So What To Do When It All Goes Wrong

When Murphy's Law Strikes Back

Anyone who attended college should be familiar with a concept known as Murphy's law. For those not familiar with it, the law basically states that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. If you were in college as a filmmaker, like I was, Murphy's law scared you almost every waking moment. To complete a film, a lot of factors need to work in your favor: securing a location, having the equipment working, hiring all the actors, etc. However if one part goes wrong, the whole thing potentially falls apart; for me this happened numerous times.

Outside of college and making films, Murphy's law has yet to leave me alone. The worst will bite you in the butt when you don't look, so it's best to know how to deal with it.

 

 

Do Not Panic
The most repetitive piece of advice you will receive, but it is true none the less. For example, I had a film shoot today. The location of the short film was supposed to be in a quarry. It was scouted in advance and appeared to be a sure thing. Then on the day of shooting, the gate leading to the quarry was locked.

(deviantart.net)

 

 

One option was to cancel everything since we lost the location. However everything else was planned meticulous, so there was a general agreement that we would not just scrap the shoot so easily. With calmer heads, we were able to discover a different location nearby that we were just as familiar with. It turned out to benefit us the most since no one bothered us throughout the entire shoot.

Panicking is a natural and understandable reaction. The problem is that nothing is fixed once you finished having a freak out. As hard as it is, you have to buck up. Think less of why it went wrong and more of how to get it right.

Improvise

As I mentioned before, our crew was able to think of the the new location at the last minute. Many great inventions were created as a result of an accident.  While it is a pretty annoying setback, you may be able to make something great with whatever you have left.

Cut Your Losses

 

Even if you spent hours writing a scene, practiced lines, and set up a shot, sometimes parts need to be cut out. Going back to the film shoot, there was a fight scene involved and a lot of choreography was involved. However this was an outdoor shoot and sunlight was fading. The plan was that by the end of that day, all the fighting had to be shot; another day in the future would be used to shoot dialogue. Although time was spent a day earlier rehearsing, the fight ended up having to be cut shorter. This added stress on me because not only did it had to be shorter, it still had to make sense with the story order. As frustrating as it was to cut what I put time into making, I knew it had to be done to complete something.


Murphy's law will never leave me alone as far as I can see it. However, I plan to keep these three principles in my mind every time it decides to rear its ugly head.