i must remember this: day two

I lost my cool today only once.

If you know me, particularly if you've seen me when I served as tournament director of the United States Gay Open from 2011 to 2012, you would know that my patience magically shrinks during important, stressful events.

How was today stressful, you ask? Let's count the ways. On the shooting schedule today were three scenes, totaling six pages (more than half of the entire script). The first scene required complex choreography due to movement in a confined space. The second involved precise camera movement timed at exact moments of dialogue. And the last was a day for night scene (shooting an interior night scene when the sun still hangs up high) that demanded an in-camera character vanishing act coordinated with intricate camera movement. Oh, one minor detail that exponentially increased the complexity of the day: we had a nine-year-old actor whose work day could not last longer than eight hours.

In the end, for the sake of time, I had to compromise on several details I had envisioned. It's funny how you could be holding the script with your notes in one hand, yet still manage to forget all the fine prints during crunch time.

When did I lose my cool, you want to know? It was during scene two, my frustration growing due to the camera not coordinating precisely with the actor's movement - I grabbed the camera and tested it out myself. In Hollywood, one can never touch any equipment not within one's department or role. Luckily, I'm not there yet. But still...

At the end of the day, as the director of photography and I recapitulated the problem, we realized that a simple change of camera lens would have solved our problem. Note to self: never hesitate to change the lens to get the shot you need.

Only once.