Tony the Production Assistant: Miami

We Are Movie Geeks welcomes guest blogger Tony Fernandez, a production assistant taking us inside the underworld of indie filmmaking.

This was my first time being a part of every step of making a project. I was part of the pre-production process, I worked on-set, and I also helped with the post-production.

I wasn’t surprised by the amount of work that goes into producing a project, but I was overwhelmed. Producing is a lot to handle, especially for this project which was being pre-produced long distance. I live and work in Boston with McFarland and Pecci, the project that we were putting together was to be shot in Miami Beach — which meant that I had to look at locations via Google Maps.

The other duties I had on this project were to secure a van rental, hire the crew, and find food for the shoot day. The van is a 15 passenger for the crew, the gear and the clients. The crew positions were Production Assistant, Camera Operator, and because we use DSLR’s — a Digital Imaging Technician, or DIT. The DIT is in charge of transferring and organizing all of the footage from the data cards in the camera to a hard drive.

The morning after we arrived from Boston was our location scouting day. Location scouting is exactly what it sounds like; you scout for locations to use for the shoot. The client had already supplied us with the locations and I along with Mike and Ian made changes, factoring in the distance between them and the time it would take to get through the busy Miami Beach traffic. It’s not as boring as it sounds. I found a way to have some fun.

The shoot day was long, like any other project. The morning started at a gym in Miami Beach. This gym was one of those boot-campy, cross-trainy, workout class places. I, obviously, have no experience with this type of stuff. I’d rather spend a day munching on pizza rolls and leveling up than run around and lift weights with some maniac screaming in my face. But the people at this gym love that kind of stuff. They’re freaks.

The star of our little video production was a man in his forties who is more fit than I’ll ever be. Watching him exercise made me feel like a tub of crap. We spent the entire day with him — from working his ass off with the maniacs at the gym to running on the beach and through the streets of Miami Beach.

The gig wasn’t bad. I had a lot of fun, and afterwards Ian, Mike and I had an awesome dinner at The Forge. The food was incredible but the atmosphere was strange. The place was made to look and feel like a night club, which I guess is chic in Miami. Loud thumping bass, darkly lit, and gaudy artwork and decor. Again though, the food was great!

Traveling back home was awful. I hate airports. Just like our location scout day, I had to make my own fun.

This guy had no idea.