second half of these posts throughout this morning, so there might be details of Wednesday/Thursday that are written on the wrong day, just a heads up if something I say is confusing..

(so this actually happened Wednesday). Today we had a minor on set, a young boy aged 9. Everything was going completely smoothly until we began to rehearse. I was up the back behind the camera and everything and the boy was acting weird, but I thought it had something to do with him actually acting. Obviously it escalated and he was shaking and rocking and a few of us are like 'nope this ain't' good so ran in and grabbed him before he fell over. He was kind of the process of fainting really. A combination of him eating only a small amount, being in stuffy period costumes and (worst of all) hearing that old houses were bad to breathe in and so he was trying not to breathe so hence fainting! We had to reschedule slightly but fortunately not rewrite anything as after a chat with his mum and a bit of a rest we were back doing the scene a bit later.

When taking off the wall paper today bits of random paint came off too! So I'm not particularly sure how it will be dealt with but obviously it was a problem, but not mine.

I continued ACing, finding out about tail slating, the difference between f stop and T stop and of course other random things.

Like now I know the whole order of turnover/speed/21-1-1/mark/clap/rolling/frame/action and other random terminology.

This morning when talking to the producer she said that I did really well and that she would definitely save my number, so that's some good news :)
 
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MileCreations said:
One slightly frustrating thing with doing this job now was that a lot of crew still kind of treated me as a runner (goto) which I still was but at times it meant that I had more than one instruction at once with both similar priorities which had to be done immediately in most cases.
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Communication should help this issue. i.e.: 'Hey, 1st AC, Production Designer's asked me to run and grab something. It'll probably take 10 minutes. Are you okay by yourself for 10 minutes or do you need me around?'
1st AC will reply with either 'nah man all good, do what you need to, I'm fine here' or 'well actually we've got a difficult move coming up in 5, so if you can wait til after that, that'd be great' which you would then tell the Production Designer 'hey, I need to help with this move in 5, but I can grab it after that'. He/she can then make the decision on whether she gets someone else to do it, or lets you do it in 5. That's how I'd approach it anyway.

One awkward (and supremely annoying moment) I had been sort of trapped in a room as the camera was set up in the doorway. I was in the room as I needed to be in front of the camera ready to clap it, but then everyone on the other side of the door had a few minutes food break. Unfortunately despite requesting food to be passed over the camera it didn't happen. Well in the end the camera wasn't needed directly in the doorway anyway and so I finally escaped and went to grab some food. Of course conveniently 2nd AC was then needed (I still don't even know what for, I think for a lens change that didn't even happen) right as I was getting food so when I appeared back I got in trouble from the 1st AC and 1st AD. It was kinda awkward and imo kinda unfair. At the end of the shoot the 1st AC said that was probably the only thing I needed to remember and work on for future films is that my food doesn't take priority (which it didn't really anyway...) This was probably my only negative experience on set.
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Hmm, I certainly wouldn't have berated you for it. They're right in that camera takes priority, but seems like they misread the situation.

MileCreations said:
I continued ACing, finding out about tail slating, the difference between f stop and T stop and of course other random things.

Like now I know the whole order of turnover/speed/21-1-1/mark/clap/rolling/frame/action and other random terminology.
Click to expand...
Did you do lens hand-offs? ;)
 
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jax_rox said:
Communication should help this issue. i.e.: 'Hey, 1st AC, Production Designer's asked me to run and grab something. It'll probably take 10 minutes. Are you okay by yourself for 10 minutes or do you need me around?'
1st AC will reply with either 'nah man all good, do what you need to, I'm fine here' or 'well actually we've got a difficult move coming up in 5, so if you can wait til after that, that'd be great' which you would then tell the Production Designer 'hey, I need to help with this move in 5, but I can grab it after that'. He/she can then make the decision on whether she gets someone else to do it, or lets you do it in 5. That's how I'd approach it anyway.


Hmm, I certainly wouldn't have berated you for it. They're right in that camera takes priority, but seems like they misread the situation.


Did you do lens hand-offs? ;)
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Yeah and I did figure that out and would end up asking the 1st AC if I was needed while I ran a card back, or did some other random job.

I also do completely understand how they could have viewed the situation, which is why it makes it frustrating. But it's certainly another learning thing I spose :)

If by hand offs you mean taking it out of the case and handing to the 1st AC and then taking the other lens and putting it in the case, then yes
 
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