I used to do location scouting for films, I was surprised at how many people let me into their house and poke around just from knocking on their door with a clipboard of location agreements.
Also, unless they’re going to pay you a lot, don’t agree to be a film set, even the best crews scuff floors and dent walls. Shoot days are a frenzy when you’re trying to jam stuff into the least amount of days feasible
Man, I was the stand-in/double for Martin Starr during the first season of Tulsa King and we filmed one day at some fancy ass house in OKC that was his characters house in the show, and as I’m sure you know, we couldn’t run the house AC or anything like that, and it was hot as fuck that day.
This ladies house smelled, and I mean REEKED of cat piss so bad that even the most seasoned of us were struggling to breathe in that place. I think we were there for about 10 hours and as the stand-in I was of course sitting in position for hours at a time while we got the shots setup and holy fuck it was torture. I remember when we were finally ready for 1st team I told Martin, “I hope you know your lines bro, because you aren’t going to want to fuck this up” lol.
I don’t know what she got paid for us using the house, but she should’ve been paying us. They brought in portable AC units to try to help while lighting and shit was setup but it didn’t help. At all. I’ll never forget that day and neither will any of my 2nd team cohorts lol. How she didn’t realize the stink was beyond me. Nose blind is one thing but this place was physically assaulting.
Edit - anyway, my point was her house got seriously fucked up because everyone was rushing to get equipment setup and the flimsy paper taped everywhere didn’t do shit to stop the damage we caused lol
That’s a fair question… You can’t use their air conditioning and such because for one, we spend a ton of time getting sound levels setup correctly and noise must be kept to a minimum. Aside from that, when you have a hundred people going in and out of a house for hours and hours, stirring up dust and all manner of shit, you could easily burn up the homeowners unit, costing untold amounts of money on top of the already expensive shoot. It’s just too much liability. This is why they bring huge portable units ran through open windows. The house AC would basically run non-stop the entire time in what was 100+ degree weather, which will easily fuck up a consumer AC unit. There’s more to it I’m sure, but I was merely a sweat sacrifice for the main actor during setup, but I have no doubt the liabilities involved in onsite shoots is enormous.
Edit - also, we are filming and rehearsing the whole time. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to make high quality media.
Understood. One point though, a normally functioning AC unit is designed to run continuously during the hottest part of the day at the hottest part of the year. But I doubt the woman with a piss-house had an AC unit that was fully up to par
Fully agree with that lol. Regardless, when utilizing others properties for this sort of thing I’ve never seen the production use anything but what they owned to limit damages and possible lawsuits. I’m no expert on why, but I do know that’s how it is. Which makes sense from an investment point of view.
Running continuously with two people in the house and all doors and windows shut is still a completely different task than dozens of people, equipment that produces a shit ton of heat and doors constantly open because people come and go all the time.
Yeah this is what I was going to say, the AC doesn’t care what the temperature in the house actually is beyond when the thermostat tells it to turn on or off. Running continuously to maintain room temperature on a 100°F day will be the same to the unit whether the actual interior temp is 78° or 98°
I used to do location scouting for films, I was surprised at how many people let me into their house and poke around just from knocking on their door with a clipboard of location agreements.
Also, unless they’re going to pay you a lot, don’t agree to be a film set, even the best crews scuff floors and dent walls. Shoot days are a frenzy when you’re trying to jam stuff into the least amount of days feasible
And that’s why studios buy properties for sets.
Man, I was the stand-in/double for Martin Starr during the first season of Tulsa King and we filmed one day at some fancy ass house in OKC that was his characters house in the show, and as I’m sure you know, we couldn’t run the house AC or anything like that, and it was hot as fuck that day.
This ladies house smelled, and I mean REEKED of cat piss so bad that even the most seasoned of us were struggling to breathe in that place. I think we were there for about 10 hours and as the stand-in I was of course sitting in position for hours at a time while we got the shots setup and holy fuck it was torture. I remember when we were finally ready for 1st team I told Martin, “I hope you know your lines bro, because you aren’t going to want to fuck this up” lol.
I don’t know what she got paid for us using the house, but she should’ve been paying us. They brought in portable AC units to try to help while lighting and shit was setup but it didn’t help. At all. I’ll never forget that day and neither will any of my 2nd team cohorts lol. How she didn’t realize the stink was beyond me. Nose blind is one thing but this place was physically assaulting.
Edit - anyway, my point was her house got seriously fucked up because everyone was rushing to get equipment setup and the flimsy paper taped everywhere didn’t do shit to stop the damage we caused lol
No, I don’t know. Why couldn’t you run the AC?! Especially if you’re just setting up shots and not filming?
That’s a fair question… You can’t use their air conditioning and such because for one, we spend a ton of time getting sound levels setup correctly and noise must be kept to a minimum. Aside from that, when you have a hundred people going in and out of a house for hours and hours, stirring up dust and all manner of shit, you could easily burn up the homeowners unit, costing untold amounts of money on top of the already expensive shoot. It’s just too much liability. This is why they bring huge portable units ran through open windows. The house AC would basically run non-stop the entire time in what was 100+ degree weather, which will easily fuck up a consumer AC unit. There’s more to it I’m sure, but I was merely a sweat sacrifice for the main actor during setup, but I have no doubt the liabilities involved in onsite shoots is enormous.
Edit - also, we are filming and rehearsing the whole time. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to make high quality media.
An AC would probably do little anyway. It just blows air in.
But you should be able to open every single window, wouldn’t you?
Definitely, unless checking sound levels or whatnot
Perhaps that’s why they always film in Toronto. Don’t need an AC unit.
Understood. One point though, a normally functioning AC unit is designed to run continuously during the hottest part of the day at the hottest part of the year. But I doubt the woman with a piss-house had an AC unit that was fully up to par
Fully agree with that lol. Regardless, when utilizing others properties for this sort of thing I’ve never seen the production use anything but what they owned to limit damages and possible lawsuits. I’m no expert on why, but I do know that’s how it is. Which makes sense from an investment point of view.
Running continuously with two people in the house and all doors and windows shut is still a completely different task than dozens of people, equipment that produces a shit ton of heat and doors constantly open because people come and go all the time.
it only knows on, and off.
Yeah this is what I was going to say, the AC doesn’t care what the temperature in the house actually is beyond when the thermostat tells it to turn on or off. Running continuously to maintain room temperature on a 100°F day will be the same to the unit whether the actual interior temp is 78° or 98°