Fire in the Pines

Choose experiences based on what you’ll learn, not what you’ll earn.

This music video nearly imploded, and I almost got my ass kicked for it.

We were filming the car donut scenes at a compound of autobody shops outside of Philadelphia. Our original feature car was a 1978 Honda Civic—a veritable clown car—but it was un drive-able. By a stroke of luck, the kind that only happens on a movie set, one of our henchman had driven his 1986 Pontiac Firebird to set. Cherry red. One headlight out. It was perfect.

The issue is that donuts in a Firebird are a whole different ballgame from donuts in a '78 civic, which we didn't think through. We were in a gravel lot, and with each take the car kicked up more and more debris. I was totally in love with the footage and made a terrible call—I asked for one more take. A few moments later a huge chunk of rock got spit out by the tires and smashed the windshield of a tow truck. The Firebird's steering belt snapped a few seconds later, the take stopped, and the whole shoot felt instantly doomed.

The entire lot was out and watching these idiot filmmakers tooling around at 6:45a and smashing their property. Have you met tow truck drivers from Philly? It was not a good situation. Our location contact was very nice about it, but I got yelled at, had to pay nearly $1K in damages, and scramble to salvage the day. After a major charm offensive and a lot of apologizing, we got the Firebird fixed enough to put a car rig on it, cleaned off the dust on the other tow trucks, and squeaked out of there with our shots.

Directors! Don't fall in love with your shots if it means putting people or property in danger. $1K in damages sucks for a self-financed video, but that rock could have hit a camera or my crew and then I would have been truly in trouble. I feel lucky that it only got as bad as it did.