A Savaege Blog?

Filmmaking is great isn’t it? All the glamour, money and fame… yeah if you’re an A list filmmaker maybe. Truth is, it’s very hard work with little or none of the above. If it’s the fame, glamour and money you’re after then I’d suggest a different career, perhaps enter Big Brother or something.

I’ve seen it with several people who I went to college with, yes they may have been very much into film but just didn’t realise what it was all about.  Long hours, weeks with no days off and often working for free. Why? For the love of it, for the hope that when you get the rushes back that you have something special.

On set you’re most lightly going to be very busy or not busy but have to wait and wait and wait until you’re needed. Two shorts I was in the lighting crew last year were like that. In one we set up the lights for a scene and then went off and had a cup of coffee and read the paper. We might get a call to tweak a light a bit, and then we’d go away again and have another cup of coffee. It can get boring at times, you’re well away from the shooting but close enough that you have to be quiet. Then an hour or two later you might get to light the next scene.

In another shoot it was the complete opposite. We’d set up the lights in one scene and then go off and light the next. Once the first scene was shot we’d go back there take down the lights and go off and set up the next scene (we were lucking to have enough lights to do this).

We only got about five minutes at lunch for a quick cupa and we were off again to be ready for when the rest of the crew were finished.

When shooting finished then we’d be the last to leave because we’d have to take down all the lights, wait for them to cool before putting them away.

I enjoyed the latter the most without a doubt.