PunchFarm is a group of friends who love movies, tacos and beer. I recently heard them for the first time (Thanks, Rebekah Fieschi!), and thought, these fun people could be my friends.
They love moves. I love movies. They love tacos. I love tacos. They love beer. I love movies.
Each week they watch a movie together and then record their thoughts and opinions about the film. They also discuss anything and everything. Horror movies, comic books and tacos are just a few of the topics they geek out on. They talk to filmmakers such as the aforementioned Rebekah Fieschi and P.J. Starks (a friend of my friend Amber Langton, a fine filmmaker in her own right). Other recent guests have included Josh Hasty, director of In Hell Everybody Loves Popcorn, and Dynamo Marz, lead singer of The Deadites.
As many of you know, I always like to take a position on one of the topics discussed in each week’s podcast I review. This week, I will be featuring Episode 39, the one which not coincidentally featured Rebekah Fieschi.
In addition to the interview with Rebekah, the gang brings up several other topics, as usual.
So the position I want to take in this post, is a response to one of those other topics, and also is my answer to this question:
If you’re the Camera Operator, and one of the actors trips in a gopher hole, do you set down the camera and go help the actor — or do you keep the camera rolling, get the shot, and let someone else worry about him? At the one hour (01:00:00) mark, of Episode 39, our gang discuss that very happening during the shooting of their short film Chompy: Attack of the Fishman.
My answer is this:
I contend you set down the camera. Especially if you can run and warn him before he hit the ground, you set down the camera. Sure the safety meeting is the job of the 1AD — but everybody is responsible to keep their eyes open for safety concerns on the set.
Triggered by this discussion, I emailed a former film professor of mine, and asked him the same question. He said “I don’t know if I would stop filming, but I would definitely say something before they stepped in it.” I had another discussion with a peer, who took it one step (pun intended) further. He asked “Can a Camera Op really stop filming at all if the director never yells ‘Cut’?” Good question.
Anyway, thanks PunchFarm Podcast for spurring on this discussion! Before I went to press with this blog post, I shot off an email to Mark Scheetz because I wondered from where the PunchFarm name originated. Mark replied immediately: “Years ago we made a few short films and thought it would be fun to have our own “production company” so we just made that name up. That silly name worked well with the silly shorts we made. One short was about a misunderstood fish-man, Chompy. And “Chompy” is part of our podcast logo.”
Way to bring the gopher hole story and the name origin story full-circle, Mark! I couldn’t have done it better myself.
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ADDENDUM: Here’s a quick glimpse at the PunchFarm gang…
FILMIC THE PAGE 