7/15/2008

Public Notice - Don't Fuck with Me While I'm Making my Movie

With the plethora of media production in the US, odds are that you will come across an active location shoot at some point in your life. Here are some tips for when that happens.

1. Don't stop anyone who is in the middle of a task to ask what it is that's being shot. They're working. They have something to accomplish other than accommodating your curiosity.

2. If a PA tells you to hold on a minute, to go around the block or to not look at the camera, do as they ask. Best case scenario, you end up in the movie in some small way. Worst case scenario ...

3. Do NOT, ever, for any reason, honk your horn or cat call at the production. This is doubly true if we're shooting on your block or somehow inconviencing you. Extraneous noise corrupts the audio recording and distracts the actors and thus guarentees that we have to do more takes. Ergo, if you make a ruckus, we will be there longer than we otherwise would have been.

4. Do not ask if you can be in the movie. Only one or two people on set are empowered to decide such things and they're not going to stop to talk to interlopers. Besides, no one who couldn't be a playboy centerfold has ever gotten into a movie that way.

5. Above all, remember that the people shooting this film are, at that very moment, at work. They are feeding their children, paying their rent, earning their paycheck. Movie business or not, they probably have a job that is as desultory and as aggravating as you. You don't need someone fucking with you while you're on the job and neither do we.

You have been thusly enlightened.

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