Whipped Like a Rented Mule
Posted on March 3, 2009
Seven years ago, I was shocked to realize that the DP I was AC’ing for was getting paid ten times as much as me. The director would only work with him, they were old friends. They enjoyed the herb on location.
I first began to become irritated when he would ask me technical questions about the equipment. Really? Come on, he had been working with that ARRI camera for over 20 yrs. He kept asking me the same questions about it.
Furthermore, he was growing myopic in his middle age. He had the worst habit of trying to set focus for the shot, even though it was my job, as AC, to measure it off. He wouldn’t tell me that he was doing this. Since he couldn’t see well enough to judge focus at the shot’s current exposure, he kept breaking the gaff tape seal I had placed on the exposure ring. Then he would open up the iris all the way to let in enough light for him to judge focus. Of course, he wouldn’t reset the iris ring back to the f-stop we were shooting at (yet he would close the light valve on the eyepiece?) I didn’t notice it for a while because hewould do this intermittently. I would eventually notice it when I slated the scene and quietly reset it, hoping no one saw me near the lens. (I didn’t report it to the AD or Script because we had several more takes left in the setup, the over-exposed takes weren’t going to be used anyway. For some reason we were rolling on action that hadn’t been fully rehearsed. So, all of the final, good takes were properly exposed.) But, when I would see the gaff tape dangling off the lens I would mentally panic and berate myself for not keeping the camera under my control. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that it couldn’t have happened by accident. I was just so busy. But, this practice eventually resulted in an entire sequence, an entire setup was two stops over exposed. Sure, we were working with Kodaks’s new 400 speed stock with denser grain, but we hadn’t tested it for those circumstances. Everyone had had previous experience with overexposed fast stock, so we weren’t going to trust it. We had to re-shoot that scene the next day.
One day we were on the other side of the state on a music video shoot. This was a job which was a favor for the director, I was working for half pay, so that time this DP was getting 20 times what was (and I was both 1st, 2nd, slate, focus-puller, video assist, and loader… for two cameras… 35mm! those 400′ rolls at 48fps ran out every two minutes!) So, he asks me for the 85, I brought him a yellow filter, he bit my head off. Literally yelled at me in front of the crew, “No! The 85mm lens!”
That day they all sat around smoking a box of cigars someone had brought. The biggest insult came when I went to get a new battery for the steady cam op. A lit cigar stub had been left behind the charger, right where I placed my hand to support my weight as I leaned down to harvest the battery. My entire weight, plus tool belt (since I allways operated as swing between electric, grip, and camera department, my belt had three times as much gear as other crew memebrs), plus magazine, and slate. I couldn’t get off the cigar quickly. The blister an was immediately the size if a dime. An hour later, it was as big as a silver dollar. I had to pop it then and cut it off in order to keep working.
While I was doctoring myself, they were all yelling for me (aloud and over the walkies) to get back.
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