Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?

Posted on January 6, 2009

There’s a classic practical joke seasoned crew members will play on green freshmen grips and PA’s. You simply look them in the eye, place you arm around their shoulder, wing them on in close and say earnestly, “Go to the truck and get me that box of f-stops.”

I was fortunate enough not be suckered into such social pitfalls. But, I was sent on numerous fool’s errands.

But that’s all in good fun and doesn’t misappropriate valuable production resources and time.

What surprises me is all of the unintentional dead ends that a production can run into.

In Chicago, I spent all morning on the phone, internet, and email tracking down images from the graphics department back in Texas and finding a local print shop to make labels for our mic flags. After interrupting the graphics department’s work to find and adapt, and approve, and email the files, the director decided we were out of time to go to the print shop. We had ordered the labels, we just stood the print shop up. You hardly ever saw the mic in out man on the street segments.

I can’t imagine the number of times I’ve set up camera, management courtesy seats and shade, camera assist, dolly with track, jib arm, and grip, light, or camara department headquarters only to be told (just after unpacking) that the location was wrong. The shot doesn’t have enough coverage. Management isn’t viewing this shot.

I spent three days of pre-production time to build and packed a co2 and oil smoke and propane flame sfx kit for a shoot. It was never used.

When I used to AC eng 16mm shoots I was constantly without the gear the director needed. Short sticks, tall sticks, lens hood, wide angle lens, matte box, filters, doublers, diopters, the fourth magazine, change tent, batteries, etc. Most of these locations wouldn’t allow us a HQ in close proximity. I would always have to run down several flights of stairs and across many city blocks back to the van to get the demanded item. By the time I got back, they had always completed the shot, deemed it unnecessary or stupid and abandoned it, or improvised a MacGyver solution. Later, when I attempted to carry all necessary accessories, or cart them around on the magliner, I was the slow one in the party who everyone was pissed off at, or I put out my back, knees, or ankles.

For video tele-conference meetings we would host for bi-coastal audio recording session, I was asked to spend a couple hundred dollars on craft services to impress the clients (even though the were in house members of our company.) They didn’t touch a morsel.

For satellite broadcasts, we’d set up line of site teleprompters that crowded the set and none of the talent would use.

The fool’s errand. I was sent on so many that I swore that one day, when I became a director, I would never…

That’s the promise every kid makes to themselves: not to be as bad a parent as theirs was.

Well, that’s exactly what happened.

I managed to get us out the door and setup on location. We had successfully left early enough to avoid traffic and had camera, dolly, lights, hq, sound, script, and craft services all setup. In a few more minutes, we’d take advantage of the dawn golden hour. The perfect start to a productive day.

But, I had the outrageously stupid idea that I would provide my script notes and continuity personnel with a wireless monitor. I had it all arranged: plenty of charged batteries for the eng monitor to run all day, a 2.4 GHz transmitter for the camera, the counterpart receiver for the monitor, and plenty of batteries for the transceiver kit to work all day. What I forgot was the BNC composite to RCA composite barrel adapter. That, combined with the wireless TC clipboard (yes, I had plenty of batteries for the transmitter and receiver) would make the job pristine and accurate.

We had already set up, it was too much trouble to pack up and return to the studio. Home base was only about a mile away. So, I sent my DP and Script notes back to the studio to dig up two adapters.

It doesn’t matter that the engineers decided to be obstinate and feign ignorance over the location of the reserve stock they stored. It doesn’t matter that the freelancers I’d hired wouldn’t know where to look in equipment storage. It was my fault for sending them on a useless fool’s errand. We lost the dawn golden hour and the following hour for setting up the next shot. Script didn’t need a monitor, had never used one. It wasn’t necessary.

But, in the heat of the moment I had panicked. I was dedicated with full blinders to a weak and vain idea. Vapor-locked in the brain, I plunged on heedlessly into a stubborn solution that was fruitless. I had committed the sin of myopic inflexibility and it cost me dearly. It was a most valuable lesson.

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