JB-San To the Rescue-Part 2 - Lost in Translation

Production on Haebing*, the Korean mini-series on which I was now the US line producer, started less than 16 hours after I was hired, and the fun started right from the beginning.

Day One on any low budget film is like a first-date, with a lot of introductions and figuring out where everything and everyone stands, the First AD seeing what the director he has been in prep with for weeks is like on set, members of the crew who haven't worked with other crew members learning how he department head likes things, 2nd AD trying to make sure HMU is all cozy.  Lots of tentative steps mixed with, if there are old acquaintances, a few hugs and handshakes, and then off to the job at hand.

As line producer, it means a lot of double and triple checking the things that you already went over two or three times, to make sure they are actually working the way you want them to, and to make sure any little missteps are overcome as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

This, as you might imagine, bears little resemblance to how Haebing started.

I was in the office early with the hope that once I knew we were at least in motion, I could make my way to the Mayor's Office (MOFTB) to get the permit process started.  This would, inevitably, mean entering the MOFTB much as slaves and messengers approached royalty, with a lot of figurative bowing and even more mea culpas.

I know I should have come sooner.  Mea Culpa.

Yes, I know that the things I'm requesting require meetings with NYPD, NYFD, the Coast Guard (we had water scenes), the Parks and Building Departments.  Mea Culpa.

No, I don't expect shooting or scouting permits (more on this later) for my vehciles without the appropriate insurance, Drop/Add lists, Schedule A's, etc.  If my vehicles get tickets today, you will not be able to clear them.  Mea culpa.

Those were the mea culpas for which I was prepared.  As it turned out, there were more.

However, before I had the pleasure of lying prostrate before the rep and wondering how long it would be before I heard the first "JB, you've been doing this so long, you should know better," (Mea Maxima Culpa!) I was hit with bigger problems at the office.

The producers had contracted a local equipment vendor to provide a full truck with grip and electric equipment, as well as support camera equipment for their camera package.  This was a vendor that I never used, because they broke every protocol I have for vendors.

They would underbid other companies, then try to make it back with phony "loss and damage" charges.

They sent out faulty equipment and then blamed your grips and electrics.

They would charge you for equipment you ordered while sending "similar equipment" without telling you.

The company was run by two brothers, who had their mother working for them and a mangy dog.  Personally, I didn't even like the dog.

Still, the producer had an agreement with them, and had paid them one-third of the total in cash.  It seemed unlikely that I would be able to get us out from under the deal, something I had done on other shoots with this same company, which made me not their favorite line producer.

Peter and I got a frantic call from set.  It was about 7AM, and the truck was there, and the entire Korean (and American) crew was there, and the driver refused to unlock the truck.  It was too early to get the brothers who ran the company on the phone at the office, so I asked to speak to the driver.

The driver proceeded to inform me that the deal was that the 2nd third of the cash was to be paid today, and
if he didn't have it in his hands, he wasn't opening the truck.

Let me say that I understand that equipment houses dealing with new producers (especially those whose ties are overseas) are hesitant to give credit.  Today, where everything is pretty much done by credit card up front, it would hardly be an issue.  Mr. K had only recently established his production company, and was dealing mainly in cash.

I tried to reason with the driver.  It was 7AM, and my producer could not get him cash until his bank opened.  Let the crew start and he had my word that the money would come today.  I had worked in this town for years and never stiffed anyone, and if he had any worries and the money didn't come later, we could talk.

Before I could finish, the driver laid into a profanity-laced tirade saying he didn't know who (the expletive) I was and I could go screw myself; get the cash over there or nobody works.

There is no better way to shake off the morning haze than having someone attack and threaten you.  There are probably ways he could have put his request that would have led me to tell Mr. K that we needed to wait until the bank was open.

However, I already didn't like this company (we'll call them "France"), and now the driver had decided he was going to be a belligerent jerk, something that should not have surprised me.  Unfortunately for him, he also let on that he was a Teamster.

I knew France was completely non-union and would never pay Teamster rates, which meant the driver  was doing this gig on the side, without the knowledge of the Local.  Maybe he assumed since the crew was Korean I was a newbie and wouldn't figure it out.  He assumed wrong.

Although I did mostly low budget projects, I had a good relationship with the head of the Teamster Local in NY - we'll call him T.  I would call him when I started a project, let him know my budget, let him know what vehicles I was using, and that my rates probably wouldn't work for his guys.  If I used a bigger vehicle (or a HMU or production trailer), I would hire one of his lower-priced guys.

My honesty had put me in good stead, and we worked well together.

I picked up the phone and left a message on his cell phone.  "T," I said,"I didn't know you let your guys work   non-union for (this lousy production company)."  This guy just called me and said he was one of your guys and doing this job...."

Within five minutes, T gave me a call back.  I gave him the info, and where the vehicle and the driver were parked.  T sent some of the driver's fellow members over to "remind" the driver of his responsibility (and, subsequently, pull his union card).

This got the attention of one of the brothers.  When one of them called me, irate, I told him that, from dealing with me in the past, he should have known better than to have some punk driver blackmail me.  He didn't like the word "blackmail", so I repeated it.

"Now," I said, "if you want to continue with this job, let's talk about a new deal, or your driver and your truck can just sit there and you won't see another dime.  Your call."  I hung up.

I have bluffed in the past, but I wasn't really bluffing now.  Mr. K was a little freaked out, worrying he would not be able to shoot, but I assured him that even if we lost a half-day or a day, it would be worth it to go with someone else if the brother didn't change his tune.  Time was of the essence for the Koreans, and another day was not in his plan.

Before this discussion went too much further, Rick (the brother at this company) called back.  We negotiated a new deal, and I had Mr. K send over the revised amount (in cash) as soon as the banks opened.

Mr. K was very happy; Rick, not so much, but still getting a good deal, and he knew it.  Peter, my production manger, was impressed.

Starting the day as a hero was great, but the accolades would have long faded by the time I made it to the MOFTB.  My reception there was quite different, much as I expected.

Look, in the end, the folks at the MOFTB want to help you make your movie.  They know that newbies get it wrong very often.  I was almost at a disadvantage, being a veteran, because I could not plead ignorance for myself, but did use that defense when discussing the producers.

After accepting my penance like the good Catholic-raised (turned Buddhist) boy that I was, and a few calls back and forth to Peter to figure out the paperwork, I left the MOFTB with a permit to shoot and some tags (for vehicles) for our fleet - and we did have a fleet of vehicles.

We had two vehicles to move crew, plus cars to scout location, plus cars for the producers, plus vans and cube trucks outside of the one we rented from France.  It was an ever-changing fleet of vehicles, large for a production of this size.  Over time, Peter became the transportation coordinator (in addition to other responsibilities he had), and keeping a handle on it was no easy task. As we added or dropped a vehicle, information had to go to MOFTB (at that time, you could not fax the changes - they had to be brought over. That has long-since changed) tags had to be picked up or sent back.

This was one of the many cultural differences for the Koreans.  From what I was made to understand, once you went through a lengthy paperwork process in South Korea, you could basically park wherever you wanted.  Police would even tow and clear cars from the streets you needed to shoot.

I have never gone about checking the procedure in South Korea for myself, but this was not the case in NY, and it took a toll on us.

There were two types of permits then, shooting permits and scouting permits.  Shooting permits were for vehicles that would be part of production on days of shoots, and their permits were tied to where and when you were shooting.  Scouting permits, which were scarcer, allowed people to park at any LEGAL parking spot while scouting locations.

The latter scouting permits no longer exist, in large part because so many productions improperly used them as "free parking" stickers like diplomatic plates, which they were not.

The Koreans never really grasped the system, basically never getting past the word "permit".

As a result, we got lots of tickets, and, worse, we had vehicles towed.  Some were towed because they were at fire hydrants or bus stops or crosswalks (all definite no-nos).  Some were vehicles with shooting permits that they decided to use for scouting, and were no where near where we were shooting.  One was towed for being parked on a curb; another because the driver hid the permit in the glove compartment so no one could steal it (unfortunately, the nice parking enforcement officer that day was not psychic could not intuit that there was a permit in the glove compartment).

It got to the point where Peter would send a passenger van to the Impound Lot in the morning with two drivers - one to drive the passenger van back, and one to pick up whatever vehicle had been towed.

While the Koreans were not learning "permit", I was learning enough beginner Korean to get through the day.

The first three expressions I learned (after ano) were:

yaw bo seh yo - hello (how are you?) informal.

kamsahamnida - thank you

jam can man yo - Please hold

The last one, which I pronounced something like "chomka manyo" was for those times when I would pick up the phone and the person on the other end spoke only Korean.  It was a signal to stay on the line while I got someone who spoke Korean, that is, if they understood my butchered translation.

Day One I learned that language was not the only oral difficulty. We had the entire crew - Korean and American - eat together on Day One, and I had the day catered by a very good caterer.  In my "kumbaya" world, I guess I hoped this time together would help to bind the crew.

Unfortunately, it was all American food, and it made many of the Koreans sick.  So much for good intentions.  Afterwards, we did split meals, as the American crew was not a big fan of Kimchi or the other spicy foods the Koreans liked.

Still, we got some footage in the can on Day One (they were shooting on tape), no one got hurt, we had our permit (even if we did not have specific permits for each days shooting yet), some tags, and were learning each other's customs.  The American grip and camera guys were in sync enough with their Korean counterparts that actually filming was relatively smooth.

Mr. K, the director, and the Korean line producer were all pretty satisfied so far, and I was feeling a little more confident that this might go better than expected.

Yeah, right.  Stay tuned for Day Two and more.


*Haebing is a Korean female name.  I still, to this day, can't tell you more about the title.

JB-San To The Rescue-Part 1-We are NOT the World

"We become not a Melting Pot, but a beautiful mosaic." 

-Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Working on multi-national and multi-cultural productions can be a wonderful, eye-opening experience, where  staff, crew and cast members come together in a beautiful mosaic similar to the one President Carter mentions; where various voices and tongues become a universal language as in the famous original "We Are The World" recording, where the different experiences of those involved come together like a symphony whose various sections join to resonate in one joyful noise.

This is not one of those stories.

If it's true that things that start badly, end badly, then it is also true that things that start weirdly will stay weird and, inevitably, end weirdly.

This is one of those stories.

As any of us freelancers can attest, the interview process can take place in an office or a Dennys or a Starbucks, but usually it involves us meeting with a prospective employer, information and questions on both sides, and a promise of a phone call or other contact to follow.

When I arrived at the large space on Greenwich Village's famous Bleeker Street, I was met by Mr. K, who was the managing producer for I was told was a mini-series for South Korean television.  There were desks scattered throughout the space, and people working at them.  After the shortest of introductions, I was introduced to some of these people, including a young man named Peter.  Peter had a bit of a Harry Potter look to him, even before the series was popular, and I was told that he was the production manager.  This, in itself, was odd, as I thought I was interviewing for the production manager position.

Peter greeted me enthusiastically with the typical "Welcome, aboard," and the secondary warning, "Boy, are we happy to see you."

With that, I was led to a desk that only had a phone on it.  "What can we get you to get started?" Mr. K inquired.

If you are looking back over the previous paragraphs to miss the part where we talked dates and specifics, don't bother.  We went straight from the greeting to "this is your desk."  Yes, this meant I was hired.

I took Mr. K aside to cover two things that had not been discussed, the first of which was salary.  Once we were both ok on that, I asked about Peter having the position I thought I was applying for.  Was he being replaced, and if so, why was he so happy to see me?

A quick discussion ensued where I learned that Peter had been hired as production manager, but that the size of the job was a bit more than he could handle alone, and that I would be coming on as his superior.  I quickly suggested the title of Production Supervisor for my position, so there would be no demotion for Peter, and that seemed to suit everyone just fine.  As Mr K., Peter, and I shook hands, one of Mr. K's assistants chimed in, "You'll be JB-san!"

To this day, I am not sure of how much of this was an attempt at a light-hearted way of saying "we respect you" (which is pretty much the literal meaning of adding -san to a name) or a deference to the fact that I was older than many of the people working there (though in the same age-range as some of the Korean production staff and Mr. K).

In any case, most referred to me only as JB, but the assistants who also acted as translators would often use JB-san.

Where to start?  A script?

That would not do much good, as there was not an English version of it (though there were English sides for the American actors who would appear in the NY portion of the shoot).  I would ask for an English translation of the script for much of the first week, and then with less frequency as production proceeded.  I never got one.

A budget?  Not to worry about that, Mr. K told me, try to do the best I could, and he would let me know if we could afford it.

This resembled the "lets spend as little as possible" budget that I always dreaded, because while we do always try to spend as little as possible, it leaves no framework from which to work.  I made that point, but, when it seemed not to take, moved on.

Pressing problems?  Shoot dates?

Those two were closely related.

They Korean crew had shot everything but the NY portion of the show (the majority of it being shot in Korea).  This was to be the second production from this network that had location filming in New York, and the first one had brought very high ratings, so they were excited about trying again, but on a bigger scale.  Where the first production had covered just a few days shooting in New York, this would have between twenty and thirty days here, at a number of locations.

Aye, there was the rub.

Production was scheduled to begin the next day.  The production schedule was still being put together, but it was closely tied to locations secured.  A large board that had been hung on the wall showed all the locations they were seeking in the first column, with subsequent contact and other relevant info in following columns.  With the exception of the first column, there was a lot of white space.  They had not secured more than one or two locations, though they had some leads on others.

There were two problems that formed as one immediately; we could not shoot exteriors without permits from the New York Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Television (MOFTB for short), an while we could shoot interiors without permits, that still left the issue of where to park our trucks without the appropriate paperwork and, from the look of the board, we didn't have many interiors anyway.

It was mid-day, and while the procedure has changed over the years, getting permits for a feature film or on-going television show from the MOFTB has always involved reasonable but sometimes lengthy paperwork; insurance certificates, a schedule of what will be shot when (Schedule A), list of vehicles and license plates, etc.  Additionally, if police or fire department assistance was needed or requested (it was), a meeting would generally be scheduled with NYPD and/or NYFD.  Permits for parks and city buildings required requests to those departments with some lead time and sometimes additional insurance.

It was always best to do this as early as possible, usually about a month before shooting, but at a bare minimum, a week or two was needed.

They wanted to start shooting in about 16 hours.

I informed them of all this.  Peter chimed in that he had told them this, but they had not payed much attention.  Scattered meetings in hushed tones, and I was brought to the director and First Assistant Director.  In the first of many discussions that would take place through translators, I gathered that the director and First AD understood all of this, and didn't care much how it got resolved, as long as it was resolved.

Some things never change.

I tried my usual tact of befriending the AD, which was harder since it required translation and we were could not just speak privately.  I looked over forms and schedules and tried to piece together something that we could shoot the next day, all the time keeping one eye on the clock on the wall.

This was one of those many instances in my career where I wished I could clone myself.  I needed to be at the MOFTB filling out permit information, since I was the only person in the office who had ever done it and had any chance of getting it right.  However, I also needed to help put together a plan for the next day.  Staying to review the plans meant I almost certainly would not be able to go for the permit until the next day, and I would not be greeted with smiles and hugs when I started filling out paperwork that showed that  we had begun filming without a permit.

Anio (no) was the Korean word I needed to learn quickly.  No, you can't shoot there you need a permit, it's public property.  No, that location does not need a permit, because it is private property, but you don't have the permission of the owners, so, no, you can't shoot there, either.

This went on for a while - I insisted that Peter stop what he was doing and join us, because it was hard enough dealing with the translations without having to explain all this again.  Hakim also joined us.  He was the American who would be on set as something of a US AD.  He had been through all of this, and we finally agreed on something that could be shot.

This informal "production meeting" began the slow descent into chaos that would be all of our meetings.  I was assigned a translator, and translation would be going on while people continued talking in either English or Korean, such that the translators were always behind in the discussion, and it was never clear who was answering what question.  Was your "yes" to the question I just asked, or the one I asked five minutes ago, because I still didn't get an answer to that one. "Interior?"  Wait, I thought we were talking about the park scene?

I specifically remember a moment in another production meeting where the translator who was acting as my assistant began arguing with the translator who was acting as the Korean line producer's assistant.  The argument was in Korean, and the line producer and I were stuck standing there, both frustrated that we seemed to be afterthoughts in this argument and neither of our issues was being addressed.  We looked at each other probably the same way Cold War diplomats once did, smiling so as not to send a hostile message while having no idea what message was really getting across to the other side.

Woody Allen would have had a field day.

(Un)Lucky Stiffs - Part 2 - Location Location Location!

In a perfect world, the assistant director would go into his or her fortress of solitude, where they would prepare the perfect schedule.

They would take every element of their breakdown into consideration, then the projected shot-list or story-board, think about both the creative and logistical elements, and emerge with the perfect schedule.

In fact, the AD can do that.  Then, they wake up.

Once you have the perfect schedule, you start dealing with the other issues.  You try to bring the director on board with the schedule.  Unless they have some major reason why they cannot make it work, you try to show them why it will be the best flow.  Once the DP is aboard, you might work out a few more of the specifics.

You really want a crane?  Hmm, can we schedule both crane shots for the same day so as to not rent it twice?  Is that worth the budget difference of having the crane on two separate days because other factors don't make shooting those two locations on the same day cost or time-effective.

If you are doing a feature, and working with SAG actors who you are, of course, paying, you should not be dealing with actor availability.  On any budget above SAG Modified Low, you are dealing with drop/pick-up days - but that's for another blog.  Assume they are available all through the shoot, and the schedule allows you to shoot them out in the most efficient manner, which usually means the least number of days.

Once you have done all of that, you talk to locations.

In your perfect schedule, you shoot the hospital on Day 3, the deli on Day 5, and the nightclub scene on Day 10.

Locations informs you they have finally found the perfect hospital, the perfect deli (they will shut down for us, the aisles are big enough, and the price is right) and a nightclub the DP has shot before that could have come right out of the script.

The hospital administrator must be there, and Day 3 is a Saturday - they need it to be another day.  The deli is cool - as long as you can shoot at night - you are on a day schedule on Day 5 and turnaround won't work.  The nightclub already has their hottest band booked for your Day 10.

Your perfect schedule just became not-so-perfect.

The two basic schedules that get distributed are the shooting schedule, which is the long breakdown, and the more common one-line schedule, which gives everyone just the basic facts.  Because this paperwork gets revised, and to prevent confusion, the original color for these schedules is White, with subsequent revisions running Blue, Pink, Yellow,Green Goldenrod, Salmon, Buff and Cherry.  Sometimes the colors after Goldenrod can be slightly different based on paper available, preference, etc.

Colors are fun in pre-school.  On a film, it means things are changing, and unlike the 2008 Presidential campaign, Change is not good.  It means logistics have to change, people have to actually read the changes and adjust to them (as an AD, I can't wait until we go digital and can just install chips each of the crew members brains where we can make the change simultaneously. )

On Lucky Stiff, we had a hard-working location manager named Glenn, who had us working in locations in NY and NJ, with the help of the NYC Mayor's Office of Film Theatre and Television (MOFTV) and the NJ Film Commission, which even then had the great Davis Schooner.

The permit system in NY is relatively similar to back then, with some minor differences (some would call them major).  Briefly, you needed to lay out exactly where you were shooting, where you needed to hold parking, what you were shooting, and if you needed NYPD or NYFD assistance.   If your schedule changed, someone had to go to the MOFTV to change it.  Today, some of that can be done with a fax.  Then, it was not allowed.

Suffice to say changes meant lots of work and paperwork.

As an AD, I want to lock the schedule, and that requires locking locations.  That means signed agreements and guarantees.  They came slowly on Lucky Stiff; as such, as we got closer to principal photography, I was juggling to move locations we had to the beginning, regardless of whether it was the best order.  I just didn't want to find myself not knowing if I could shoot the day as scheduled a few days ahead (changing equipment, actors, extras, etc.).

My apologies to veteran crew who know all this - I try to write the blog for both pros and curious others.

Additionally, I had an art department that could not assure me that locations would be dressed for when I needed them.  Certainly, part of this had to do with the location issues.  However, coordinating the logistics of seeing that these locations got cleared and prioritized fell on the production manager.  Nothing was more important, or so one would think.

Rody, as most UPMs when there is no line producer, was responsible for managing the budget, and I certainly know how hard that is.  However, the process of monitoring the budget should never slow the process down - you make decisions and you move on.  Rody was slow in this area, in part because she did not have two key skills for the position; the ability to prioritize and the the skill to delegate responsibility.

A UPM has many responsibilities.  We did not have a huge budget, but we had enough PAs, and there was enough money to have hired a production coordinator, who could have freed Rody up.  That, however, would have required her to a) communicate what was already being done with another person, and b) be able to explain what needed to be done.  Both required trust, and Rody was afraid that any admission that something had not been done was admitting failure.

All of this would have been frustrating enough if she had not decided that, having not done her job, she was going to interfere with mine.  She had never scheduled a feature film, yet would come up with her own ideas on schedule publicly after we were in motion on my schedule.

This requires some clarification.

I've said it before - ADs are possessive of their schedules.  That is because they have to take a ton of elements into account to produce the schedule, and the person who makes suggestions is usually just reacting to one or two elements.  If a move looks obvious, it often means there is some fact you don't know.

When I became a line producer and UPM, I gave prime responsibility for the schedule to the AD.  It didn't matter than I had been an AD - it was their ship now.  If I had suggestions, I made them in private, after hearing why they had it another way.  I did this, mind you, when in at least a few cases, the people who were now 1st AD for me had been 2nd AD for me before.  It didn't matter.  Prime responsibility now fell to them, and I respected it.

Rody never understood this line.  This led to confusion, and tension.

So, now the stage is set.  We are getting close to principle photography, and we have a schedule (revised multiple times before we get to Day 1) that has holes - scenes scheduled for which we do not have the location locked - or, in some cases, even agreed upon.

The first major decision I have to be involved with is whether we push back the starting shoot date.  There was a good reason to push back a day or two (I forget which it was) and we do that.  I do not, however, see how more time will change anything.  We have to start.  Pushing back seems easy, but I know it will bite us.

We know we will be done by, at latest, the second week in October now.  Someone makes a joke about Halloween.  Not funny.

We set sail.  We hope for fair waters, and to return safely to shore soon.