Re: WX Hex story...

Here's a little ditty 'bout a local ad company versus the wheather.....

SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE!

We pulled up in our $4,000 a day grip truck and our key grip begain his prep work. The Camera guy refused to work with a film loader, so he did it all himself. My immediate assistant was on the WX radio 'caue Florida is nice, but unpredictable as far as the wheather goes.

The client arrives on-set with the talent, Mr. Fisher Stevens of "Hackers" fame. OK, the guy's a nobody in the who' who world of film, but he was donating time for a children's charity, so what the hay. A guy from the ad company strolled over and asks about the wheather. My assistant quelled his concerns with the little $80 buck WX radio message. "No rain in the Northern regions of Florida until after 5 PM today". It was 7 AM...

Well, the ARRI rig was set-up and the sound guy, who showed up 30 minutes late due to time-zone lag, was on-site with a dual Nagra set-up and a remote mic....COOL!

We roll.

First take was a smashing success. Video playback was crisp and the shots were in the can.

Location number two, 10:45 AM

Talent arrives a bit late but we're on schedule so off we go. Shot two complete and ready to go.....

My assistant warns me of a news "flash" that mentioned R-A-I-N (that spells lost money) in the next county...

We proceed as planned with the cautionary mention to the producer who's a bit too gung-ho to begin with. "Shoot on" say's the bumbling fool, so we do.

At my request, we stopped-down for 45 minutes to allow for the possibility of poor wheather conditions to pass. We protect the crew and equipmentin a local restaurant and enjoy some good old southern cookin'.

The first lightning strike was at 2:13PM on the nose. The last one was at 10:14PM....the rest of the evening was spent listening to crappy country and old 80's pop over southern fried chicken steaks and grits. The coffee had grains in it and the waitress had most of her teeth, but the producer kept on with his insecant "We'll be fine once the wheather clears Mr Fisher..."....NO WE WON'T YOU MORON! WE'RE A DAY INTO A ONE DAY SHOOT, THE TALENT IS DUE IN L.A. AT 8AM AND MY CREW IS DUE ELSEWHERE THE FOLLOWING MORNING!!!!

But, the wheather did pass, andwe re-set the first locale so that it was indoors and the shots to follow were done in the children's hospital over an hour away. We had to rent two U-hauls and a second day of the grip truck (at one and a half the original rate due to the misscheduling) but we completed the shoot and the talent was really cool about it. Had we been working with anyone in "bigger shoes", like Tom Cruise for instance, we would've been put in a permanant holding patern until he wasn't popular anymore. Mr. Fisher was a breath of fresh air and the ad guy, well, he got fired after the budget went $6k past the given...we ended up donating thousands of man-hous to the charity and sucking up the cost of the second day forthe grip truck and due to the work that I have done with my crew, most of them traded a future of business with me for the loss of the expence account the ad company snatched from us.

Bottom line: The wheather isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility. We paid for our misjudgement of her on that day and have never....NEVER worked on a day when there is to be rain after 5PM since.....


Michael