I have spent the last year of my life working on the senior project of a school that I do not go to, nor have any inclination to go to. I did production design on a 30 minute film about a deaf mute boy that becomes a mime in the great depression. The whole script is just as contrived as that, and the directors are without a clear vision to get it done. The only reasons we got the funds to do it was the concept art and the shear ambition of the project, because the script is a shit sandwich.

So I put together the art, brought on an awesome wardrobe department, and stayed under my original budget. They cut my budget 3 times by several grand and on top of that made me construct a full size set that I hadn't planned on building with materials that are hard as fuck to find because of fire and snow. I had to pull some serious missions to get that thing put together. On top of that, the set ( a 40 foot long alley with a flea market and circus tent) had to be built in a sound stage that had an actual retarded stage manager: a cock-eye deaf bastard with the mentality of a policeman who would halt shooting every time he found a nail on the ground. The set, the wardrobe and my living expenses for 4 months came out to less than 10 grand just for the amount of work I put into this. The whole 30 minute project (shot on film) came out to less than 30 grand. That is fucking unheard of, and it is because of the work I put into this shit train.

So we were supposed to be done in November, but that got pushed back to December. Then we couldn't get the location we were going to use, so half the shoot got pushed back to last week. I was supposed to have a day to build and a day to strike my enormous set. I got a half day to build because the producers only rented one truck to get both the art department and the lighting to the sound stage. I warned them that this was a stupid idea. Because of this we had to do pick up shots at the warehouse I have been working out of since September. The one they ran out of rent for several days before the shoot. The one where they blew the power out. The one where they broke the toilet. Twice. The one that I was able to work a deal out to get us 3000 square feet for 400 bucks a month. The one that they haven't paid the electrical bill that they ran up with big fucking movie lights. The cold warehouse that I have had to sleep at because we shoot for 4 days straight in December. The one they think they can prance around in and step on the other tenants toes. That warehouse.

I missed an appointment with my attorney because of this shoot, and also have the need for one because of it. I got arrested for "resisting arrest" when the warehouse I was working in was raided by the police because "someone stole beer" (there is a whole thread on the subject that got locked because it was "too political". Basically the cops came into our spot because we had a fund raiser for an anarchist book fair. Stolen beer was their excuse, and we are bringing civil suit against the LAPD. I was just helping manage the space.)

So, because the producers only rented one truck we fell way behind schedule at the sound stage and we had to do pick up shots at the warehouse yesterday. They told me that I had a 5 am call time and that our first shot was off at 8 am. I got out of the most amazing bed in the world at 4:30 to get there at five.

The bed: It had a tempur-pedic mattress, red satin sheets, red satin pillows, the warmest most comfortable blankets known to man and a beautiful woman, tied up,naked and asleep. I was going to have a vegan personal chef make me breakfast. Instead I got 40 cent cream cheese taquitos at 7-11. Then, you know what happened? I had to wait around for four fucking hours because the production truck got there late and they meant to say that we had a 8 am call time. They told me that I should get to the set at 3 am and that call time was 5 for everyone else. Motherfuckers didn't show up until after 9. We didn't finish shooting until 2 am. I wasn't in a bed until 3. When I got to that bed I was in black face because they had me do stand in work. My skinny white ass had to fill up my gas tank in downtown Los Angeles at 2:45 in fucking black face. Lawdy lawd.

I only agreed to even do the pick up shots because it was explained to me that we would have minimal set ups. This turned into a massive shot list. To top it off, the camera jammed and we lost some of the coolest shots in the film. Shoots that took me hours to set up. When we were filming those scenes the camera department said "gee, that's a funny sound for the camera to be making!" I was about to turn off the power at the warehouse, but decided against it because of the good people on the shoot. I would not ruin it for them.

I was ready to fucking walk off the project before the tear down because those mother fuckers left me penniless, worked me to the fucking bone and gave me no fucking respect and I had all the photography of the set and costumes. To be honest, the film is going to suck enough for me to never want to even see it, but the photography is awesome enough to land me another job.

Now, my dilemma is this: Should I be pissed when I got the best deal out of all of people that worked on the project. Everyone that worked on it at the school had to put money into it, and I got to prop myself up while working on this. Also, it gave me the chance to do my own designs, which could pay off for me later. A lot of people would kill for that. I got to work with some really cool people, got some good photos out of the whole thing, and I did have a lot of fun working in pre-production. Perhaps I should have known that it would have come down to that amount of stress and bullshit because I was working for students. Given that, do I have the right to be pissed?

And sorry that I had to put it up in three posts, I have a nasty computer virus that crashes my browser when I post something too long.

chalk it up to a learning experience.
that's the best you can do, mang.

if you think about it too long, you're going to get really pissed off and load something semi-automatic and noisy over it.

Hahaha man when can i take you out for some drinks? Thats some serious shit. I too have a TempurPedic king matress. People almost die for making me get out of it.

Welcome to show business. Chalk it up to experience, Brother.

I've decided that I am not really pissed about it, but I do still want to break into the directors house to put the shat in boots in his freezer.

That's an epic story. Sucks, but it's definitely a learning experience and you can always tell other people, yeah, I did such and such, and such and such; and such and such happened, and such and such...

Ya know?

Posted by Sinister Crayon That's an epic story. Sucks, but it's definitely a learning experience and you can always tell other people, yeah, I did such and such, and such and such; and such and such happened, and such and such... Ya know?

You have no clue how many of those he has. A book could be written, but the only missing ingredient is time(I made a pun).

yeah, at least some good photos came out of it.