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Chris Moore - Pete's First Day
Well, please post in the message boards and tell me what you thought about Pete's first day. Were we crazy to let him make his movie? Isn't it amazing how everything reduces down to just one goal of getting what you need on film? The pressure goes way up and the little things are huge. This is again why prep is so key.
I should point out a bunch of stuff here, the first of which is why I was not there. The answer is not as clean as when I leave later in the series, to be with my girlfriend as she is due to have our first baby at any minute. I missed the first day due to other commitments and I am sorry I did. Although, there is very little anyone could have done to help that first day because the problems were the result of choices made weeks before, not anything that happened that day. But I was not there, and I am sorry I was not. I believe this first day really set a tone for the rest of the movie.
Problem one was the sound. The El is loud and constant and regular. We did not have the budget to stop the trains so we had to deal with them. Problem two was that we chose scenes that only had the kids in them. This was risky as kids take the longest to get ready, potentially are the most distracted by the trains and the newness of their first movie, and are just...kids. Problem three was that we picked emotional, dramatic scenes with lots of dialogue. Again, risky due to everyone's lack of working together, and the distractions of the environment, and the distraction of being everyone's first day.
So, this brings us to the fundamental conceit of this whole entire project. On any movie, the producer is trying to juggle the money issues from the studio while also trying to give the director everything he or she needs. Why is this a juggling act? Mostly because directors want a lot and feel they need everything Jim Cameron had on "Titanic" to give their movie a fair shot at the box office, and studios want the box office of "Titanic" without the cost. On this movie, we had a first timer who was a contest winner. The crew, the cast, and the studio/production committee were all working together for the first time. We were also trying to show the world how hard it is to make a movie. So we let Pete make his movie as much as we could.
It is important to note that Matt, Ben, Sean Bailey (our other LivePlanet partner), and I all believe that film is a director's medium. We would always go with a director's vision until we were sure he or she was hurting the movie. It may not be popular with studios or writers, but no good movie has ever happened without the clarity of vision of the director. So when the answer was not obvious we went with Pete.
Nowhere is this more evident than giving in to him to shoot his first day with these scenes and at this location. But, we felt he won the right to make his own movie and if he blew it he blew it. So that is why I did not step in from afar, nor did Pat Peach, and we gave in to him here. I will say that I wanted to. First days are so important and Pete was shooting for the moon. My experience was telling me to stop him but he was so sure of himself I let him go ahead. I agree with what Pat said in the show about giving him some time to learn.
Hopefully Pete is learning.
On another subject, I want to discuss Jeff Balis. Because I could not be there the whole time and because we did not want to make Pete's movie for him, I asked Miramax to let me send Jeff Balis in my place. Jeff has been working for me for 3 years and I trust him completely to have common sense, be a good problem solver, and keep everyone focused on making the script we loved into a movie we loved. However, this was his first movie and I was unclear with him about his role. I gave him mixed signals, sometimes saying to him that he was to produce this movie and not to bother me and other times saying you are my eyes and ears please keep me informed. This will come up more in later episodes. But I start criticizing Jeff in this episode and I want people to understand I am partly to blame for his insecurity.
The reason I wanted to have him there was also because traditionally the line producer, in this case Pat Peach, is not the person I trust with script and other creative issues. I trust Pat for the budget and the schedule and the crew, but I wanted Jeff to be there to help Pete and me on creative stuff. So the relationship is confusing, hard, and painful for all of us. It is also a little unorthodox. In a perfect world, I would have been there everyday. Please go easy on Jeff as you watch. I sure did not go easy on him as it was happening and now I realize he was in a hard position and it did not always go his way.
So not much more to say this week. I think the episode is self evident in how this was a bad idea for the first day. Keep watching, it gets better. In the next episode, I get too angry in places and I hope you can still watch me after next week.
I hope you will keep watching. Happy Holidays to everyone reading this! !
Thanks for reading . . .
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