Over the years a lot of this project was also planned (e.g. some of the upper staff crew & a couple of actors that he knew personally), a location which was his parents vacation house with 5 rooms & 2 kitchens and one of the most important part of a feature project: budget. He was willing to spend $10.000.00 & shoot on HDV. This sounds pretty good at this point.

Then we talked about working on projects & our experience in media. He said something that many filmmakers say: that the people he had were not good, lacked experienced or they were fighting against him. Well, there is a lot of truth in that. Even I experience it many times, however, if this happens, you go to be on top of it. I mean, yeah, try to talk your way into getting a more cooperative situation. If not, then you may have to be (I hate to say it) a dictator. If its not working & you did what you could do, then drop it altogether. They often called this sanario – creative difference. In the end, if you’re the director, or any of the head creative or other wise staff responsible for the project: its their movie. And they make the final decisions. As much as if you have a movie you want to direct, the same goes for you - vice versa. I’m not saying you can’t get ideas, suggestions form others in order to make the movie better (or in the expression: push the material) as long as it fits with the story & if its good or even better than the current idea –  then, hell yeah, I go for that. So, in other words you gotta direct.

Which leads to this point, that most people get into a habit of doing this: blaming (I bring that up in detail some other time). I really don’t understand why people do this. Many times, the person to blame is the director/producer themselves. Also, they don’t see their own mistakes, which is the worst part. Just as bad, if they don’t like what they are getting or not understanding what the reality of  common sense is, you’ll definitely feel there wrath.

This unjustified blaming is also from: lack of communication. If you can’t tell your ideas clearly - then everyone’s in the dark. Good directors/producers (in terms of people who get there work finished, not their movies per se), can tell their cast & staff what they have in mind & what they want to do. Weather as a shooting scrīpt, storyboards, shot lists or any of the combinations I mentioned. Miscommunication is common, so you can’t really blame others for your own mistakes. By doing this, the director is actually directing.

Finally to this point, the fact is that some people are just not good at making or doing – things (driving, sports, singing, drawing, playing music, writing stories, acting – even making movies). It takes a kind of sense, an artistic one for that matter, to actually have a idea in a visual means, for artists its called vision. Lack of it leads to people just copying/ripping off others. Despite this fact I can’t (or really anyone) can prove what is good art from bad – it’s a personal preference & that also states that a movie can’t guarantee a huge success (in terms of making any money) & many movies fail, not just because their bad (yes there some really crap films out there, but good ones fail just as hard), just people are not interested in seeing or don’t buy the idea for whatever reason. But because of this fact, I understand why many studios don’t like to take investments in many projects, yet its about the risk. The media industry is a big gamble, & if you’re not willing to handle that – then this is definitely not your kind of thing.

About this Oakland shoot, after he explained his experiences on earlier projects that he made. I asked if I could see them, he hesitated at first, then show showed me warning me that they were very bad because that the “actors can’t act” or “I didn’t have a kick-ass DP” or some stupid shit like that. Regardless of any kind of “pro” or kick-ass type of people/artists, if you can’t guide them, then you’ll still end up with trash. On the studio level, they have to get more people involved, get test screenings & more tests to try to figure out weather audiences buy it or not. This can be very expensive. Often times if a director has an artistic conflict within themselves & can’t get pass the first dozen or so cuts, the studios take over.

As for his previous efforts – yeah, he’s right, its all crap. But I see why. At the time, I though I should bail, but I though the story had a good chance, & when skimming through the scrīpt again – I decided to that risk. I told him I was willing to back him up, but he needed a good pre-production time (which in the past, he didn’t have or bother to make up). With that I did was line production, storyboards (with him, that shit was very tough, but managed to finish), shot-lists, location scouting, optical testing, shopping for supplies & equipment, hell, even some casting. For the production, I was to be 1^st assistant director & some production assistance here & there. The planned shoot was for 4 weeks.

At that point everything seemed really cool. We were all set. Like I said earlier, most of his upper staff (camera man, 2^nd & 3^rd assistant director, scrīpt supervisor, assistant camera, ser photographer, most of the main cast) were people he knew before. I live in Los Angeles & this shoot was in northern California, Oakland. Also, I had to cut my work for this, but I had some confidence in this piece.

Unfortunately, on the first day of the shoot, things went down hill. Remember I mentioned that the director makes the final call. Well, he did but, he had no control of the set.  The main camera man didn’t like the story boards & felt to would not work. (damn, I wise I could show my work) the director liked & agree with the cuts being shown, but he threw them out with out even questioning his friend. I made a stand, but the director wanted to back his friend because he was his “home boy from way back”. Worst yet, I never got a long with his home boy because of his poor decisions of his shots & lack of understanding of composition of scenes. You might say, o.k., what’s the deal, you can shoot whatever. Yeah, you can, thats if you have a idea on what you want to shoot. However, the biggest point & mistake was the story boards were made fairly tight & they were the root of the film visually, a visual blueprint of the movie. If you toss them out, its like taking a card from the bottom of the stack that makes up the card castle – everything falls apart. While you can improvise, it may ever end because you or in any matter the crew have no clear direction on to where everyone’s going. Quite a few people do get their stuff done without using a storyboard or shot list, but try to understand, on a stylistic level: you have set up scenes to make them stand out (regardless of the genre) unless you are looking for a obvious T.V. soap opera or music video type look.  So, understanding images to give them some dynamics is something most people don’t see - but its there. Also the shot list was meaningless & the cameraman was confused as to where to go. (it was not until much later that he made a grip of basic mistakes, especially in continuity, but that being said, you can’t blame the scrīpt supervisor because he was confused as to where to go or what connected the pervious shots a few days earlier since the camera man kept improvising).

I mention about the use of storyboards, it’s a good portion of the problem. Overall, it’s the director’s lack of making a final decision as well as taking some risks based on simple common sense. Instead of giving up his whole project to his homeboy, he should have made a stand & dictated what he wanted. Again, common sense comes into play, you have all these plans to make a feature with a couple of hundred cuts & a 110 page scrīpt with a list, but for some retarded reason, you dump the whole thing & decide to stick what’s on the scrīpt only. Then supposedly build up the movie – without a clue on what to do or where to begin, and expect hat everyone should know automatically.

Confusion is sometimes common on a set where there are many scenes & from the fact there are a couple of hundred cuts, after all it’s a feature, not a 10 – 15 min. short. But as long as there is the plan to work from it should guide the whole production without bumping heads.

From the next 3 weeks, the shoot began to fall apart & even his own friends were going against him. The actors began to go to some other place by re-improvising stuff & most of the crew couldn’t do anything. They were stuck. I even got into a little confrontation with the cameraman around that time. This was all stupid. At this point I didn’t even know what was going on either. Because of all of this confusion & arguing about the shoot, it went over budget, & it lasted for almost a total of 6 weeks with the end cost of $30.000.00. Honestly, I wanted to bail, but I signed that contract & got stuck – so did everybody else.

One of the many reasons for the budget hike was the fact me & others involved had day jobs to cover our expenses of missed work, at least I got paid $1500.00 for my pain & suffering. 

Still, somewhere between the 3^rd & 4^th week, there were a few cast & crew members that  left due to other commitments & commercial work being done at the same time back in L.A., because of that, the director could not do anything about it.

The project did wrapped, but the final product is something completely different from what was planned. After looking at the 80 hrs plus footage – it was déjà vu all over again. At the same time, the director stated to point figures at everybody, insisting that they weren’t professionals & he needed a union staff & actors & about a million dollars. He soon jumped on my back; instead I fired back with the truth as I told all of you. He really couldn’t say anything. After a moment of silence, he asked me if I wanted to make to movie correct – as planned. I basically said – NO. Because the plans are already here, they are fine, & you just can’t direct for shit. As simple as that. From that point it was time to go back to Los Angeles. Later on after that, I check my e-mail & this guy was insisting that he can learn from his mistakes (uh, sure he will) & was willing to pay for the crew help based on the pre pro that we worked on earlier. I wrote back saying, that I think the story holds out well, but you need to learn or at least understand basic film mechanics, make a few more shorts for practice. When you are done, then show me what you shot & at that point I make up my mind if I want to return. However, until this is ever done – you can forget it. I’m just tired from all that bull shit & I could have done better things during that time.

Well ladies & gentlemen that was my story up in Oakland. Yes, I admit its not a happy one, yet it’s a very common one & something to learn from. There some people who may never get to experience this – they are very lucky. But this is the part of working in media, and the chaos that usually is associated with. And one of the many reasons why this industry is kinda jacked up. Despite this, I have other projects to work on – one at the moment to honest. So, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for that one in hopes it would lead to bigger things.