When shooting custom video productions on location, always be open to the serendipitous event. (This applies to any vacation as well as filming on location.)

By this I mean: have a definite plan, but be alert for those golden opportunities that might present themselves along the way. The key to this openness is to be absolutely locked down in your prep. Only in this way can you have the freedom to know how much leeway you have for “audibles”, those deviations from the plan that sometimes yield the best shots in the film that fit perfectly into the clients marketing development strategy. This prep often includes a scout. I do this whenever possible. If there is one thing I’ve learned about locations, it’s that nothing is ever what you expected it to be. The idea is to be prepared down to the last detail and then be completely flexible. I learned about these two seemingly contradictory things on my very first major film shoot. This was a custom video production to create a promotional film for Princess Cruises, to be shot mostly in the Caribbean, starting with the major port city of Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas.

We arranged to scout this island and arrived looking for a place to rent a vehicle. As we walked off the ship, we were greeted by the usual mob of tee shirt-selling, wildly gesticulating locals all vying for our tourist dollars. One guy separated himself from the pack and somehow got our attention. “What you need, mon?” he asked. I tentatively muttered something about a place to rent a scout vehicle but all the while I was craning my neck trying to find the “authorized” Princess tram into town. “No problem,” the guy said gesturing to his vehicle, “get in the Jeep.” Wondering how much this was going to cost and exactly where we would be taken I stalled, looking around for something a little more conservative. But this was Cha-Cha (we learned later) and he didn’t suffer foolish tourists well. “Get in the F—ing Jeep!” he commanded, and we had to obey.

Riding into town we explained to Cha-Cha why we were there. He turned out to be a goldmine of information and, as promised, took us right to the best Jeep rental place in town. Cha-Cha pointed out some of the better spots to shoot on the island and told us about some of the pitfalls to avoid. He turned out to be a very cool and intelligent guy who aspired to be a standup comedian and worked the comedy clubs in town at night. He was also no stranger to film production. I arranged with him to help us when we came back to shoot and to transport us around St. Thomas at that time. He promised to meet us with his cousins and plenty of vehicles.

Three weeks later I and our video production crew were back in St. Thomas with a couple of models and a full shooting crew. Sure enough, Cha-Cha and his cousins met us at the dock and we were off on a very full schedule of filming all around the island. Thanks to our previous scouting, we knew exactly where to go and in what sequence to shoot in order to maximize our time. By early afternoon we had captured all our necessary shots and even had time for a nice Caribbean lunch. (See a similar article, “The Thousand Dollar Lunch”.) Since I had the leeway, I could shoot an unscripted idea I had to utilize Cha-Cha and his unique bartering skills to start off our film. If I could capture on film my own fears when Cha-Cha first approached us, I could effectively contrast this with the comfort and security of a Princess Cruise. If it worked, great. If not, nothing ventured nothing gained.

The final result was actually better than I expected. Using his innate acting skills, Cha-Cha terrorized our dazed and confused model couple and whisked them off to a broken down motel in the middle of nowhere. This dramatized the danger and uncertainty of a “land based” vacation in a very funny way. When contrasted in the film with the same couple enjoying the luxury and ease of a Princess Cruise, the comparison was easily and humorously made, and the audience put in just the right mood. Cha-Cha turned out to be the best thing about the whole experience (if not the film!) and for years travel agents referred to that Princess film as “the one with the laughing cabdriver”, even if they remembered nothing else about it. So thanks, Cha-Cha, wherever you are, for helping jump-start my career. I hope people are still getting in your F—ing Jeep. I’m sure glad I did! Below is the video of Cha-Cha doing his thing.