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Films are hard work ... 6/13/2005 10:08:22 AM
I spent 3 of the past 4 days filming "The Crawl", my half-hour crime drama. Never let anyone suggest that making films is easy. We easily spent 30 hours hauling equipment, moving rocks, moving lights, crawling through dirt, sweating, contorting and trying to catch our breath. The fight scene was up close and brutal. There were a lot of funny moments, but we had to stay focused for day after day, making sure as many details as possible were covered.
As writer/producer/director, I had some comical moments where I was juggling so much stuff I thought my eyes might pop out. Lighting questions, acting questions, questions about the underlying story, tracking which scenes were shot, merging or splitting scenes based on the demands of the moment, scheduling issues, locating people. And if we were short on crew at any moment, I'd do the boom or slate or help with lights, throw down the exercise mats, block out the fight moves, or anything else. Whatever needed to be done. On a few shots I'd have to throw a slate in there, get the boom mike into place, say the lines for characters who were off screen (for timing), and keep an eye on the performances -- even the tiny things, like eyes going in the wrong direction, or a dropped syllable, and it's back to one ... all over again.
It's wild, but there's nothing else like it. Everything has been coming out larger than life. This one is going to be special.
We hope to shoot all the remaining scenes on one more day, probably the 4th of July.
