Murphy’s Law

Murphy’s Law is defined as anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. That was the case on this shoot. It was one of those shoots where all you can do is laugh at this situation because you would otherwise pop a blood vessel due to stress. This will probably not be the only post about this shoot however; it will be the only one from my perspective.

Earlier in the week I spoke to Mike and he said we would meet at the Dawsonville Outlet Mall at 10AM. So I wake up Saturday morning and stumble out of bed like I always do. I put on my jeans and a shirt as I always do and headed to the shoot. This is where it all began to go down hill.

See what happened :

So I get to the Dawsonville Outlet Mall at 10am as planned. I look at all the other crew members and I realize that I am not in the khaki short club. Yes I threw on some heavy denim jeans to wear in like 90 something degree weather. I know I am a smart one for this. So I am thinking, “its an outlet mall, there have to be some cheap shorts somewhere”. So I run to one store…they aren’t open. I run to another store…their shorts are too expensive. I back to the first store…their shorts cost even more. Finally I run into the last store and end up spending like $26 on some shorts. Now this doesn’t seem too bad. But then Teague says, “Well we have to go to the Wal-Mart across the street to pick up some stuff”. Are you serious? I could have bought some shorts for like 8 bucks.

So anyway, we go to wal-mizzel and Teague and I are trying to figure out what flotation device to get Eric. (I know you are asking why we need this. You have to watch the show this weekend to see where and why). So the choices were between a regular inner tube and the children’s sea-horse floaty. I voted for the floaty, but we had to take a vote amongst the crew. We ultimately didn’t use one. But can you imagine Eric on a floating seahorse? I think Eric would have embodied the essence of cool on that one

So we loaded up into 3 cars, well really 2 cars and a minivan. Teague was going to be shooting Eric from one car, while Eric was driving another car. Now this seemed like a good idea…at the time. The whole thing seems simple enough. You just put both cars next to each other. What we failed to realize that it is not the best idea when the camera man is hanging out of the window. What’s worse is being on a two lane highway was no the best place for this. we had cars, trucks, and motorcycles trying to pass. We eventually ran out of highway and had to get back into single file formation. So I am thinking we are going to turn around and go back to the outlet mall. I was sadly mistaken, for we kept driving. Se here I am sitting in the passenger side of this minivan not knowing where the heck we are going. Apparently Gerald (our sound guy) and myself were on a need to know basis and apparently we didn’t need to know. We just followed.

So we shoot a couple of leads and switch around the driving arrangements. Aaron is driving one car, I’m driving the minivan, and Eric is driving with Teague and Gerald in the car. We had been driving for about 30 minutes when I began to pick up radio stations from North Carolina! How did we end up that close to North Carolina? I mean I figured we were going to North Georgia but wow!

Teague, Eric, and Gerald at the Tomato House

So we pull up to this old time gas station. We go and set up for the shot and all we can hear is Teague yelling at somebody. We look up and we see this green truck run over Teague’s tripod. He had set it up behind this truck and forgot he put it there. The guy in the truck obviously didn’t look before he backed up. So the guy gets out and he is a little pissed like “why are you hitting my truck”. I don’t know what Teague said, but the guy drove off without reaching towards his gun rack that was in the back window. What was interesting about this particular lead it that it only took like 30 seconds to shoot…if that. Eric nailed it the first time around and that was it. For Eric, that’s like hitting the mega-million jackpot…it never happens. So we load up and proceed on to, what was probably the most stressful scene to shoot.

The backdrop for the shot

The scenario for the next scene was that Eric was supposed to be on the side of the mountain and his car has broken down. Aaron finds this beautiful overlook and we decide to set up there. I am getting something out of the van and I look over at Teague’s car. Ironically the car we were going to use in the shot, actually started gushing antifreeze. It was like a running faucet. Teague starts pitching a fit. Only this time he had just cause to do so. I mean we are at the top of a freaking mountain and his car starts to break down. I mean who do you call in this situation? What do you tell them? “Ah yea, I’m at the top of Blood Mountain. Can you come and tow my car” I mean I don’t know how anything with more that 2 axles can get up that thing. So after looking at the car, Aaron determines that it is only the auxiliary canister that is leaking anti-freeze and not the radiator. So it was drivable. Thank goodness. That would suck if the car was still stuck up there. Oh but that’s only the start of what went wrong on this scene.

Now we needed the car to be smoking for this particular shot. And with Teague’s car breaking down, we thought that his show would be easy to get. We thought since the coolant was leaking the engine would already be hot enough if not smoking. But as you can guess, the block wasn’t hot enough. So we decide that we would throw some water on the block to get some steam going. But once again, the block wasn’t hot enough. So what do we do? Teague comes up with the brilliant idea to light some pine straw on fire right next to a car. All we needed was dry pine straw and a lighter. Quick question, who has a lighter? Of course they look to the smoker (me) for one. The funny thing is, I quit smoking about a month ago (it’s been a long month). So I am here getting ridiculed by everyone about how I am supposed to have a lighter. In the meantime, we try to light this stuff with a cigarette lighter and some tissue paper. I think we tried to do this for about an hour. During this hour, Teague has managed to get so riled up that he kicks his car (I mean it can’t get much worse right). I get stung by some sort of bug to where I have to pull the stinger out. Something else bit me on the back of my head. By this time everyone was just ready to go home. But it was only 2pm. We still had a long way to go. I guess you will have to see this weekend if we were able to get the stuff lit.

We arrive at this inner tube site in Helen, Georgia about 45 minutes later. Matter of fact, we drive dead in to the center of the town where so much was going on. As we are driving down the main street, Eric and I turn right to go into a parking lot. Unfortunately, Aaron didn’t get that message. Aaron missed the turn and kept going straight. So we’re calling him trying to figure out where he is and giving him directions how to get to where we are. After about 20 minutes, he is able to turn around and get to the parking lot. Mind you, it’s like 90 some odd degrees and I am outside carrying the run bag, the tripod, the flex-fill, and occasionally the shotgun boom.

"The Redneck Riviera"

So we walk up to what Eric called “the Redneck Riviera “ which was basically people drifting in inner tubes in knee-high water. Eric and Teague decide that this would be a great shot so, once again we set everything up. Eric walks out to some rocks that are in the middle of the water. He says his lines and then he makes his way back towards dry land. And then everyone hears a “ploosh” noise. We look over and Eric has dropped the walkie –talkie in the water. So Eric brings the walkie-talkie over to us and we try to determine if it is damaged. We dry it off and give it a test. The thing ended up sounding like a television set from the 1940’s. The sound was all distorted, and the transmitter wasn’t even working. Basically we gave Eric a walkie-talkie and he gave us a paper weight. What else can go wrong on this shoot?

Well we finish up all of the leads except for one. We end up leaving Helen and start making our way back around the mountain. We see a cow field and decide this will be the place for the last shoot. By this time it is beginning to rain. We pull over on the side of the road and set up for the last time. It just so happens that a billion cars and trucks want to drive along this one road. I mean it’s a freakin' mountain town. How many cars can pass through here? So we decide to shoot further down the hill, right off the street. Teague asked me to pull out the flex and reflect some light on Eric’s face. So I grab the flex and hop off the street…and land in an ant pile!. So I am jumping and cursing, and Teague and Eric just think I am complaining until I take of my shoe and show them. Teague said it best, “If the light is shaking on Eric’s face, don’t worry. That’s just Charles getting eaten by all the ants” I don’t know if the light is shaky or not. Like you, I am just going to have to watch the show this weekend and find out. We finish the shot and all I can think about is I want to get out of here.

The reason I call this shoot Murphy’s Law is that EVERYTHING went wrong. not knowing where we’re going; Getting yelled at by handfuls of traffic; a car breaking down on the side of a mountain; the search for a lighter; getting eaten alive or stung by 3 different types of bugs, equipment breaking. Like this blog post, the day was long and thank God this shoot is over!