Saturday, August 22, 2009

Gratitude

I must say "thank you" 1,000 times a day during the shoot. The last four days of the Hitting the Nuts shoot have been especially difficult. We found a great location for our poker scenes...the only problem was the lack of air conditioning. Despite our best efforts of bringing in AC units and fans, the temperature averaged 85 degrees during the shoot. To make matters worse we lost power for a while yesterday and had a few extra technical difficulties resulting in a 16-hour day. I had told everyone at the beginning to expect 12 hour days...12 hours is hard. 16 is brutal. Especially in the heat.

As I watched my cast and crew (my friends) sweat and work for my project yesterday I grew more and more grateful for them. Not just grateful that they would continue working, but deeply thankful for their dedication to me and the common goal. I kept walking from person to person thanking them. I didn't know what else to do. Many of them thanked me in return. It was an exercise in humility for me. What have I done to deserve such an amazing network of friends? Who am I to be served in this way?

Being a director and producer on a bigger project can easily go to your head. People are constantly doing nice things for me on set. Positional leadership is a rather odd thing. I don't like it much. It feels undeserved. I'm trying my best to lead everyone on the team as I would want to be lead. It's a massive task, but I think yesterday showed me some of the dividends.

We have one more full week of shooting. That sounds like a lot and not much at all. I will be very happy and sad when it is all over.

P.S. Listen to my NPR radio interview about Nuts by clicking here.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Love you PA! - Sam

Peggy Murphy said...

YOU have made this project one of the best experiences of my young 58-year old life. You have so many talents but most prominent seems to have been able to choose to surround yourself with wonderful people who are creative, patient, kind and can still make creative noises with their armpits. It has been a joy working with you, Mr. Boyd.

Sandy Maudlin said...

Sure looking forward to the release of this movie. It's been fascinating to 'hear' it unwind' via this blog. Hope the week goes absolutely great and everyone's top notch!.

Devin The PoetWarrior said...

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