Fun – Page 8 – Deborah S. Patz

Jul12011

Grey is 18%?

Black. I get it. White. I get it. Grey? Well…

Black is 100% black. White is 100% white. There is no question. Ah, if life’s choices and answers were but black and white!

Grey, for some reason is 18% (I know this from the camera department).

But where did 18% come from? I mean, why isn’t it 100% grey? Or even 50% (half way between black and white)? Now, THAT I could understand. But then again, if it were, then grey would be a black-and-white kind of grey, wouldn’t it? And when it comes to grey, it’s… well… grey, isn’t it? And a whole bunch of new questions tend to come with “grey” answers, don’t they?

So, why not 18% after all?

Best wishes with whatever is “grey” for you today!

Cheers & a good shoot to you,
Deb

Jun32011

Weather or Not… A Call Sheet Dilemma

So you’re shooting in studio and the weather outside really doesn’t matter to the production or the crew. Do you just delete the weather forecast from the call sheet? You can… or you could take the opportunity to report on other weather forecasts that might be appropriate to the genre and tone of your production. For example, how about these ideas?

A fictional weather forecast for location in the script that day
Describe the weather inside the studio
A weather forecast for various cast or crew member’s favourite vacation destination
A weather forecast for random locations around the world

When you do include information on the call sheet that is along these “fun” lines, remember to be clear to the crew (the readers) that you are indeed having a bit of fun and that the information you’re including is not serious.

So, what weather-or-not ideas do you have?

Cheers & a sunny shoot to you (well, if it’s sun you want for the script!),
Deb

May132011

Camera Tape or Hockey Tape?

Which one do you see?

… or does the answer depend on the time of the year that you’re looking at it?

Cheers & smiles,
Deb

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Do you know about Deb’s appearance in Toronto on May 27 and the “Toronto Area PM101 Facebook Challenge (for a free book)“? To learn more, click here: http://on.fb.me/hEdmNg

May62011

The Best of F.I.L.M. – The Early Days

In honour of my two year anniversary F.I.L.M. blogging, I thought I’d bring together older top posts – especially for those of you who may not have been here since the beginning:

F-un

Pumpkin Carving Contest on Set
I instigated the contest… to which there was a surprising winner!

I-nspiration

Inspiration at the Movies: Harold and Maude
You’ll never look at a field full of daisies the same way again… I know I don’t!

L-ife

3 Things I Learned About Filmmaking from… My Grandmother
(1) If you can’t do it, keep trying
(2) Make and eat dessert
(3) Always wear clean underwear
… and they really are relevant to a film career!

M-anagement

Free Film Budget
Nothing compares to getting a full budget template to refer to and learn from! Thanks, Deke.

And thanks to you for the great feedback I’ve received over the years! Here’s to more F-un, I-nspiration, L-ife and M-anagement to come!

Cheers & a great shoot to you,
Deb

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Do you know about Deb’s appearance in Toronto on May 27 and the “Toronto Area PM101 Facebook Challenge (for a free book)“? To learn more, click here: http://on.fb.me/hEdmNg

Mar112011

5 Great Sources for Call Sheet Jokes

How’s your call sheet joke file? Do you collect copies of comics, humour and interesting facts or solicit others to send you humour as they find it? I am a great believer of the call sheet joke.

When the next day’s call sheet is handed out at the end of the day – just watch – the crew typically takes note of their particular call time, and then turns the call sheet over to look for the call sheet joke. Often crew seek out the call sheet at the end of the day (motivated to read the latest call sheet joke) thereby making the A.D. job of distributing the call sheet a little easier.

Here’s your opportunity to match the tone of the production you’re on with the humour you supply. Go to doctor’s office, see medical humour. Go to a lawyer’s office, see legal humour. Film productions, however, visit many different locations and subject matter through the script. The are are many numerous genres and sub-genres. On a comedy, for example, you may want the call sheet humour to contribute to the light and playfulness of the story. A joke you would choose to share on the call sheet of a family film may not be the same one you would use on that of a horror film.

Luckily there are a host of sources from which to build your call sheet joke file. Here are five great ones:

1. Single frame jokes
This is the standard fare for call sheet jokes. Comics like The Far Side and Bizarro are great examples. Some folk re-caption the comic to more closely suit the production they’re on. You could even use Gladys Works In The Movies comics from this F.I.L.M. Blog.

2. Weird news (e.g. at: Canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews)
Amazing what shows up in the news! Fair warning, though: some items will make everyone laugh, whereas others will make some folk feel uncomfortable. Be selective.

3. Snopes.com
A site that researches and dispels urban myths. You can use these two days running, e.g. Day 1 = Myth #1; and then Day 2 = Answer #1 & Myth #2; etc.

4. User-submitted jokes (from the crew)
Open yourself up to contributions, and you could get a wide range of possibilities. At very least you will learn the humour style of some of the crew this way.

5. International weather
(e.g. at: World Weather Info Service or International Weather.com)
What? Weather for someplace you’re not shooting? This idea is useful when you’re shooting entirely in studio and the weather outside really doesn’t matter to you.

Keep in mind that humour can go too far. Jokes can be taken the wrong way. The call sheet joke lasts only a day, yes, but the document itself will be archived with the production paperwork for the life of the production’s files. The call sheet is still an official document. So make your final choice of joke wisely.

What are some the other call sheet joke sources you use?

Cheers & an enjoyable shoot to you,
Deb

Feb252011

Popcorn Movie Seat

I went to a 1:30pm movie. First screening of the day in that theatre. Bought the popcorn and was first into the room. I had every seat to choose from. Great! I went for middle-middle. Yeah. Best seat in the house.

As I went to sit down, my purse slipped off my shoulder and landed heavily on my forearm. The impact triggered the reflex that makes the bicep instantly contract to prevent the purse from landing on the floor. But today, the hand was holding a full bag of popcorn.

Wow, what a shower of popcorn that was. At least half the bag was liberated in that split second and distributed strangely evenly in the nine seats around me. White popcorn. Dark room. Dark seats. Only if the popcorn were glowing or on fire might my faux pas be more obvious.

Sure I could move to another seat, but to whoever came into the theatre next it would be eminently obvious that it was me who had done the redecorating. So I smiled at the incident, brushed my head, shoulders and seat clear, and then sat down amid the mess and ate the remainder of the popcorn in the bag while I watched the movie – okay, the remainder of the popcorn didn’t even last through the trailers. And perhaps not so predictably, no one sat in the eight popcorn seats around me… though I don’t recommend using this story as a strategy of saving extras seats in a movie theatre.