Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Attitudes

When you make independent movies, people admire you for being ghetto.

Me: "Yeah, my movie only cost 100 bucks. I paid the actors in powerbars, and I processed the film in my bathtub to save money."
Movie Exec: "You rule. Here, take these bags of money."

TV people don't think like this.

TV exec: "Your show looks a little funny."
Me: "Well, it's just a rough cut. It hasn't been color timed or had anything fancy done."
TV exec "Why not?"
Me: "Well, I'm trying to keep my production costs down. I processed the film in my bathtub to save money."
TV Exec: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"


We have a meeting tomorrow with some other big TV producer guy, and our expensive cut looks good, but I'm not sure how to handle this attitude. I'm really used to being able to brag about how little money I spent.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just remember to restrain yourself when the effort to shove your tape up the TV Exec's ass starts to consume you... nobody is going to want to watch a stinky tape!

Or is it pressed on DVD? I think DVD's are okay for shoving up TV Exec's asses because they can be put in the dishwasher after removal.

Norman said...

I actually find this a problem with film execs today as well. When I first started editing (on FILM!! Yow, now I've dated myself) the execs looked at a film print with grease pencil marks for dissolves, no music or sound effects, and SHOT MISSING slugs where there were effects.

Now, if the film doesn't look and sound like a finished release they ask the stupidest questions. ("Why is that so slow?") It's why we waste so much damned money on temp dubs, or so much time on mixing inside our editing machines now.

Peggy Archer said...

Dave - you can run DVD's through the dishwasher? Sweeeeet. Actually, shoving DVD's up asses would be fun, but retrieving them would not be. Perhaps I'll just taunt them in the blog.

Norman - I'm so there with you. Some of the indie guys are still smart, but all of the big studio guys are about 12 years old and dumber than a pillowcase full of hammers.

Wow, I sound really bitter, don't I? I'm not, I swear.