Double and triple duty--producer-director, etc., Eve A. Ma

Yes, we do have a crew.

For most scenes, we have a camera person, a sound tech, a boom operator-best boy, a continuity-script person, a floor manager, and a director plus assistant to the director who is also our lead actor. 

You'll note there's some doubling up here.  Sometimes,  some of these people have to double up even more, for example, to cover lighting.   And SOMETIMES, if the place where we'll shoot is very restricted, or we're dealing with children, or if it's a very, very simple scene, there will be a lot more doubling up.

We have a director and crew of 2 for the want-ads scenes.  Here the crew is, relaxing with the lead actor,

Sometimes, in fact, I personally have had to be script writer, producer-director, camera operator, lighting tech, sound tech, and always, basic editor.  No, it's NOT easy.

In fact, it gets very complicated.  When we were shooting in Peña Chacón for the second time, for example, I was producer-director, camera operator, continuity person and lighting tech.  This resulted in some errors, because the director was too involved in camera angles and directing to notice that two actors missed their lines.  One of the missed lines was very important.

In addition, I was so focused on the image in the camera that I centered the mini-spotlight perfectly on the actor I wanted to light while I was setting up, but the minute I turned the camera to ¨"record," my hand relaxed and the mini-spotlight wandered to the left.

SIGH.

Three crew members out of 6 for that day, plus the director.

We had to re-shoot parts of those scenes, hence, part of the reason for the third time at Peña Chacón.  (The reason for the second shoot was my camera person did NOT understand what I wanted and, being in the land of the macho male, even though he´s a great guy, he kept thinking he knew better what I wanted than I did.  Plus we had some lighting problems.)

As for the newspaper scenes and such, what the hey, I just grabbed a camera, tripod, shoulder mount, digital recorder, mini-tripod for the digital recorder, microphone...

...and I shot it all by myself, with only the lead actor/assistant to the producer-director with me.

I won´t say which one started crying.  And we also had a teenaged boy.

PHOTO

And when trying to shoot the kids in a small space, well, I won't go there except to say that kids are kids, although they all really did their best, even the little girl that burst into tears at one point and said she could not go on.  But she did, but it all turned out ok.  And that's what it's all about, right?