Living in My Oblivion - A Life in Low Budget Films ⇢

Awesome blog from one of my followers of an indie film AD, Production Manager, and Producer in NY. Lots of insight into a lifelong career in the indies as a production department member (not an easy thing to do!) He gave my blog some love and now I’m giving it back. ADs, producers, PMs, and just everyone in filmmaking should check this blog out!

Got this awesome email yesterday… Thanks JB!

Hey

I’ve dropped note before, but I started out as a 1st AD and production manager a lot of years ago and LOVE your blog.

I TRIED to add myself as a follower, but it seems tumbler wants a web page, and wont take my blogger website as webpage?  Go figure.

Anyway, so much of your blog rings true to me.  I love it, and I can tell you, many film vets in NY I work with love it as well.

As for your page count page - some interesting notes you may already know.

First, an even OLDER AD than me (I’m 54) loves the “Atlanta burns” example.  She has always used it.

Second, some history you may know.

In the studio days, there were production secretaries who took scripts and made them into “shooting scripts”.  These women - it was the old days and they were mostly women (in the days when we had “script girls”) - would translate scripts so that each page was ACTUALLY about one minute of screen time.  That meant that if someone wrote the following:

EXT - STREET

JB ducks in an alleyway.  He sees the bad guys chasing him.  He runs out into the street as the car races around the corner with the two bad guys shooting at him.  He jumps into another car and takes off.  They follow him down Broadway, then onto the bridge….

You get the point.

That production secretary would break that up into shots that would reflect anticipated screen time (many of these were also script supes) so that 1/8 REALLY WAS 1/8.
In an indie world where a lot of first-time directors who have never written a professional script write scripts, you get a lot of this.

I used to teach line producing and Gorilla software at NYFA, and I used to explain that I would break up the above and NOT call it 1/8 of a page, doing what the old production secretaries would do.

However, as you mentioned, if a LEGIT 1/8 of a page happens to have SFX or stunts, thats different.

I always have said it’s not about page count per day as an AD - its about set-ups.  Script supes get this.  A good indie should be able to average 16 set-ups a day or so - some more (when set-ups are easy) and some less (when they aren’t).  I stopped worrying or, alternately, being concerned or impressed by low or high page counts.

You definitely know your stuff, and I love your sense of humor.

If you know an easy way to add you as a follower - will gladly do so!

If you want some idea what us ol’ folk thought of the process, check out the blog below - and feel free to follow!

If you ever come to NY - please look me up - I’d love to help get you work!

Best
May Your Life Go Well,
jb

John J Bruno

Best email ever!
Thank you so much, JB. I would suggest getting a tumblr so you can easily follow me ;)
JB runs a great blogspot site called Living in My Oblivion dedicated to being a low budget production department member - production manager, AD, etc. Lots of really insightful posts about an actual life time in this industry (doing the less glamorous work).
It’s true about the set-ups, and that’s definitely an old secret. It really isn’t about the page counts. 1/8th of a page could contain 6 different set-ups  (I’ve encountered that many many many times) or it could be your most complicated set up of the day. This is why shotlists and tech scouts are so so so important to your production. The more I can see what you’re visualizing for shots, the better I can plan for the logistics of putting those shots together. 
Indeed! 1/8th of a page: Atlanta burns may be the best example ever of eighths deceiving the scheduler. I’ve had 1/8ths of a page: The zombies come out from all points of entry, moving slowly and groaning. Several hit the floor and are trampled by their peers. 
That took over half a day to shoot. The zombies alone were 2 hours + in makeup because several of them showed up late despite the pre-call. And then the stunt guy had a hard time with the falling zombies, who kept accidentally knocking over non-falling zombies and the director didn’t like it. Huge choreography, stunts, and special effects WILL make 1/8th of a page seem like 5 pages at times. 
For this script however, it’s a drama. Dialog. With a lot of natural lighting. And hardly any background.
It’ll be a nice respite ;)

Indeed! 1/8th of a page: Atlanta burns may be the best example ever of eighths deceiving the scheduler. I’ve had 1/8ths of a page: The zombies come out from all points of entry, moving slowly and groaning. Several hit the floor and are trampled by their peers. 

That took over half a day to shoot. The zombies alone were 2 hours + in makeup because several of them showed up late despite the pre-call. And then the stunt guy had a hard time with the falling zombies, who kept accidentally knocking over non-falling zombies and the director didn’t like it. Huge choreography, stunts, and special effects WILL make 1/8th of a page seem like 5 pages at times. 

For this script however, it’s a drama. Dialog. With a lot of natural lighting. And hardly any background.

It’ll be a nice respite ;)

Eights of a Page Explained

1/8, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 1 page, 1 1/8 pages, 1 2/8 pages, 1 3/8 pages, etc…

If you’re not familiar with performing a script breakdown, hearing how long a scene is by the number of 8ths it runs can be really confusing. Film scheduling goes like this:

1 script page roughly equals one minute of screen time. This obviously varies when there’s stunts, special effects, car explosions, or really heavily emotional/physically draining on the cast content. 

Script pages are typically 8 inches long (I feel bad for you if they’re not…). Each inch of a page is 1/8th of a page. To determine the length of a scene, the scene in the script is measured out by how many inches of the page it takes up. A scene that is 5/8ths would be 5 inches out of 1 full script page. In screen time, that would be just over half a minute. 

We use this method for scheduling film productions. A typical indie film day would be around 5 pages. But if your 8ths that day contain stunts, sex, special effects, animals, children, company moves, or large groups of people and massive amounts of choreography, you’ll be looking at only wanting to shoot more like 2 pages. 2 5/8ths pages without those things for one day of shooting is a very nice luxury in the indie feature scene. 

Some people physically use a ruler to determine 8ths of a page. At this point in my career, I’m pretty damned good at eyeballing it. But then there are some who say it’s more accurate to break it down by 16ths. Well, yes, but now you’re just going to confuse the script supervisor. And you don’t want to do that. In fact, checking in with your script supervisor at the very beginning or even during pre-pro to see how they measured the script is really important in keeping everyone on the same page for run times. When it comes to script/scene measuring, your scripty is your best friend :)

2 5/8th pages for 1 full day of shooting?!

I’m not bragging but…

I am.

EDIT: I never get to do this few pages in a day and not worry about it. Usually, I’m given like… 18 days to shoot 118 pages of stunts and special effects with 25 different locations and 50+ characters. *Sad trombone sound*

THIS. My head just exploded looking at this response. Every single one of those phrases has been uttered in my direction. My response is almost always a blank stare until they are so uncomfortable, they retreat and withdraw all inquiries. 
I can stare a motherfucker down. I believe it’s one of the best AD weapons.

THIS. My head just exploded looking at this response. Every single one of those phrases has been uttered in my direction. My response is almost always a blank stare until they are so uncomfortable, they retreat and withdraw all inquiries. 

I can stare a motherfucker down. I believe it’s one of the best AD weapons.

Awesomely Offensive Things to Write into a Script Breakdown #1

Under WARDROBE -

Cum stain. 

GOLD.

GOLD.

Source: kristastrxphe

This is quickly becoming the year I PA for reality shows.

Last thing I’ll say about this.

Wikipedia’s black out message: SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.

Congress says it’s trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the “cure” that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they will fatally damage the free and open Internet.

robotcosmonaut:

Stop SOPA

As a film industry professional, I do NOT support SOPA. Don’t take away our right to free speech on the internet because the music and movie businesses are fucking dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. My downloading a song for free once in a while isn’t going to make your company’s CEO go starving, so chill and your laws off my LOLCATS!

robotcosmonaut:

Stop SOPA

As a film industry professional, I do NOT support SOPA. Don’t take away our right to free speech on the internet because the music and movie businesses are fucking dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. My downloading a song for free once in a while isn’t going to make your company’s CEO go starving, so chill and your laws off my LOLCATS!

Source: robotcosmonaut

This is more true than any truth that has ever been spoken.

This is more true than any truth that has ever been spoken.

Source: typicalfilmmajor

Platypus Underground: 1. Pre-Production ⇢

platypus-underground:

C. Script

A note on scriptwriting: There is an industry standard for writing scripts. Forget it. Unless you are trying to sell your script to Hollywood, it doesn’t matter. Write your story. Put words on a page. You can’t direct a blank sheet of paper. (technically, you can’t direct paper with words on it either, you direct the actors who read the words off the page, but… shut up.) The script is for you and your actors. As long as it is clear who is speaking and what is going on, it doesn’t matter how you format your script. Write it on napkins with colored pencils for all I care. Just have some idea of where the story is going and write it down.

OK, I REALLY wanted to respond to this little blurb posted above. As someone who is both a scriptwriter and a production person, even on small crew projects, I find this to be very much not true. The formatting exists not just for Hollywood scripts to look professional, it exists because it creates an easy way for someone to take the script and turn it into a movie. The formatting helps us identify elements quickly, such as props and cast members, it helps us figure out how much we can film each day, and it also helps us figure out what will need to be compromised or reworked on set. 

THESE ARE ALL THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT NO MATTER HOW BIG OR SMALL THE SHOOT IS. Learning how to read and understand script format helps make any shoot smoother in terms of production. No one wants to work on their friend’s film that’s a total disaster with missing props and continuity errors for free for 18 hours a day on the weekends. If you’re going to do small projects, that’s awesome… but organization is important and it begins with a well-formatted script. Write all the notes you want to the actors, but don’t hand anyone else working for free credit and bananas on your movie a napkin written in colored pencils. In film production, total fucking chaos caused from an unreadable or unfinished script is often the LEAST fun thing to experience.

Source: platypus-underground

sometimes my job requires me to bend over backwards across a bar and punch a man in the balls.

Just sayin’

So not ready to AD feature film and yet… so damn ready to AD feature film.

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OMG IT'S A FILM PRODUCTION BLOG

Assistant Directors don't always yell. Sometimes we write about stuff. Because I'm a workaholic, I sometimes feel the need to document the things I see and the questions that are raised while going through the most insane process of making a director's dreams come true. About me: My name is Michelle. I am a (currently) non-union First Assistant Director working out of Austin, TX. I hope to one day join the DGA and direct my own scripts on the side, but until that time comes... Got questions? Comments? Complaints? A project you want me to AD? (I'm cheap!) Email me at - goingforpicture@gmail.com You can also find me on the good ol' twitter - twitter.com/m0thra


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