The Art of Triage in Film Making

One of the cruel realities of a director’s life is this: you cannot go on shooting forever. Much though you and your pals would like to  play in the sand box all night, the shutters must come down at some point, and when they do, regardless of unexpected disasters, delays, and assorted impediments, you had better come away with all the shots you need. If you fail to do this - in episodic for instance - you get sent to movie jail. The unemployment line. I remember one very good Canadian director being struck off a big company’s list because he shot 3 hours past the time he was meant to hand the crew over to the next episode’s director. The Quick or The Dead.

Glove Love. Corrupt cop Kevin kills crack head hooker but all round nice person Chalet Nechtman. We staged the murder solely from the victim’s point of view.

A crisis late in the last shooting day can be particularly challenging. Last Sunday was the final night of our Webisode pilot FUSION, a sci-fi police procedural, in which two characters concealing their different super powers have to decide whether the other is friend or foe. Technical issues were slowing us down - like how to keep transferring what we had shot onto hard drive while juggling only two cards, one long, one short. ( I hate computers. And they hate me right back)

” Just resting!”  Actress Chalet Nechtman gives an intense, complex, multi-layered performance in the morgue scene.

The building staff in our location, level 4 of an underground car park, could not have been more cooperative. But we had to be out by midnight. Then at 9.10 we learn that car park lights, which we support with our own lights, are on a timer, and go out at 10 pm.  Or maybe it’s half power at 10.30. Or is it 10.45? The man who knows is away from his cell phone, understandable on a Sunday night.

It’s the waiting that kills you… Actress Julianna Robinson ( Wasting Away, McBride) patient as ever between takes.
On a micro budget shoot it is mission critical to make your day, particularly the last day, and there is still much to shoot. This is a Sword of Damocles moment for any director. Changing circumstance force you to triage your intended staging down to the essentials, guesstimating what can be achieved in the remaining time. Worst case scenario -  50 minutes left to cover all story points necessary to complete the scene. Best case, 95 minutes. So, the plan becomes: shoot the spine of what’s needed before 9.58, then do a shot that fills in the most important hole. You might get lucky. If the lights are not out by 10.05, it a safe bet that you will be lit till 10.30 at least. Fill in more holes till then. 10.32, and still got light? Go like hell to grab all the grace notes you wanted for the scene.

Take that you brute! Then do it again on a tighter lens.

It’s one thing for a director to strategize, but unless the cast and crew are hyper-focused and you all leap frog from shot to shot as one many legged beast, you are not going to make it. But this team were at the top of their game. Consequently we charged through complimentary coverage wide, tight ,and low from each side of the axis,  shooting the last insert at 10: 41. The lights went to half power 4 minutes later.

“It’s just a rash..” explains actor Dennis Pratt, who plays evil Doctor Thornhill.

Watching the shot (7) from the far right ( though not politically) is our prime mover, writer/producer/generalissimo Richard Manning ( Star Trek, Farscape, Sliders, etc.)
The crisis was over, or so it seemed. We still had more essential shots to do outside, where street lamps would give our hi-def camera the luminance it needed without additional lighting. Chris Cleveland chasing Julianna Robinson through back alleys. Julianna finding a place to hide. Chris reaching the street. She is nowhere in sight. Voice over conveys both their thoughts. Without these shots, there is no cliff hanger ending to the story, the springboard for future episodes. At such times, Murphy’s Law generally makes an appearance. If it can go wrong, it will. And remember O’Toole’s corollary to Murphy’s Law: “ Murphy was an optimist!“

So, what happens? Chris pulls a muscle on the second shot. Very painful to keep on running but he does, shot after shot. Then the camera dies. Dead battery. We’ve been getting through them. All the spares are dead too. No time to recharge because the building is about to close. On big productions I’ve see wailing and gnashing of teeth break out at this juncture, not to mention finger pointing. But not this team. They are in The Zone. So producer Teri Bolke and camera dude Paul Olson somehow rig her cell phone charger from the cigarette lighter of her SUV to the camera, and we are back in business. Wherever the camera goes up and down the back alleys, its huge power source rumbles along with it. And we get the last shot.
3 minutes before midnight. We are out of the building on time.

The Big Brass Balls Medal of the shoot goes to Chris Cleveland ( The Prestige) for enduring so much physical pain while maintaining the same energy level for 15 hours.

And a word of praise for our sound maven Ronnie Ersenbauch. Generally sound departments contain one cup-half-empty guy. Either the recordist, cable guy or boom swinger is a grumbler. ( Sound departments will now hate me for expressing this common director’s complaint. My next project may well be a silent movie.) But Ronnie, doing all three jobs, never uttered a word - other than “Speed!” Nor did the boom ever venture into the shot. Not once. The whole crew in every department were fantastic.

FUSION is being made for Strike TV which is an on-line fundraiser for the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund - a charity which is assisting non-Writers Guild members, including IATSE, Teamsters, and other below-the-line crew members affected by the recent Writers Guild strike, and the general production slowdown in anticipation of the possible SAG strike. It’s good to be part of something worthwhile, and it’s great to have so much fun doing it. I’ll tell you when it’s on.

StrikeTV charity:

“Recently, the Industry Support Fund closed, but we’re still making good on our promise to help out our below-the-line colleagues affected by the strike and labor unrest.  In the continuing spirit of solidarity, we are donating the first three months of advertising revenue from Strike.TV projects to the Entertainment Assistance Program of The Actors Fund, which assists film and television crew members affected by the work stoppage.  In a typical year, the Entertainment Assistance Program gives out around $200,000.  Since the writers strike, and with the tenuous ongoing negotiations between SAG and the AMPTP, this year the EAP has distributed over $1.3 million to below the line industry professionals in need.”

In answer to Joe Movick’s comment -

Our crew structure required a degree of multi tasking.  So, don’t load too much responsibility on any one crew member. Make everybody aware that the entire unit is available to help him/her when needed. Create an atmosphere devoid of guilt or blame. We all make mistakes. ( Even me.) As long as the mistake is communicated early enough, it can be fixed. Maintain the communal joy in the process. It’s a fuel additive.

We had no grip/electric trucks, because we devised a way to organize the shoot without them. A crew of three handled all requirements of camera and lighting. Myself, in conjunction with the writer/producer, and the actors, handled continuity, and so on. As these productions get more complex, obviously we will need more people. Remember, Ingmar Bergman made most of his early films with the same crew of 18. The carrot is more effective than the whip. Feed the underpaid as well as you can. It means a lot. No director should think that treating a crew like slaves will benefit him. The Ad line for GHOULIES says it all: ” they’ll get you in the end..!”