Category: Culture

I’m some­what back in the sad­dle when it comes to film­mak­ing. For the next two weeks, as my sched­ule allows, I am going to help out on a Super 16mm film called Saves the Day, which con­cerns itself with a boy who thinks his old­er broth­er is a super­hero. I’m just a PA, and the posi­tion is unpaid, but this is only nat­ur­al since no one in the Cleve­land film com­mu­ni­ty has any idea who the hell I am. [and, indeed, who the hell am I when it comes to film­mak­ing?]

Saves the Day is direct­ed by a first timer — appro­pri­ate­ly goo­gly-eyed over his film, but the D.P. is one of those guys who has been doing the film thing for so long that he does­n’t get ruf­fled eas­i­ly. Every­one else seems to be the typ­i­cal assort­ment of film folks, some styl­ish, some not, every­one con­stant­ly talk­ing about sex, insin­u­a­tion and innu­en­do galore. The sound guy act­ed like every oth­er sound guy, the gaffer was more inter­est­ed in hit­ting on the girls and find­ing crafty than replac­ing a burned bulb or find­ing a scrim. The cam­era assis­tants were like trib­al shamans, aloof and privy to the mys­ter­ies of the cam­era [although I think every­one there was at least some­what famil­iar with the Arri­flex being used]. I was imme­di­ate­ly at ease, since these are my peo­ple.

I have had a few ideas start to crawl ashore from the pri­mor­dial ooze that is con­stant­ly slosh­ing around in my head. Whether or not their prim­i­tive lungs and flip­pers will per­mit them to evolve toward real­i­ty is anoth­er thing alto­geth­er. I am now get­ting the chance to see what oth­er film­mak­ers are think­ing about. It is nice nice.