Recently I’ve done several poll on the SFF Facebook group to determine the Top 5 of lots of different things. For the 24 days leading up to the 25th Anniversary (and the day itself, of course) I will be posting a new Top 5 list each day, using the highly scientific and unbiased results from those FB polls. I’ll try to make these posts short but I’m pretty long winded and like to talk so…they’re probably all going to be pretty long. Enjoy?
Let’s kick start the 25 Days of SFF with the Worst Aspects of Production for Day 1 and do the Best Aspects on Day 25. Obviously, we have to do it that way – how else could we save the best for last?
Top 5 Worst Aspects of Production
What do people hate most about filming? There are a lot of great things about filming, but there are a lot of annoying, irritating, and just bad parts to it as well. From rainy days to endless drama, here are the 5 worst things about filming.
#5 – Yibble Being Mean/Going Crazy
Admittedly I’m the only one who voted for this, but it’s seriously my least favorite thing about filming. It has directly led to drama or little problems because huge drama because my bad temper and craziness got involved. I am Bipolar and up until Spring of 2001 I was completely unmedicated and getting worse. Once I did get on medication it took two years and one very emotional night in the ER to stabilize me. I wasn’t truly stabilized until about 2004, by then I found my groove so to speak.
I totally flipped out and held ridiculous and stupid unfounded and unjustified grudges against two of the actors in Pandora’s Box and was a supreme bitch to them. Then I totally derailed The Curse with more unreasonable reactions and my first full mental breakdown resulted in the series being canceled without even filming all of the episodes. If things didn’t work out right or if people annoyed me I would throw temper tantrums or be passive aggressive. I was angry and unreasonable throughout most of The Gift Bearer, had a mental relapse, and then a full second breakdown during Dream Chasers. Dream Chasers itself is, to quote my brother, “bipolar disorder distilled on film”. After Dream Chasers I tried to say goodbye to filming and took two years to stabilize myself.
However, I couldn’t give up my passion and also missed my friends, so I wrote and filmed Eidolon, bringing together the people from SIU with the people from CU and I have NO regrets about that. While filming Eidolon I started having angry outbursts again and had one afternoon where I broke down crying in my room and I realized that what I hated about filming was me being angry. I felt like I couldn’t have fun because I was always pushing the actors to do more and do it faster. After that I decided to never film a TV show again.
But I still couldn’t stop filming. I decided to do one every year from then on and filming The Cursed Destiny of Pandora’s Gift Box was the first time I tried filming with my new attitude of Don’t get mad, just relax. It’s just for fun, if you don’t have fun what’s the point? Since then I personally think I’ve been a lot more fun to film with – I’ve certainly had a LOT more fun this way.
The big problem is that my Bipolar Disorder gave me delusions of grandeur and I was convinced that I was going to be the next Steven Spielberg. In order to make the best productions I had to push everyone hard. I took it very seriously – way too seriously – and I couldn’t understand why no one else took it as seriously as I did. I didn’t care about what was going on in other people’s lives, just as long as they showed up to film. It wasn’t just for fun, it was a job! But it wasn’t of course, no one got paid and it’s still surprises me that people have returned to film with me over and over again despite how mean to people I have been. So, to everyone in the company I am truly sorry for all the times I lost my shit and screamed at you.
I will say that since I’m the director – the leader – I’m like the mom on set and have to refocus everyone so we can finish shooting. That part's not fun but someone has to be in charge and I signed up for that gig. I just do it a lot better now. God, I love being medicated!
#4 – The Lack of Money for a Real Budget
This one is pretty obvious. Although I’ve done my best over the years to beg, borrow, and steal (mostly costumes from my mom) to supplement my often-meager finances it’s never really enough. For short films the budget usually resembles the cost of a couple of large pizzas – and is sometimes used for large pizzas. Crowdfunding sites have allowed me to trick people get financial donations from friends and family to assist with things like the cost of props, costumes, travel, and food.
The most expensive production was Eidolon. Since it involved travelling all around the state over the course of ten months and since one of the actors was seriously allergic to cats, so he couldn’t stay in any house where cats lived we were in hotels most of the time. The whole production cost about $6000 with food, travel, hotels, etc. but luckily, I was actually making good money at my job and Brittany Ann Whalen was willing to pitch in to cover almost half it which earned her the Executive Producer title.
I’m pretty impressed with how much I have done with my resources and the help of family and friends. My mom was a Costume Designer and had a HUGE collection of costumes, my father was a Television professor and helped with all kinds of technical problems that I might have had to outsource otherwise, my brother constructive some amazing sets and built awesome props (although he did say once that the carpentry of the Cloning Machine in Pandora’s Box would make Mark MacLeod cry because it was so bad – I think it was awesome though), and the MacLeods often provided food. Despite terrible working conditions and having to provide their own food and travel expenses most of the time (except for Eidolon) people keep coming back to film over and over again.
I was able to find some amazing locations and begged to be allowed to film for free using the “I’m just a student” or “it’s non-profit” and “we’re just some friends hanging out in costume with a camera, we’ll be good I promise” lines to get away it.
There are still sets that I really wish I’d had money to build or rent to make the scenes look right – particularly in The Gift Bearer – and there were some productions that I realized I couldn’t film because the sets and other things were far beyond what I could do afford, like TOASTT which would have required a room full of time machines and other equipment in multiple episodes and a horse carriage for one scene.
I really wish I could have paid the actors for all their hard work, hired a full crew, used actual filming lights instead of just flashlights, and paid a composer and/or the artists whose music I used. I always credit them and never profit but it’s still not fair to use their work without paying them. I’ll still do it because I’m a total hypocrite, but I do feel bad about it. If I ever actually make a ton of money in my life I will be paying people retroactively for all their hard work and dedication. Actually, I have started paying people from time to time, mostly in quarters. I did pay two of the actors a whole dollar bill and a shot of rum once.
#3 – Drama on the Set
To be fair a lot of the drama was either started, encouraged, or simply not stopped because of me. I take full responsibility for most of the drama on the set. There wasn’t a lot of drama or people not getting along in the early years because we were young, somewhat sheltered theater kids who were all friends before we filmed.
But once we grew up and I went crazy things changed. New people with new situations stirred up drama. There were also some problems with people who were dating while filming then breaking up and having trouble dealing with each other on set, but that’s to be expected. I even tried to police people’s romantic relationships because it was interfering with filming which was WAY over the line and I’m sorry about that.
There were also problems with drinking, hangovers, and one day where the guy who wanted to direct showed up to the film shoot after dropping acid. He kept leaving room in the shot for giant purple lizard and although it’s hilarious now that I know about it and time has passed, but at the time it was a very stressful day.
Most of the drama and problems with people not getting along began after I went to college. That was also when my bipolar disorder was beginning to rage out of control, but that’s another matter (see #5 on the list). If someone was shy or self-conscious and didn’t really know how to interact with the others who already seemed to be best friends it became awkward and sometimes they were ignored, gossiped about, and even bullied (most often by me).
The sets (especially The Curse and The Gift Bearer) eventually became toxic breeding grounds for insecurity and general nastiness. People’s feelings were hurt, other were ostracized, and many left refusing to film with me again (and I refused to film with them as well because I am/was a bitch).
Another toxic part of the atmosphere on the film sets began to occur after I introduced college boys to my high school actors during the summer of 2000 and after that. I knew my college boys often made sexual comments around the girls and – especially during Pandora’s Box – I didn’t realize how much of a problem it was and what I did realize I did not address. In college there were a lot of sexual jokes and comments on the set but for the most part everyone seemed to be fine with it and the girls usually gave as good as they got. However, there were a few boys that I know about who crossed the line between joking and sexual harassment. I saw it happen, I made rolled my eyes and showed my disgust, but I didn’t stop it. To be honest I didn’t know how – I just thought that all college boys were like that, boys will be boys, etc. – but I know now that is no excuse. I was coward and am continuing to be a coward by not addressing it until now. It doesn’t help that I’ve put actors in some pretty revealing clothing at times, although I’ve always tried to make sure the actors were okay with wearing it but there may have been some who were not and just did not tell me.
So, for the women (and the men, men can be sexually harassed as well) if you feel comfortable telling me about your negative experiences on set with sexual harassment please send me your stories through Facebook Messenger or to my email address which will be given upon request if you don’t already know it. I promise to keep all everything you tell me a secret. I just want to know how bad it really was, and I want to apologize for not cracking down on it or kicking people out for it. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while I just didn’t know how to start the conversation. Please let me know if you’re okay with sharing it with me. I am truly sorry for anyone and everyone who has suffered on my set because I did not stand up for you.
#2 – Having to Film When You’re
Not Feeling Well
I’m pretty sure every actor has had to film when they were not feeling well – including me. Whether they were suffering from a stomach ache, the flu, a bad cold, or even pneumonia caused from freezing on a film shoot, many people have fought their fevers and bravely filmed on, pushing past their limits and then some. To quote one of my favorite anime shows, My Hero Academia, they were all willing to “go beyond, plus ultra!”
Want to know more about the people who had to film while feeling sick? Check out this Survivor’s Club post for more details!
#1 – The Weather
Ah, the weather. My worst enemy on a film shoot. I’ve made actors film in blistering hot un-air-conditioned buildings, stand in the sun in hot clothing in 100-degree weather, and sweat buckets while filming in small dark rooms with zero air flow. I’ve made actors film in pouring rain, making them dance, run, splash, and even soaking their clothes so completely they were more wet then if they had been drowning each other in a lake. I’ve asked actors to jump into a freezing cold lake at the end of November (to be fair I didn’t force them on that one, I just asked if they would).
We filmed in the middle of a blizzard, in Midwestern forests in January and February – and anyone in the Midwest knows how cold January can be! I’ve made people act while almost literally freezing in a cold stone fort in December. Forced people to fall down in the snow where no coats and in some cases thin short sleeved shirts.
The bottom line is that it’s hard to plan a film shoot – especially when a lot of people are involved. Scheduling a time to film when everyone, and the locations, are available can be a literal nightmare (yes, I have had nightmares about scheduling shoots, and filming). So, if we get together to film we WILL film regardless of the weather, temperature, or other atmospheric interferences. I don’t care if it’s 102 degrees or 22 degrees, if there’s a blizzard or a hurricane, if you’re sick, cold, hungry, tired, or all of the above - we WILL film.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this Yibble from the swift completion of my shooting schedule. Unpredictable weather can make filming VERY uncomfortable, but I’ll make you push through and film anyway. Later I’ll just write a little post about it for the Survivor’s Club, give you a pat on the head and say “thanks”.
*pat pat*
Thanks.
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