Baron Jay, actor/producer: We met about 6 years ago and we kind of like reconnected
through our mutual Detroit Farmer maybe like three or four years ago.
So it’s been a great ride.
Michael Joseph, actor/producer: Great ride.
He’s calling us to set.
Joe Bohn, first AD: I do have to hold for these guys.
I love your BTS but I’ve got a picture to make.
Alright, let’s go guys.
Michael Joseph: Thank you guys.
Joe Bohn: My name is Joe Bohn.
I’m the first assistant director on DEADLY REUNION.
[Joe on set directing actors and crew]
“She’ll be on your right.
Monica will be on your left.
So Monica let’s actually start you here.
We’ll actually start you ahead.
I know that’s not how you actually did it before but we’ll start you ahead just for
safety sake in doing this.
So real hand speed here’s the action.
We walk in…you’re with them, you’re with them.
And then Chuckie will come into here.
So let’s just pick it up from right there guys.
We get clustery in that top end.
So Chuckie this is your one, Stu let’s have you Chuckie’s on the right.
Jill let’s have you on the left (this is where you’re going to end up).
I want to clean this up a little bit.
Stu you are on the right of the camera…there we go.
So we start going through the stuff like you guys do, so let’s start going through the
stuff.
Film Courage: How did you get attached to the project, Joe?
Joe Bahn: Joe Karam who is one of the actors (he plays Bobby) he was in negotiations to
come onto the project and we worked together once before and he wanted to make sure that
if he was going to be a part of it he wanted it to be ran really well from an on set perspective
and made one of his conditions that I be hired on as well before he would accept his involvement
so that’s how I got on.
[Joe on set]
“Here we go!
Quiet all around please.
Picture’s up.
Slated and roll sound.”
“Sound speed”
“Call it”
“18 Apple - Take 2”
“Camera”
“Mark”
“Let me know”
Film Courage: And how long have you been first ADing?
Joe Bohn: Professionally first AD…a little over 5 years?
I moved out from San Francisco (I got my Master’s up there) and one of my associates moved down
here as well booked a first AD job for Miley Cyrus for one of her videos.
He brought me on as a second AD.
The producers liked him (but they didn’t want to bring him back) so they brought me
back instead and they started bringing me back over and over again, recommending me
to other producers and that’s kind of the history of everything, that’s the history
of my career.
I just got recommended and just kind of spider-webbed out from there.
Film Courage: And as a first AD what is your…from the minute you get on set, what is your responsibility?
What are you looking for at all time?
Joe Bohn: No dead time.
I mean fundamentally you are trying to get the greatest amount of quality footage in
the can for the director and the production at any given time.
And what usually happens on a lot of sets (especially if you don’t have a strong first)
is that downtime where people are ready to work but no one is telling them to work, no
one is telling them to go there and do that.
It almost in some ways feels like babysitting…I don’t want to put down other departments,
it’s not like that.
But people are waiting to do their jobs you don’t have a foreman (like on a construction
site) waiting to tell them “Okay guys, you need to go in and do this.
You need to come out so they can go in and do this,” then no one knows what to do and
it’s a lot of people milling around.
So for me as soon as we’re in, as soon as that clock hits 7 o’clock, 8’ o’clock
(whatever time your call time is) it is immediately getting every department working on something.
An ideal schedule or an ideal world or an ideal world has every department constantly
working on something whether it’s the scene that we’re shooting currently, prepping
the next scene, wrapping out the previous scene, any elements like that, that we can
do.
We have a B camera that’s not shooting because of the set-up in this particular scene, then
let’s get the B camera to go outside and get B roll.
Let’s get the house, let’s get the cars, let’s get the sunset, let’s get something.
But if people are sitting around doing nothing, then that becomes an issue that should be
rectified in an ideal world.
Watch your ears real quick [Joe prepares crew and actors for upcoming scene] “Nine minutes
guys!
Nine minute warning.”
[Joe back on set preparing crew and actors]
“Here we go!”
“Are we coming in on this one?”
“Yeah, I’ll try to call it.”
“So this isn’t afterward…this is…”
“Pictures up.
Quiet all around.
“From the top, let’s continue to do it.
We’re going to try some new semantics.
Slated!
Roll sound.”
“Rolling.
Call it.”
“Sound speed.”
“Scene 21 Apple - Take 1.”
“Camera.
Camera.”
“Speed.”
“Mark it.”
Film Courage: So as a first AD you’re almost never resting while on set?
It sounds like you’re always looking for the next step and doing two things at once
it sounds like?
Joe Bohn: Yeah, as a first AD if you’re resting, I’m not sure you are working?
I don’t know how that works?
Look on your bigger budget stuff where you have a second AD, a second second, multiple
second seconds, key PA, PA.
When you have all these personnel and all these resources at your disposal, sure you
can step off set and relax.
If you smoke, have a cigarette, whatever the case may be.
But if you are working in the let’s say under $250,000 budget range, you just don’t
have the personnel underneath you to support you in that kind of way and in order to keep
the film moving at a pace that usually (again at those budget levels) it needs to move,
you have to be “on” at all times.
You don’t step off set to 10:1 to use the restroom.
You step off set to 10:1 to grab a bottle of water and come back and theoretically if
you’ve got a PA, you radio them and they get you the water.
Because every second that you step off is a second that someone may not be working or
things may not be moving forward.
Those seconds add up over the course of a day and certainly over the course of a long
shoot.
And what they add up to is shots you couldn’t get, set-ups you couldn’t grab, performances
that couldn’t be tweaked because you didn’t have time and that time gets lost…yes because
other people weren’t doing their jobs but fundamentally you weren’t there to supervise
them and have them continue to work through that.
[Joe back on set preparing crew and actors]
“Let me emphasize that, these are your marks, right?
These are your marks.
Let’s not wander, let’s not waddle, let’s stay where we are.
Harry is the only one who is going to pin it to the stove to where he is.
Camera we’ve got sharps.”
Film Courage: Challenges for a first AD on set and how you work around it?
Joe Bohn: Challenges for a first AD on set and how you work around it?
Well, that’s the challenge in and of itself.
Each film set inherently comes with its own variables and its own issues.
It would be very easy to be like “Oh, well the problems are X, Y and Z and this is how
you solve them.
Unfortunately that’s not the situation.
Certainly in this industry but specifically as a first AD.
You have to first and foremost evaluate what your resources are and resources refer to
not only just what you psychically have but your personnel as well.
Do I have five people or do I have one?
That’s going to change the problems you are going encounter and how you can solve
them.
Ideally you are solving those problems before you get to them anyways but maybe you’re
not.
And then obviously the psychical resources of your equipment, money, the house, what
time can we shoot, fighting the daylight (if you’re outside), that kind of stuff.
So in terms of common problems…I think really the most common problem you are always going
to run into is personality.
You have people with egos or not with egos, people that are hard to work with or easy
to work with, but they are green, they are not experienced, they want to learn.
So you have to teach on set as you go along.
It’s really…fundamentally it’s not about being the first AD that you think you should
be.
It’s about being the first AD that this particular production, these particular people,
need you to be.
I think that’s the problem that a lot of people who take this position is that they
come in…the know the rules, they know the regulations, they know how to do the job,
but they approach every job the same.
And in doing so, you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.
You have to be malleable yourself and take those first few days to figure out what this
needs and how to work with people.
And if you can do that and adapt quickly and efficiently, then hopefully you minimize those
problems that you are talking about.
Film Courage: For you…when you first step on [set]…let’s suppose you are going to
have a 17-day shoot at what point do you find…that you get this gut-level “Okay…I think this
is where the issues are going to be.”
Not specific people (maybe, maybe not) but where do you get the temperament of the set?
When does it start to reveal itself to you?
Joe Bohn: I think by Day 2.
I think if you are really paying attention probably really (honestly) by lunch on Day
1.
Because it’s very easy to see “Okay, he’s got a chip on his shoulder, he doesn’t communicate
well, and she’s…”
You can really kind of get that pretty quickly.
But if haven’t figured out by Day 2, then you’re not going to figure it out (you’re
just not).
At that point it should have revealed itself.
Now in a 17-day shoot, if you’re moving from a location-to-location maybe new problems
arise in that sense where you are in this location but this location is super strict.
They want padding down on the floor, they want layout board, ram board, and they want
this, that and the other.
So you have to discover those problems and then change and acclimate to them extremely
fast because you don’t have the two days previously to kind of build up to it and work
out a scheme or a plan to make it work.
So that’s the biggest thing.
Otherwise yeah…if you are paying attention and you’re on set and you are working with
people and you are listening and communicating, I think you find out by the end of the first
day, really.
No later than the end of the second.
Film Courage: I get the sense that you are really good at reading people.
That you just have this innate thing where you can figure what someone needs, where they
need to be lead, am I right with that?
You have a really quick sense with that?
Joe Bohn: Yeah, I think I do.
I think I have a really quick sense to read people.
It makes me as valuable and as good at the job as I am (I hope it does).
I think without that it becomes much more difficult to do the job effectively as I want
to and I strive to do it.
[Joe back on set preparing crew and actors]
“Okay, let’s try one guys.
Obviously Chuck has total control here to say Stop, Cut…whatever the case may be.
Let’s go to one.
Watch the lights, watch the reflections.”
“Are we going from one or are we going to…sorry to cut you off.
Are we starting from one?”
“What?
Just starting from right here.
Guys, let me have you clear over from this side just to be safe, then we don’t swing
and all over the world.”
“Does that include me?”
“No you are okay, Justin.
Thank you.
Okay, let’s try it.
Cameras going up, pictures going up.”
Film Courage: So we are on the set of DEADLY REUNION and this is day eight of….?
Joe Bohn: Eight of eight is today for DEADLY REUNION.
Film Courage: Eight of eight, okay.
And you have been in this one location.
What have been some of the challenges at this location and how have you been working through
it?
And also the script changes?
Joe Bohn: Location is simple enough.
I mean it’s a dual coin, right?
You get challenges and benefits from being in one location.
The benefits being no location moves, you don’t have to wrap out which takes time
every time you do it, you’re taking time away from shooting, time away from shooting.
Because we are living here, all the gear is constant.
It’s very easy to come in at the top of the day, have a 7:00 a.m. call, be shooting
by 8:00 because everything is here.
And if you end the previous day correctly then you can already be lit, art decked and
pre-blocked for the following day.
So you come and you get right to work.
So that’s the benefits.
The problem is you are in one location for a long time.
From an aesthetic point (directorially speaking), aesthetically you don’t have a lot of variety
in your visual aesthetic, which can bore the audience.
That’s the director in me talking but you can get the idea.
From a practical standpoint as an AD, we are really on top of each other.
There is gear here, you don’t have a lot of room to maneuver (this isn’t a mansion,
it’s a house) to it’s very congested.
And it’s a matter of efficiently having the departments work around each other.
So having grip and electric come in, having them come out and then having art go in.
If everyone just tries to cluster and do their jobs at the same time, you have a mess and
everything goes slower.
The way to do it efficiently is to make sure that certain departments have the floor at
certain times to make it work in the quickest way possible.
Now as for scheduling and the script changes, so there is a Day 1 rewrite which is fine
if it’s a partial rewrite or a scene rewrite.
This is a full rewrite of the script during…that was decided to be done on Day 1 of photography
(on day one of shooting).
So we shut down a half-day early, the rewrites started.
So as an AD what becomes extremely problematic and extremely challenging is how do I schedule
the rest of the shoot?
How do you schedule a film that you don’t know what is about to take place?
Theoretically I would have a break down.
I would know everything that goes on in every scene, I know what props I need, what wardrobe
changes, what special effects and I have everything blocked out and certain ways to shoot it…again,
efficiently.
In this situation I didn’t have that.
So the beginning of production was challenging and stressful I think for a lot of departments,
especially camera, grip and electric, in that usually you’d shoot out all the scenes in
the living room and then all the scenes in the bathroom and then you’d just be done
with that room and you’d move on.
Because we were getting pages the morning of, we were pretty much shooting in chronological
order, just living room to bathroom, back to living room, back to here…because I never
knew what was coming next.
I didn’t have time, the director didn’t have time, no one really had time to break
things down and look at it, we just had to grab them and go.
What the challenge there becomes is the morale, that’s really the challenge.
Because no one really wants to go back…“We're going back to the living room, again?
For the same lighting setting up that we just had…Okay?”
And you can just feel that morale drown.
And once that starts to go down, you feel the energy dip.
When the energy dips, people move slower.
Even if people are trying to do their jobs, they just don’t have the passion for it.
So it’s really the passion of checking my time, sorry [checks phone for when to be back
on set].
“Five minutes guys!
Five minute warning.”
[Addresses actors and crew]
So the passion dips and everything moves slower.
You don’t get as much footage in the can, you don’t get as much quality out of your
personnel.
What was nice is that we had already scheduled a three-day break in the middle of week 1
and week 2.
So during that three-day break, the screenwriter who is doing the revisions was able to get
a good chunk of pages out.
Now that first week what I was doing was going home, seeing what few pages I had (four or
five) and trying to plant some kind of game plan whatever it might be and get something
out.
And that worked…to a level it worked…as much as it could.
But now on the last day of that break I got 15-20 pages.
So there I could actually schedule a day or two out and actually put some things together
and block shoot some scenes.
So that became much more accessible, much more tackle-able?
Able to be tackled…(there you go)…much more able to be tackled than it had previously,
which is where we are now at this point on Day 8, the last three days we’ve been able
to run a more legitimately planned set (if you will) than flying by the cuff of our pants
than we had.
Film Courage: And I understand some people, actors or whomever are not aware of who is
dying, when and they may be surprised?
Joe Bohn: In the original script nobody really died per se.
Characters may have left the scene for awhile.
For the most part, they all lived.
One character died toward the end but they are all in it until the end but everyone is
really in the whole thing.
During that day one rewrite conversation, it was decided that some of those characters
would die to up the drama and the tension.
In dining so everyone was like “Okay, yeah…we are okay with that.”
I don’t think anyone thinks they are going to be the first to die until they are and
then they are like “Ahhhh…I died on page 15?
I wanted to be in the movie.”
So that’s the situation, actors coming in and looking over the pages in the morning
and “Holy!
This is what happens today?”
Or “I died today?”
Or whatever it may be.
And we were doing the same thing, as well.
Just reading it and going and going “Wow!
This is going to be a fun day.”
So yeah, they didn’t know it was coming.
The tough part about that is budgeting the time and structuring and things like that
is usually I can look at something and say “Okay this is a massive fight scene.”
And maybe it only says it’s 1/8th of a page total on the script but I know it’s going
to be 4 hours of shooting to get it.
Without having the time to do that pre-production work and really break down the script, I’m
left with guessing at how much time certain things should take strictly based on my previous
experience.
Which has actually worked out pretty well but also could have been a catastrophe.