Workin' Man

The posting has been light (i.e. non-existent) since last week, and I am truly sorry about forgetting Friday Batman. Good people, the wait has been worth it because there are many posts a-comin' of substance and interest. The Free-Lancer has been busy, with a new PSA in the can, a fashion show wrapped up, and now a forth coming stint on Style network's "Clean House." Each episode deserves a post, and each will be elaborated on in good time. There is also a story I plan to write about the panther we were
dealing with at my family's farm down in Florida last weekend.

First, the Public Service Announcement. It is finished, and I would show it to you here, but we are actually in the process of "renegotiating our contract" to put it lightly. You can check the rough cut out on my Facebook.
Anyway, Andrew Tucciarone of Whistle Peak productions managed to secure us a gig producing an anti-sex trafficking PSA for a non-Profit here in Atlanta that is spearheading a campaign for social justice regarding the issue. I wrote the script for the piece a few weeks ago, and we went out and did some test shoots to get the "look" (which I reported on HERE.) After a short week of whirlwind casting, we dug up three very talented, very beautiful young actresses and one equally talented young actor/choreographer who, after filming with us, left to be one of the chief dancers for some R&B singer (I forget who.) With our four principles in place we scheduled the shoot for last Thursday and started things promptly at 5:30. By six our first girl hadn't shown. By seven we still had no word from her and it seemed pretty clear that she had bailed. She was Vietnamese, apparently spoke very poor English, and either figured she'd rather sleep in or she doesn't own a clock. In any event, we were all reminded why we went to war with Vietnam--because they're never on time.

We had a friend lone us his Red One camera to shoot on, every body set and ready, and no one to shoot. A few frantic phone calls later we managed to get a replacement actress for later in the day and bump up the call time for our actor, Victor. The rest of the day's shooting when pretty smoothly, though we did run into a few camera related snaffus (the Red can be tricky being cutting edge tech and all.) Andrew ran away from the shoot a few times to change diapers, and I had a propensity for making our talent laugh which--though entertaining--proved counter productive when one of actresses turned out to be method. She was great though, bringing the tears and everything.


Our last scene we shot was on the corner of Peachtree and North Ave in the heart of midtown at night. Needless to say we were conspicuous with two 575 HMI's blasting the sidewalk and a small crew gathered around an eighteen year old girl who literally looked like we picked her up off the streets (thanks to some extensive (read time consuming) hair and costuming by anohter friend helping us out.)
We were accosted by no less than eighteen different crack heads and bums, to include one nut case who jumped in front of the lights and started singing at the top of his lungs for about five minutes before running off into the night, thankfully never to be seen again.
The phrase that became the motto of the shoot was provided by our first actress, Sarah, who innocently remarked regarding the camera,
"You can't learn about something unless you touch it."

Perils of Guerrilla Filmmaking or The Art of Film and Flee or Shoot and Scoot

We didn't have permits, all of our locations were exteriors in the city, so we were confined to sidewalks and public spaces. Inevitably there were problems.
On our first location, where we were shooting against the wall of what looked to be an abandoned building next to a chop shop in the ghetto of West Atlanta, the ignorant white owner of the place came out to bother us. After watching us for a few minutes we asked him what was up and he repeated, at least eight times,
"I don't appreciate ya'll just showing up like this."

We apologized, but he kept on making sure we knew that,
"Pay ten thousand dollars a year on property taxes for that building."
He never asked us to leave, and Andrew even offered. He just wanted to bother us and feel big I suppose. After a while he just left us, we finished the shoot and hit the road.
Our next issue arose when driving through downtown Brandon (our DP) tried to pass a black woman bike cop. She immediately pitched a hissy fit yelling,
"Excuse me! What are you doing?"
When Brandon tried to answer she jabbed a finger in his face and yelled,
"Uhuh. I'm talking!"
After about five more minutes of yelling at us "stupid white boys", she peddled off and we sped away shaking our heads.
At our third location, which was on a bridge over looking a rail yard, the CSX police (yeah, they have those) approached us and gave Andrew an "official trespassing warning" but then let us continue to shoot. The didn't care that we were filming, but because Andrew and Brandon look like terrorists they had to be sure and "offically" warn us to cover their butts.