Fuck-Up #20
“We Don’t Need Much Equipment”
What gear you really need
“If you ain’t got no axe, you cain’t cut no wood.”6
—John Eaton
The Fuck-Up…
The day before I was to direct my first student film, a friend and I showed up in a cab to pick up the equipment that our director of photography (also called the D.P.) had ordered. We quickly realized there was vastly more than a cab’s full and had no idea how we were going to transport it all. We called the D.P. in a panic, pleading “Do we really need all this?” to which he replied, “It’s really not that much.”
I had fallen victim to a common new filmmaker naiveté, not appreciating just how much equipment is likely to be involved even in my “little film.” Although I was shocked then, many years ...
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