Crew Stories

 I love a great crew story.

I'm on a page now that has all the people who work on production that get to talk about their experiences. It's great because they all have stories that we, who worked in production, could relate.

I remember asking a friend when he came back from his shoot about his experiences shooting his film. He looked at me blankly..."it was great!"

That was it.

A few months later, the stories came out. But it took a while and I wonder about that.

I think this generation sort of...I dunno, thinks they're on the hotseat when it comes to pretending production is fun. It's not suppose to be. It's chaos and garbage and a lot of moving parts that never work. Imagine being on a boat and you bring up the anchor, and the engine dies, and then you fix the engine and there's a leak.

THAT is making movies.

And, for the most part, if you have the budget and time, there is little panic (or if you work on a union film). Because, we aren't curing cancer. And it's not life or death. Maybe if the producer is in with mafia...then maybe (which I've suspected a few shoots I've been on have been).

But I never understood the tight lipped nature of some people not to share their war stories. I suppose it could be the "don't kiss and tell" bullshit. But telling experiences of film shoots (good or bad) is the backbone of why we do it. And to learn from it.

In the example I mentioned above, and some of the stories I eventually was told, I learned a few lessons.

If you're stubborn, you probably wouldn't take many of it as cautionary tales. Also, it does weed out the serious people versus the not so serious people.

You will re-define your place a lot in the movie business, if you decide to pursue it.

A lot of people will fight it. Pretend like it's all roses. You're morons.

A few of you probably wonder why I'm still in it if I hate it so much.

If you paid attention, here's why...

I'm not in it. I work for it, and do my own thing. So fuck you.

A lot of people who do attempt to work in it, want to work for people who have the power, money and leverage to make something a ton of people will watch. And most of what I say will fall on deaf ears. A kid I'm mentoring now (I say kid, when they're 24, which is a kid in movie world) believes and hopes he gets someone to fund his projects. He's extremely talented and wholeheartedly believes he gets the chance. Reality? Probably not. As good as his film may be and as much effort as he puts in them...he may go invisible. And then the excuses come out. "They don't hire young White men" "I need the right people to see it..." etc...

This may be true, but it's not reality.

Reality is you will more than likely not get your chance to make the movie you want. NOT because you aren't good because there are a lot of people who also know a lot of people that are also ignored.

It's not your fault.

The only thing is your fault, is your attitude.

Instead of resenting Hollywood...do something for yourself. It doesn't have to go through them. The stories you tell between friends are a reminder that industry work is a shit show.

Keep pretending you deserve what you work for, make up lies about how much "fun" it is and see how far that goes.

The truth...enjoy what YOU are doing. And have a laugh at the ridiculousness of the biz.