In keeping with the "Creep" theme: A little sideline story.
A slow creep is sometime referred to as "A Mickey Rooney".
A number of years ago I did a Xmas movie of the week with Mickey. We had a scene setup following Mickey as he's chased through a mall. About 100+ of rail with a push down following and doubling back with a close up of Mickey as he "ran" past camera. Thanks to setup time and Mickey, it had to be a one take wonder.
We did 10 plus rehearsals with Mickey's stand-in - for stunt player's timing (getting knocked off escalators, etc). Then Mickey came in and watched a rehearsal. At this point I'm winded. Mickey came over and proceeded to tell me to be on my toes as he was going to me twice as fast as his 70 year old stand-in - who was chugging pretty good through all the run thrus.
I sucked it up. I tensed up - "wound up the spring" and waited for "action!"
"Action" was called and I bolted like a gun had gone off. I looked ahead in the hopes that I could keep up with Mickey. He wasn't there. I looked back. There he was, waddling along as best he could, at about 20% speed of what we had rehearsed and I could see the sweat forming on his brow.
I burst in laughter. I couldn't stop laughing - the focus puller caught the laughter bug too and fell off the dolly. The camera operator couldn't see what was going on around him and just kept shooting. There was no video assist so the director didn't know what was going on either.
On the pull back both me and the focus puller were laughing so hard that we tripped over each other and fell down. The Op just followed the puck until they called cut.
Mickey just kept on going to his trailer as he had a date with a horse. The op and director were happy with the shot... and the movie still plays every Christmas to this day.
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4 comments:
That is a great story Azurgrip! and come on now... seriously? 8" in 8 minutes??? is that move even discernible? i think my brain might explode. however, now, i've got to go play on my time and see exactly how painful that is.
great job by the way, boys, your website has come a long way.
that story rules. the best part is that he kept running right to his trailer...classic!
I love a creep, and I reckon I've done 8" in 8 minutes too to be honest. For students. Certainly felt like 8 minutes, it was around 6 pages I think.
My worst creep story is from when I was a trainee. We were on a fairly low budget feature, this is England so the department was the dolly grip and me as trainee. There are standbys and stage hands but nobody else is going to push the thing and on this day the dolly grip got really sick in the afternoon. No chance of getting another grip in at this notice so I stepped up for a shot. It was about a 2 foot creep in as the male lead sits at a piano in a recording studio and sings, finishing quite tight on his face and this big radio type mike. No biggie right? Two rehearsals and we're off into takes, only when we're halfway along this guy starts singing some lines none of us has heard before. Exchange a quick worried glance with the focus puller, slow down a chunk and carry on. Suddenly the guy is back on script, finishes the song and I've blown the end. After 5 or 6 takes, each with completely random length songs and different timing, the script supervisor comes in on behalf of the director for a quiet word with the actor about continuity for the scene. She asks him if he can do one to the script for the sake of the cut and his reply was "Oh no darlin', each one's special".
I think there were a couple of good ones in there and looking back from several years away it's quite funny but at the time it really wasn't.
Great story! Keep em coming!
D
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