Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Pussy Galore

Well the two-day cat food shoot is over, the producer didn't die from her cat allergies, the cat ate the food, the model looked like a cat owner, and all is well. This may have been the easiest and fastest shoot I've ever been on, and I've been on many.

Reasons for this?

1. Excellent pre-production
2. Entire location indoors, in an apartment 4 blocks from the agency
3. Minimal talent - one actress and one cat, plus some cat backups if necessary
4. Austrian director of photography - this guy managed to set lights and frame a shot in like 20 seconds, I swear. And make each shot look awesome.
5. No client on-set
6. Great cat wranglers

But numbers 2, 4, and 6 were definitely the keys here. Everything ran on and even ahead of schedule. It was pretty phenomenal.

Today I looked around the room where we were watching the playback and remembered another reason I love being in production - you get to work with funny characters from all over the world. We had a Romanian producer and crew, a German director, Austrian cinematographer, British agency rep, Hungarian actress, and Dutch cats and cat wranglers. Oh, and me.

This was also the first shoot this summer where I actually heard those stereotypical advertising things being said. And not just once or twice... dozens of times. My favorite, though, was when the director went to the actress and said, accent and all...

"You need to pick up ze product wis more LOVE!"

1 comment:

Geijn said...

Dutch cats rule! I am glad the Dutch could help you make your day!