Beer chat

[Alex Taylor]

I was shooting a short film with a few friends, and we were in the kitchen doing a scene that involved the character waiting for a piece of toast to pop. I had him covertly place his hand near the toaster so he could pop it himself when the time came. The first take, he had his face a bit too close to the toaster, and he put a bit too much force on the lever! Up comes the toast, hits him in the chin and bounces straight into a bowl of milk. We got it aalll on tape. That's how I came up with 'Milktoast Productions' for a little fake production company :)

Kermie, I love the briefcase story, that's priceless!

[Dan Holly]

We were on a shoot last summer in a town (not to be mentioned here) in Alaska. The town was a launching point for our boat/gear/crew where we had to travel up river 7 or 8 miles to our location.
The original shoot was set for 1.5 days and turned into 3 days because the fishing was absolutely hot, the weather was perfect, and we couldn’t pass up the footage we were getting.

This is one of our favorite locations, and we are in and out of there 6 or 7 times a summer

Every night we were going into town and terrorizing the local “watering holes” with my partner and 3 of our crew. Most of the locals and guides knew we were there shooting, and would stop by to see how we were doing throughout the day.

The whole time my wife was visiting her parents in Denver for a mini vacation with our youngest boy………….

There is a fishing guide who is 22 years old, blonde, and lets just say she’s a “bombshell” which is not typical of the whole “Alaska guide stereotype”. She looks like she belongs as an icon on a California or Florida beach. My oldest boy (who is 18 tomorrow) is so in love with her it’s not funny. I’ve known her for years, and my son and I went on a guided fishing trip with here when she was 18 to scope out the area.

We were at the bar terrorizing the locals, when one of them mentioned we should get out the mighty canon and film the party. Of course we obliged. It got completely out of control and I was filming the whole thing. My partner was leading them in bar songs/chants/and more stupid stuff. I also was interviewing people and getting some good footage, and there ended up being a line of people awaiting their alleged 15 seconds of fame.

I needed to take a break, and handed the camera to one of our crew…….he has literally zero time behind the camera, but is a decent sound/scout/prep guy on our shoots.

When I came back the “bombshell” started up a conversation with me, and was showing me the newly healed tattoo she had on the small of he back just above her waist line. I mentioned that it was a little dry due to the skin healing. She breaks out the lotion the tattoo artist gave her and squeezes some in my hand. I look up at my partner (I’m sure with a blushed face) and immediately the camera started rolling while this was all going on.

While she is lifting up the back of her shirt she has her hand on my shoulder to keep her balance…..
Here I am rubbing lotion on her tattoo…………XL1s rolling………
I thought nothing of it while it was all going on, and she was posing for the camera the whole time arching her back flipping her hair etc. We were all kind of chuckling about the whole thing and it was all innocent at the moment. Half the bar is cheering me on to make it worse.

I ended up talking and drinking a beer with her for about 15-20 min’s before they handed the camera back to me. Of course, I know now that I shouldn’t be in front of the camera when I’m buzzed on beer….with a hand full of lotion, and a new tattoo on some female……hehe

I get back home and about a week later I’m going through all the footage to see what we could use, and what was crap. I completely forgot about the whole situation I described above.

My editing box is upstairs in our family room where my desk is, and the wife’s desk is about 6 feet away. I was mentioning to my wife about how crazy it is when you break out the camera in a bar scenario, and what a prosumer camera does to people. She was kind of watching the footage out of the corner of her eye, kidding with me, and saying how much of and idiot my friends and I are to get people to do stuff like that in front of our cameras……when both sides of the camera are influenced with too much beer.

Up pops the footage of bombshell with the new tattoo arching her back and little ole me rubbing lotion on it while she is gyrating to the whole thing as described above.

I immediately shut off the camera, but now I’m busted……….the wife swoops in like a hungry bald eagle with an impressive wingspan…….whoosh……literal near death experience…….

Of course I had to turn it back on to satisfy her curiosity, and come to find out after the whole “lotion thing” our bombshell is standing facing me the whole time we are standing with about a beer bottles distance between the 2 of us. To make it worse, the camera zooms in close on her breasts to make the distance between us look even closer.

Now, the wife’s focus goes to the audio……..which is probably the only thing that saved me…..
Luckily I’m talking to her about nothing but “hooking up” with my son sometime………hehe

To make this long story short, after the wife blew off some steam she forgave me, and this “short” ended up with a happy ending (but quite the woman’s scorn =).

[Dylan Couper]

Back when I was 19, I was shooting a short kuung-fu comedy for fun in a friend's back yard. We were choreographing the first sequence between the Evil Khan Dom (my best friend, 6'4" 260lb bodybuilder at the time) and, I forget the hero's name, who was played by me. For the very first shot, I explained in very small simple words to him that he would punch the air about 12" from my head to my left. I'd dodge my head to my right, and make it look like he socked me hard. Well, I think you can figure out what happened next. It was my fault for thinking he would understand the difference between MY left and HIS left. Next thing I know I'm spitting blood out and checking to see if my teeth were all still there (thankfully they were). We laughed it off, had some beer and completed the shoot.

The sad part? The shot of me actually getting punched looks fake compared to the shots we choreographed, which looked real, so I didn't end up using it. :)

[Bob Deming]

I was shooting a vet in his home. This guy is about 82 yrs.

During the last couple of min in the interview I walked away from the cameras and used the bathroom. When I came back the interview was complete and the host was not in the room. The vet was sitting in his favorite chair.

In post I was working with an intern and she (about 19 yrs) came to the end of the shoot where I had left the room.

The good ole vet unzipped his pants and used his emty coffee cup to drain his lizard. The intern's eyes popped open and said, "Gee that's big".

Question. Should I keep this a secret or let the vet know????

[Ken Tanaka]

At 82 I'd bet he knows how big it is.