What's BG?

I would love to hear more about this incident. :) I'm a little confused. Was the director being a douchebag? Did he want something that was just different looking or something really stupid looking? Knowing your experience and skill on many sets, he was probably asking for something super stupid. Usually if a director wants the actors to 'cheat for the camera' I usually don't have a problem with that.

I only comment in that I too have military training, but being also film trained, I am aware of some of the limitations that cinema puts on pure realism. I think we should also point out to the forum that sometimes one has to 'cheat the shot' in order to get the footage for the film.

For example, I did a WW2 film some years ago and the military advisor had all the paratroopers patrolling the correct military way for the period. Spread out, all correct hand signals of the time, no man was closer than 25 feet to another man (i.e. so that a single grenade won't take out a bunch of guys)... He also told them not to bunch together and trained them well to utilize cover and concealment.....

Wonderful, right? Except that the D.P. couldn't get any of the guys into frame. Kinda makes it pointless when you're filming these guys.... And spreading them that far apart made the scene impossible since TWO of the characters were supposed to be talking to each other. Good thing the Ex-SF guy who was advising the film understood that you can't make EVERYTHING completely correct militarily in some cases, because it makes it impossible to film the scene in the script.

Anyway, it's all about getting it IN Camera. And having a smart director .....

Being ignorant as to the workings of a movie set doesn't mean you're dumb or incompetent. I know quite a few people who are lovely and smart people who don't know shit about filmmaking, and they have some of dumbest assumptions! ;) hahahahaha

One can be a good COP (which is probably the most important thing) and not know a damned thing about movies. I just resent the 'assumption' by the lay public that being a Cop magically endows these people with knowledge of movie making and armoring films.

BTW: on a NON-Armoring story, I had a neighbor, a nice little old lady who was an extra in a movie. Two weeks later she told me that she was angry because she 'hadn't received her DVD of the movie she was in yet'. I was "Huh? You only filmed your scene on that production TWO WEEKS ago!" She was "Yes, shouldn't I get a copy of the movie by now?" I was: "Uh, it takes a LOT LONGER than two weeks to finish production, post production, distribution, etc. etc. Your film probably won't be out for a year." She said that sounded ridiculous..... Sigh, the things that the ignorant public DON'T know about film. ;)

Great stories. Keep them coming if you have more you'd like to share.

So extras get a free copy of the movie they're in? That's pretty cool!

Using live weapons is definitely a sign of incompetence.

And BTW, thank you both MPM and Al for sharing these stories. I realize you can't tell us which productions you're referring to, but it's still really hilarious to read them.

Out of curiosity, do you guys have any funny stories regarding your work with actors (again, not asking you to name names, just what they did)? I've heard a couple of those from other armorers I have talked to.

Okay, you have me confused again. We ALL work with live weapons. I just handed out some K98 Mausers which are perfectly LIVE. If I were to pop a live 7.92 Mauser round into them, I could wreak some havoc.

I think you're reading my comment "He only had live ammunition" with "He brought and expected to USE live ammunition". Cops I know all have live ammunition. I think low budget filmmakers forget that Cops don't usually carry the appropriate blanks. It was more of a dumb assumption on the part of the movie makers than the cop.

Uh, no. They don't. But I won't argue with her any more about anything movie related ...;) LOL

Sorry, yeah, live ammunition is what I meant. Isn't that pretty ridiculous?