Pilot: Day One of Shoot

Day One – Saturday, May 8th 2004
Drivers Prepping Cars, B-Roll Coverage of Busy Day at the Ranch

Molly scheduled the “call time” for the crew at 7AM, but it took more than an hour to get everyone to the track to start the “day”. Think Project Greenlight in reverse: experienced directors/writers/camera people being produced/managed by first time executive producers. So instead of Ben you get Scott, instead of Matt you get Alex and instead of Chris you get Bob.

My first objective was to learn the language – television people have a secret language that they use to communicate with one another – it is fairly easy to pick up but it is interesting and sometimes annoying nonetheless.

Scott and I were really excited about the prospect of making OUR television show. By this time everyone: Bob, Joe, Scott, Molly, and the entire crew began to take ownership of my little idea. To be honest it really stopped being mine when I starting talking about it. The moment I opened my mouth everyone had a way to make the idea better, cheaper, more expensive, faster, slower and so on. So from now on it is OUR television show. Our excitement has leaked over to our employees (at the IT outsourcing company), our families and our friends.

The first set-up was for Debra Loth’s on-track interview…

The schedule for the day:

10:00 MSR Shoot Call Time (moved to 8:00 AM by director)
11:00 Crew Prepping Cars
Aerial Shots of Track
2:00 Lunch
Shots of Open Garages
4:00 MSR Document

After an hour or so of waiting for the crew to arrive, set-up for Debra Loths on-track car prep/interview started.

The set-up process took forever – lights, sounds, tripods, cameras, people running around – it seemed like chaos, but our experienced Director and Crew took everything in stride. And then all of the sudden everything got very boring – shooting is very slow and tedious – imagine doing everything over and over at different angles and so on.

Soon things got more exciting when our fans (my wife Michele, son Ethan – Scott’s wife Kristin and his best friend Bill) arrived. Actually watching everything was fairly boring, but showing someone else the process is more interesting – perhaps somewhat like showing off. I think they were all impressed with the crew and the equipment – we had quite a set-up. But soon their interest waned as well. Fortunately Jack Farr was in the mood to show off his facility and his driving skill. He offered to take Michele, Kristin and Bill out on the track for a test run – they were very impressed. Finally, we said goodbye to our fans and we began to really understand what television production is like.

The first day of shooting went on, and on, and on, and on…   Lunch time came around and we realized Molly forgot to order lunch – Jack Farr saved the day by having one of his “ranch hands” go pick up Subway for the cast and crew.  By the end of my foot long sub I realized that my head was sunburned.  After lunch we moved to Michael Tari’s garage to watch his crew prep his car.  The sun was now hidden behind the clouds and the wind started to really blow.  The temperature dropped more than 10 degrees and everyone was getting cold (in May!).

I was sun burned, wind burned, cold, hungry and generally miserable and I wasn’t doing any of the work.  One thing was clear:  television production is “manual labor” combined with skill and creativity – the cameraman had to hold the 40 lbs camera for hours in the heat of the sun and the chill of wind – he never complained – he took a 30 minute break for lunch and just kept filming.  I have a new respect for our crew.