West & Vega: The Untold Jori

Shoot Me

I bet Mary Harron didn't have these problems on-set.

Then again, I doubt she ever worked with a group of cheap amateurs.

I'd called just about everyone I could think of from Hollywood Arts to help me crew this short. I advertised on a few reputable crew job websites. I had pieced together what seemed like a pretty solid group, on paper.

Until none of them showed up.

I tried to call them. Most of them didn't answer. No one replied to my voicemails. I was irate. Who the hell commits to doing something and then just decides, y'know what, I don't need to bother showing up for that. And not just one. No, all six.

All. Six.

I vowed that if I ever happened to cross paths with any of these flakes on the street, they would not forget the encounter. And they'd think twice about standing up anyone else.

But vows of future violence, relaxing though they were, would not help me get my film off the ground. There was no one else to call, unfortunately. Anyone respectable would want money (as they should), but I had nothing left in my bank account. When my mom kicked me out, she also stopped with the monthly allowances. So all that money I had to burn at the end of my senior year—buying Cat her dress, flying us all to New York—was long gone. My dad was no help either. And I had pulled out everything I'd saved up from work to be able to at least provide food and snacks for my cast and crew for the next two weeks.

In short: I had no money, no time, and no crew. So I did something I never, ever wanted to do. I used someone's crush on me to get them to come help me out.

Sinjin Van Cleef was a weirdo. He made regular weirdos seem almost normal. Dude was tall, skinny, almost bird-like. He was also kind of a creeper, one of those guys who'd get real close to you just to sniff your hair. I had the displeasure of experiencing that a lot back in school. I hated it, and really didn't like Sinjin much, but I was that desperate. I called him and he was at our shooting location within an hour. He had his own gear and knew it inside and out, so if nothing else I had someone at least a little reliable on my camera.

He brought his oddball friend Burf to help out.

If Sinjin made regular weirdos seem normal, Burf made Sinjin seem normal. I really can't say anything else about the guy. Sinjin had him running sound. And by "running sound" I mean dropping the boom into every. Single. Shot.

"Cut! Again! Burf, I swear to chrysler, if you drop the mic into the shot one more time I'm going to replace you with a tripod and a boom arm!"

"We can do that?" he asked with far more enthusiasm than he'd shown in the past six hours. "Why didn't we just do that in the first place?"

I felt my cheeks start to burn, again.

"Why didn't...are you...because a tripod can't press record you... Y'know what, screw it, that's lunch. Be back in an hour!"

Burf dropped the boom pole and tried to run off, forgetting that he was wearing the audio recorder harness. The boom pole lurched along behind him, dragged by the $80 XLR cable. I had never actually been so close to beating someone within an inch of their life as I was at that moment. And that includes the skank who tried hitting on Beck at Karaoke Dokie.

"Sinjin!"

He had already seen Burf's mistake and was on his way to get the boom. "On it, boss!"

I balled my firsts up for the hundredth time and dug my nails into the palms of my hand. It took everything I had not to explode and start smashing the equipment. Then I'd have been famous for very different reasons.