On Set
Tucker Max and I will probably never be friends. We live by a lot of the same principles, but those principles have led us in very different directions. His daily pleasure is getting trashed and being obnoxious. Mine is eating vegan food and riding an electric skateboard.
Still, that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s a pretty impressive human being. He’s a much better writer than I am, and has made his living based on just living his life and documenting it.
I like his normal site, but his new blog about making his movie is even better. He does an incredible job explaining what goes into making a movie, and the blog really showcases his dedication to excellence.
When I was picking up my RV recently I saw that my route back to Austin was going to pass only an hour away from Shreveport where he’s filming.
Being a Q-List internet celebrity doesn’t get you much, but it’s generally enough to convince people that I’m not some weird stalker fanboy. I wrote Tucker an e-mail asking if I could visit the set to see how a movie was made.
I felt a bit guilty asking to come by because I know that making a movie already leaves you with 10% more things to do than you have time for, and the last thing you need is some new person standing in the middle of things asking you questions.
The next day the AP sent me an e-mail to arrange for me to visit the set. Awesome.
I arrived in New York from London and visited my good friend Phil. I told him about visiting the set and he became uncharacteristically riled up. He hates Tucker Max. He met him once and apparently he was a huge asshole.
I was certainly interested in meeting Tucker, but was mainly going to see behind the scenes of a movie so he could be whatever kind of asshole he wanted and I’d still be happy.
I had intended to visit in the morning, stay for a couple hours, and then head back on my way. Staying at Katya’s the night before messed up my schedule and put me on track to arrive at the set at 5pm. I think I forgot to account for sleeping when I planned my route initially.
I called and luckily filming was going to last until seven or so, so I’d have time to check things out.
By the time I got there I was a total zombie. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep for the past two nights and had almost just parked, napped, and blown off the movie.
I wandered onto the total chaos of the movie set. People were running around everywhere adjusting things and looking for people. Tucker walked by me without even noticing that I was there, focused on yelling at someone in front of him.
“Hey… I’m Tynan.”
“Oh hey - good to meet you. Come on in.”
I followed him as he breezed into the building. The inside was even more packed with people. Everyone was doing something.
For the next hour or two I watched as they filmed one of the final scenes in the movie. It was an awesome sight.
Maybe I caught him on an off day, but Tucker wasn’t an asshole at all. When his attention wasn’t required somewhere on set, which was about half the time, he’d stand next to me and explain what was going on. Since all of this stuff was new to him too he was able to explain it all clearly in layman terms.
Here are some of the interesting things I learned, some of which may be applicable to all movies, and some of which may be unique to Tucker’s movie. I have no frame of reference, so take all that with a grain of salt.
- Very little is shot in any given day. They were shooting ONE scene all day. They just keep redoing it from different angles, focusing on different people, with slightly different timing, with an moving camera instead of the main actor, etc.
- Scenes are shot totally out of order, based on availability of actors, locations, and a number of other factors.
- I now understand why acting is hard. In the scene you are reacting to past events that you’ve never actually shot, AND you have to do it the same way with the right emotions fifty times in a day. It’s not all glitz and glamor - these guys are working.
- There is insane attention being paid to every detail. One woman was taking pictures of everyone’s hair so that if they needed to reshoot a scene later the hair would be exactly the same. Another person’s job was to watch the scenes as they were filmed and watch for continuity.
- The atmosphere was way more collaborative than expected. Most decisions had several people offering input, including actors.
- There was a lot of genuine camaraderie on the set. Not the forced I’m-working-with-you-so-I’ll-be-polite sort of thing, but more of a I’m-going-to-smash-this-prop-cake-in-your-face-when-we-wrap sort of vibe. In fact, Tucker seemed more concerned that the cake smash was caught on camera than many other aspects of the movie.
- This may have been influenced by what I’d read beforehand, but I definitely felt like everyone there was really thrilled to be working on the project and was proud of the job they were doing. Even a couple extras I talked to seemed to take a lot of pride in the whole thing. Maybe this happens on all movies, but I suspect it doesn’t.
I had a great time visiting the set and have nothing but good things to say about Tucker, Jeff the AP, and everyone else I met.
They were filming one of the last scenes of the movie when I was there, even though it was the third day of filming. I can’t talk about the content of the scene, but it leads up to what is probably the last scene of the movie. The buildup seems very typical Hollywood, but I have a hunch that it’s actually going to be something totally unexpected.
I was tempted to ask, but why ruin the surprise? I’ll see the movie as soon as it comes out.
(18 votes, average: 4.56 out of 5)
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August 11th, 2008 at 6:08 am
My favorite thing about Tucker Max is that Robert Greene is part of his blog network. Asides from that I never really got into Tucker’s stuff.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I love Tucker’s writing. It’s really entertaining.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:34 am
I though you didn’t even like movies…
August 12th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Yeah, there are several very amazing blogs on Rudius Media
August 12th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
How much did Tucker pay you to write this “firsthand” account?
I especially liked this part:
“There was a lot of genuine camaraderie on the set. Not the forced I’m-working-with-you-so-I’ll-be-polite sort of thing, but more of a I’m-going-to-smash-this-prop-cake-in-your-face-when-we-wrap sort of vibe.”
I know for a fact that the vast majority of people involved in the production of IHTSBIH can’t stand Tucker Max, because he’s an egotistical, lying douchebag with no discenable talent whatsoever.
But good luck with your hero worship, I’m sure that will get you somewhere eventually.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:45 am
“The Truth”….is an idiot. Period.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
“Truth” my ass. What is your agenda lady*?
“no discenable talent?”
Tucker Max is definitely not my hero. Yeah, he gets laid way more than me, but I don’t aspire to be him. I don’t drink, I have a family that I love and cherish, and a job I like. I wouldn’t trade my lifestyle for his no matter how much he makes or how many movies he’s made. I don’t like him as a character, and he called me a moron on his message board more than once…
…but goddamnit his writing is great! I have read his book about twenty times (the pages are all yellow and ribbed now) and I still haven’t gotten tired of it. It’s not high literature, I know, but it’s something I like to read over and over. It doesn’t tire me, i makes me laugh, it lifts my spirit, it reminded me through some tough periods of my life that life is wonderful and strange.
Seriously, no other book has had that effect on me, and I read LOTS of books including ones written by Terry Pratchett, John Grisham, J.K. Rowling (yeah, I’m a Potter fan, shoot me),Stephen King, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Dawkins. No other book has made me related to the author and his friends (particularly Slingblade, who, I am glad to hear, pay a huge part in the upcoming movie) in such a way.
Call Tucker Max whatever you like. What you can’t call him is untalented. If anything, he has a huge talent of projecting his persona in writing and entertaining people with it. You have to respect that.
OK, enough ranting, my wife wants some lovin’.
*I assume that any person who takes the time to write to a pickup artist’s comment section accusing him of bribery, just because they don’t like the fact that he praised a huge asshole, albeit a hilarious one, who is making a movie/money, and thus achieving much more in life than them has:
(a)A frigidly cold vagina
(b)A huge chip on her shoulder
(c)A bitchy attitude.
(d)Venomous Jealousy
August 13th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
“Truth” my ass. Don’t make me laugh What is your agenda lady*?
“no discenable talent?”
Tucker Max is definitely not my hero. Yeah, he gets laid way more than me, but I don’t aspire to be him. I don’t drink, I have a family that I love and cherish, and a job I like. I wouldn’t trade my lifestyle for his no matter how much he makes or how many movies he’s made. I don’t like him as a character, and he called me a moron on his message board more than once…
…but goddamnit his writing is great! I have read his book about twenty times (the pages are all yellow and ribbed now) and I still haven’t gotten tired of it. It’s not high literature, I know, but it’s something I like to read over and over. It doesn’t tire me, i makes me laugh, it lifts my spirit, it reminded me through some tough periods of my life that life is wonderful and strange.
Seriously, no other book has had that effect on me, and I read LOTS of books including ones written by Terry Pratchett, John Grisham, J.K. Rowling (yeah, I’m a Potter fan, shoot me),Stephen King, Stephen Hawking, and Richard Dawkins. No other book has made me related to the author and his friends (particularly Slingblade, who, I am glad to hear, pay a huge part in the upcoming movie) in such a way.
Call Tucker Max whatever you like. What you can’t call him is untalented. If anything, he has a huge talent of projecting his persona in writing and entertaining people with it. You have to respect that.
OK, enough ranting, my wife wants some lovin’.
*I assume that any person who takes the time to write to a pickup artist’s comment section accusing him of bribery, just because they don’t like the fact that he praised a huge asshole, albeit a hilarious one, who is making a movie/money, and thus achieving much more in life than them has:
(a)A frigidly cold vagina
(b)A huge chip on her shoulder
(c)A bitchy attitude.
(d)Venomous Jealousy
August 13th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
@The Truth:
I’m sure you do. I’m sure Tucker Max paid him to write this article. Your calling out two people who you don’t even know, and probably only read about in an article on a clusterfuck gossip rag like Gawker.
Idiot.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Oh snap “The Truth” is so cool cause he’s got mad hookups on the inside oh snap oh snap what a badass
August 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Uh no, it’s the truth guy from thundercat’s blog.
August 14th, 2008 at 1:32 am
Holy crap people. Just ignore the truth guy.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:31 am
@matt:
No way man, way more fun to tell him how stupid he is. He’s going to come back here, and get even more pissed off. What else is the internet for?
August 15th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Ha nice, Tucker mentioned your article in one of his posts. Cool!
August 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
You know how you get this weird ‘embarrassment’ sensation when you watch someone do or say something incredibly stupid?
Tucker max fans have that effect on me. Go read the message board, it makes me cringe to read posts by guys that admire him. It’s just awkward.