We all know Moore’s Law and Murphy’s Law, but how many of you know Sargent’s Law?
Hmmmm… I thought so. Time to put that to rights.
Sargent’s Law simply states, “The quality of a production is inversely proportional to the fun the filmmakers had while making it.”
Put another way: If everything goes wrong, the equipment breaks down, nobody is co-operative, the talent is a pain, the client is a terror; then the final production has a good chance of being amazingly wonderful.
Fun and games in Cannes. Hard times in Queensland.
The flip side? Take my French Riviera shoot. The location: a dream come true. The talent: my darling, Tricia. We ate like millionaires. Went to the Cannes Film Festival in a Rolls Royce. The Carlton Hotel gave us their private beach. Free use of Radar the Wonder Dog. Every day was sun and fun.
Sadly, the end product was crap. Don’t believe me? Here’s a job that was a constant nightmare, every day a different drama. Read on…
SYDNEY 1967. CUT TO MY OFFICE – CUE RINGING TELEPHONE
KIP (Head of Documentaries at ABC Australia): Got any ideas for a one-hour documentary? Can be about anything. Come up with 10 ideas.
SS: Ten?! How about three?
KIP: Bureaucracy. Give me 10 and there’s a good chance that one will do the trick with the powers that be.
A WEEK LATER: I’m stuck. Ideas one to four — a pushover. Five to eight — tough. Eight and nine — almost impossible. Number 10? Think of something silly. Something they won’t want.
My assistant Rosemary says, “Why not film my family in Longreach?” “Longreach?” “It’s in the middle of Queensland in the outback.”
Shock, horror — Kip and the Powers That Be bypass my really good ideas and chose the throwaway, number 10! I know nothing about country life and we haven’t asked Rosemary’s family if they’ll be in it!
Kip gives me a choice: Twenty rolls of 16mm color reversal stock or 40 rolls of black-and-white. I go for color, even though there’s no color TV in Australia. Problem is that with only 10 minutes per roll, I’ll have just 20×10 = 200 minutes to shoot a 60-minute film; about a 3:1 shooting ratio.
These days, imagine making a one-hour program with three and a half DV tapes! To make it harder, I decide to have no narration, no interviews and no mood music. Just live, unrehearsed dialogue.
A MONTH LATER. We fly to Longreach. Rosemary’s mother won’t to cooperate. We have to stay in town. It was meant to be a film about their 75,000-acre working sheep station in the magical outback and here I am in room 16, Lyceum Hotel, Eagle Street.
Can it get worse? Easy.
Suddenly, my only lens, an Angenieux zoom, goes out of focus. Now I have a 16mm Éclair NPR camera with no lens. Aarrrggghhh!
Rosemary finds a friend with a 1940 windup Bell & Howell Filmo and a cheap 25mm C-mount lens. I screw the lens on to the Éclair and keep shooting. Want a wide shot? Get way, way back. Need a closeup? Move in closer.
I shoot the visiting Governor-General and his icy lady at the Debutante’s Ball. The dancers knock over one light. Then a deb trips over another. There goes my lighting.
They’re playing “Dancing in the Dark.”
Good news. Rosemary’s brother, Stirling, will let us film his sheep and cattle ranch. We move out of the Lyceum. Stirling flies his boy to school in his Cessna and lands on the road. He spends the day herding sheep from a motorcycle. We go to the parent’s house where the evening meal is formal, complete with an aboriginal server in French maid costume.
Bad news. I shoot scenes with local cowgirl, Tottie. The scene with her boyfriend is a disaster: “Hello Tottie.” “Hello Bruce.” “I’ve got tickets to the ball.” “Oh, goodie.” Tottie’s dialogue with her horse is better. I blow 300 precious feet.
I am running out of stock. Good news. Tottie’s horse wins at the races. Bad news. My film runs out.
Worse. I leave an exposed roll of film in an Avis car. I phone Avis. “If you find it please don’t open the can!”
SAVED BY SARGENT’S LAW. No-fun shooting equals a good result.
The result: Edge of the Outback. Kip likes it. The ABC shows it.
Rave reviews. Aren’t I lucky that it went so badly?
Click here to see a short version of Stefan’s finished piece.