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50 Things That Suck for Camera Assistants


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I get a kick out of veteran assistant Evan Luzi's blog, The Black and the Blue, and his interesting insights into that side of the industry.

In this recent post, Evan lists 50 things that drive his department crazy:

http://www.theblacka...ings-that-suck/

Among the more interesting ones:

1. Rush Hour Call Times.

2. Shooting the rehearsal.

13. Pizza for lunch.

14. Forced call times

17. Call times that go from sunset to sunrise.

18. Booting a RED camera. Like Forrest Gump said, “you’re never know what you’re gonna get.”

20. Being blamed for in-camera sound issues. If the camera reads a clean test signal from the sound mixer, it’s not my job to do anything else.

21. Producers who don’t understand your job. You hired me and have no idea what I do? Then don’t try to tell me what to do.

24. Locations without a freight elevator.

25. Moving car scenes. Even with a process trailer, the whole affair is claustrophobic and difficult. Being inside the car is another bag of worms.

29. Waiting for call sheets to be emailed before you go to sleep. Waking up at 9 AM with a pushed call to 12 PM sucks.

33. Forgetting to charge batteries overnight. A mistake that catches up to you very quickly.

37. Shooting in-camera sound. So many cables, so much hassle.

38. AD’s who care more about being liked than sticking to a schedule. At the time, everyone may look annoyed, but they’ll be happy when you send them home after 12 hours instead of 17.

41. Directors who call “action!” before you can get comfortable after slating. In a creaky wooden house, it gets real uncomfortable, real fast.

42. Having no air conditioning because it interferes with the sound.

43. Airplanes during room tone.

45. No kit rental fee.

49. Calling the rental house in an emergency and getting a voicemail. Even worse is trying to download a camera’s manual with only one bar of signal.

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I sympathize with a lot of these things, and have been a victim of many of them. In the case of camera sound, I do what I can to make their job "no muss, no fuss" -- we check it at the beginning of the day and after lunch, and other than that, it's not an issue. The only time I've ever had problems with camera sound was when I was forced to use the production company's gear, and we had renegade operators who occasionally would turn on their camera-mounted shotguns and forgot to switch back to the wireless receiver.

Hey, at least he didn't mention the hassle of timecode (which is the sound department's domain)...

I still like to use my line -- when the director yells, "let's shoot the rehearsal," and I say "then it's not a rehearsal!" >:(

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#42

There's a fine line here -- either way, someone's probably gonna be pissed, whether it's the crew on the day, or the post team who has to try and clean it up. More and more, I find myself siding with the crew. Besides, more and more, everything is automated, and controlled via some LAN, and the locations people have no clue. I've gotten to the point where I will say something once -- generally in pre-production, at a production meeting -- that HVAC might be a concern... and that I will record whatever noises occur at the locations they chose with the utmost clarity.

~tt

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Number 41 drives me crazy too, but it's not just directors. Camera operators often yell "set" before their 2nds have cleared and stopped making noise.

I'll never get used to one specific cam op, he's a good guy, but sometimes he's driving me nuts (especially when I'm doing a one man gig): Director calls for sound, and somewehere inbetween hitting record, getting myself and the boom in position - yes, it can take a second or two - and before I can annonce sound speed, I hear the cam op: "...and rolling!"

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The 2nd AC on this project I'm working got yelled at twice for failing to tail slate scenes. The DP would cut the camera the second the director yelled cut and somehow it was the 2nd AC fault for not reminding them to TS in the .1 seconds between "cut" and camera cut.

Tail slating in general is just a bad idea since more than half the time nothing gets slated anyway.

As to #43 how are airplanes in roomtone an AC problem?

I'll never get used to one specific cam op, he's a good guy, but sometimes he's driving me nuts (especially when I'm doing a one man gig): Director calls for sound, and somewehere inbetween hitting record, getting myself and the boom in position - yes, it can take a second or two - and before I can annonce sound speed, I hear the cam op: "...and rolling!"

This.

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Airplanes in room tone means longer room tone. So the AC has to be silent a couple of seconds longer. A pita if ever there was one :/ hmmph

On the no AC on set; sure, I don't like it either. I absolutely HATE working in heat, I think it's much worse than working in the cold. But, we're making a movie here. Give and take. :/

If ever a sound mixer did post such a whine list, more acs would be prone to think we're just whiny people in general. While this post has got us thinking that there's hope even among acs! :/ hmmph

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The DP or any other crew member calling out waiting for sound. They don't think it's too funny when I call out waiting for camera.

Oh, yeah, especially when they do it in an exaggerated cynical tone, dripping with sarcasm: "*sigh*... Waiting for sound!"

As far as #42 goes, if they're properly prepared, they can always roll the HVAC when we're not recording. I have no problem with that. On small crews, it's not that big a deal to bring in a couple of fans and have a PA fire them up during breaks. I'd also tell them, "it's not the sound that's making the set hot -- it's the lights!"

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The DP or any other crew member calling out waiting for sound.

They don't think it's too funny when I call out waiting for camera.

Thats the absolute pits!

On a very stressful shoot with very inconsiderate cam dept this happened. I choose that moment to drop the line "oh ya ? well, why do we wait to hear thunder after we see lightning... Because even God waits for sound" and this lightened the mood and most crew laughed. Regardless this burns my ass and I can count on one hand the cam dept that Id actually choose to spend time with. Ive worked with a LOT of cam departments

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" 20. Being blamed for in-camera sound issues. If the camera reads a clean test signal from the sound mixer, it’s not my job to do anything else. "

I take issue with this...

we would need to have a little talk...

The camcorder is not the sound crew's instrument, it is the camera folks' instrument, and that includes the sound menus, settings, connectors, etc. And we can work as a team, as we are making the same movie...

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"I'd just like to point out that sound is ready."

Andre, know that saying well..

I'm a pretty quiet guy on set, it's just my nature.

Often i get a panicked "are you ready?" when clearly (or not) i've been ready for the last 20 minutes and am just chilling out while everyone else is running around tweeking LX etc..

Grant.

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I like to remind the DP that I would be quicker also if I had 4 people doing my job for me like they do.

Production Sound Mixing for Television, Films, and Commercials.

www.matthewfreed.com

Too true... Just came off a set where cam dept had 6 people, I had myself and a rotating roster of inept boom operators because they were too cheap to hire my preferred boom op for the whole shoot.

It didn't help that the DP... how can I say this... was a complete arse. He refused to talk to me regarding the two massive smoke fans he had placed on either side of the set 5ft away from what was being shot, to the point where on the second day, after telling the writer/director that this would be a very difficult post for sound, he avoided us altogether if the topic ever came up. He also liked to combine shots without telling anyone mid-take and turn a simple tracking shot into wide, deep, long, and overly complicated shot that required re-blocking on the fly, because, apparently, you should just go with camera when it (or he, really) is "in the moment". ok, rant over haha

I have as much pity towards camera as they have towards Sound....

Hmmm... I try not to participate in camera sound wars, it works better when everyone is cohesive. Better spending a few seconds at the start of production explaining the menu system to an inexperienced AC than having that AC telling everyone else what an arse you are.

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I take issue with this... we would need to have a little talk... The camcorder is not the sound crew's instrument, it is the camera folks' instrument, and that includes the sound menus, settings, connectors, etc. And we can work as a team, as we are making the same movie...

I've argued this before, but it's hard to hammer common sense into a head filled with rocks. I've lost count on the number of times I approach the AC with a camera hop receiver and he gets a glazed look on his face, and I say, "no worries -- I have the manual. Menu #2 right over here." Where I do get upset is if they bump the sound connection or kill the power or something and don't tell me. I can't check the camera audio levels 100% of the time, though I make an effort to do it at least 3 or 4 times a day, and after breaks.

I was on an Alexa shoot not long ago, and I swear, the camera guy figured out a way to send the audio VU displays to the set monitor. Not sure how he did that, but it was appreciated. Zero problems on that shoot.

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RED shot. After the break I checked connections because audio was recorded in cam and AC, Grip, and basically everone else constantly trampled over the camera feed and return cables... so I made sure to be the first one back from break and, you know, just check for any possible mishaps. Took a few seconds. Cam Op, walking in the room:"I would set up the next shot if I finally got access to my camera." Me: "Stop that talk. Right now." Baffled looks. Whatever. AC was great though: Knew his audio menu and understood the need for a playback test.

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" the DP... how can I say this... was a complete arse. "

actually you were dealing with a bunch of clueless wanna'-bee newbies playing with a couple toys.

" I've argued this before, but it's hard to hammer common sense into a head filled with rocks. "

Maybe, but I'm sticking with what I said; real DP's and Op's and AC's know their toys --after all they chose them--... of course the above mentioned arses may not be included...

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Robert, it's interesting that my statement seems to be negative when it's actually just a mirror of what I get from that side of the world. The last show I did, great empathy was felt toward camera buddy when he had to strap on a 3d steadycam rig in near 100 degree heat for those long "RED" takes that lasted 8 min X 12 takes. We got along great with those guys, they perfectly understood why we obsessed over syncboxes.. Other-times, I take umbrage when they complain to high heaven when I approach on day 1 to add a sync box to the camera. At that point I did take great pleasure speaking with the Producer who promptly made a call that had this same "Professional" come back and ask to have the sync box.. But, I do find many camera departments live in their own bubble world..

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Of course, totally agree with the OP and others, been there too many times. But I will say its a bit sad that for the most part, which is exactly as senator said also, that its these wannabes (frankly a lot of us suffer these fools) that run most little bitty non-union shoots. And to be noted, union shoots aren't exactly immune to this either... And principally their MO seems to be to oust and shit on the sound guy for no apparent reason, other than probably to make their underpar or inadequately used genitals seem bigger. Sleep Well..!

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