Chapter Four - A Drunk A.D and A Slowly Swelling Eye
An assistant director's duties include tracking the progress of filming versus the production schedule, and preparing call sheets. A First Assistant Director is responsible for the preparation of the shooting schedule and script breakdown used to plan the shooting of a film or television show. The AD works directly with the Director to manage of the minute to minute operations on the set during the process of filming, as well as co-ordinating the necessary communication of details of future operations as the filming progresses. Other duties include tracking the progress of filming versus the production schedule, observing all rules related to union crafts, labor contracts and location agreements, maintaining safety on the working set, and working with the Unit Manager to keep operational costs within the budgeted plan. A Second Assistant Director is responsible for information distribution and reporting, cast notification and preparations during the shooting process, recording of all data relative to the working hours of the crew and cast, management of the background cast (atmosphere or "extras"), preparation of call sheets, production reports,and other documentation. When needed, the Second Assistant Director can assume the duties of the First Assistant Director on a temporary basis.
-Source IMDB Glossary
On a No- Budget Guerilla Film, the First AD does both jobs......
Drugs on movie sets have been around as long as the slate and production board have. I mean even on big and organized high budget films you are working 13 to 14 hour days. It’s hard work. It’s not glamorous like you think, even for the actors. Even at its smoothest it is constant problem solving, stress and work so uppers/downers are quietly accepted whether it’s your prescription or not. I am not speaking from experience on big sets. I’m just assuming. On independent and guerilla film sets this epidemic is rampant. That I know from experience. I myself am infamous for securing a bottle of Adderall from my doctor 72 hours before a shoot begins on a film I’ve done. On the Jeopardy set we practically put a bottle of Adderall on the craft service table with a sign on it, “WHEN IN DOUBT. EAT THESE.” Mild medications have never bothered me. Most of my good friends are functional potheads. In fact, if they don’t smoke they are not as functional so even a little ganja on lunch break for the crew if needed is OK, as long as it only betters your attention to detail. Alcohol.... NO. Quite simply no. There is no place for alcohol on a movie set. Sure, keep it cold and as soon we wrap, bang them down, but drinking beer on a hot set is an absolute no, no. The A.D for this production was the A.D on Jeopardy. ) On Jeopardy, he drank from the minute we started shooting ‘til we put my partner on a plane in Charlotte bound back to LA. I let it slide that time. He had kind of just been thrown into this duty without having any idea how to do it. Once Jeopardy started shooting it never really stopped. In four days, I slept three hours if that tells you anything. He also didn’t have to worry about keeping up with cast or any of the other duties of an AD because I had already done them ahead of time. What he did do is take care of the little things like make sure everybody was doing something, made sure dinner got to the set on time and when we needed anything that fell through the cracks, he was our guy and did a damn good job at it. The Director from this film was my DP’s, camera assist and noticed how smooth the production went and how hard he worked and ignored the beer thing, hiring him on the spot for Bad A$$ Killers, (this production.) To give him the benefit of the doubt, he also came up with a last minute prop, a suitcase that ultimately saved the film from having a crappier ending than it already had. He is a creative person who was and is great at problem solving and last minute fixes that ultimately became the best things a production could have. Was he ready to be A.D for a feature film? No. Did I ignore that during his pre-production work? Yes. Did I say, the alcohol had to be non-existent or very minimal during this shoot? Yes. Why? Not because I thought it would ultimately effect my job or his from past experience, but because, the crew of Jeopardy began “having a hard time taking orders from a slurring guy running around with a clipboard he never used.” This shoot was a professional shoot. Where as Jeopardy’s cast and crew were all film friends of mine, BAK was all cast and crewed with people I had never worked with. The cast and some of the crew were professionals and an AD drinking beer throughout would reflect a sense of chaotic, neglect of our own product which was the exact opposite of how I wanted to be taken on this one. This one for me was going to be a “no mistakes, no bullshit” kind of shoot and I was planning to inspire everybody on that set to think the way I do about it, because again, it was “My Last Hooray.”
Day 1 - Jeopardy Shoot
If you ask my wife, I am the biggest space cadet and unorganized person in the world. I can’t for the life of me put my keys in the same place everyday to keep from losing them. I can’t remember to cut the stove off and always break my own rule of leaving wet clothes in the washer. I’m a mess. My bill and paper desk is always a mess and my nightstand looks like a back corner of an out of business accountant’s office.... BUT when it comes to film production, my gear, and anything related to this subject, I’m the most anal guy in the world. Everything has to be in its exact place. If a lens cap goes missing, the production stops. If a light isn’t being used it needs to be back in the case. If both of the computers are out, the Dumping Station and The Edit Bay, the white power chords need to be neatly placed not crossing each other or hanging off a table because if somebody’s belt would brush by the table and snag the hanging chord, it could pull not one computer off the table but both if the chords were tangled. This I know from experience. I saw this happen. I witnessed an actor with one of those big biker belt buckles lean over a table to get a light for his smoke, (which he shouldn’t be doing over computers anyway,) and then get called back into the set by the Director. He quickly turned around with the chord of the Powerbook G4 snug between his gut and the belt. Two computers and an external full of two days worth of footage crashed to the hard concrete. The external never recovered from the fall and the production went a week behind because they had to fix the computer and then reshoot all the footage that was lost. Not being organized on a film set is a recipe for disaster that can put you too far behind to recoup or worse put you out of business. So when it’s Game Time, all my space cadet, cloudy brain synapses run for the hills and my left brain full of OCD cancer kicks in and if the crew does not want to make my policy underconsideration, then I become a very, very angered, drill sergeant kind of guy. Day 3 would mark the day my attitude and niceness would change for the worse never fully returning to the other light hearted fun filled guy for the remainder of the two weeks.
Cooking in the Basement trying to find any angle left to shoot even if it meant standing on my head.
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