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Tony the Production Assistant: The Gear, Part 3 – We Are Movie Geeks

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Tony the Production Assistant: The Gear, Part 3

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We Are Movie Geeks welcomes guest blogger Tony Fernandez, a production assistant taking us inside the underworld of indie filmmaking.

In a perfect world I wouldn’t have left thousands of dollars’ worth of camera equipment on a bus. In a perfect world the equipment wouldn’t have belonged to my boss. In a perfect world my microwave would find a perfect balance between burning the shit out of my hot pockets and leaving them frozen in the middle.

Here’s what I learned about losing expensive camera gear — No one is going to help you. If you want to fix a mistake or find missing gear, you have to do it yourself. People are too busy with their own lives to give a shit, even people who are paid to care.

Mike, Ian, and I did everything ourselves. Mike and Ian spent an entire day getting into contact with a detective and trying to get the MBTA to let us review the security tapes from the bus.

I was on the phone most of the day, calling every camera shop in town that buys and trades equipment and giving them the serial numbers to the missing gear. I also posted on Craigslist. The three of us spammed our Facebook pages and urged our friends to do the same. I posted fliers along the 77 bus route and all over Harvard Station.

When I got back to the office, Mike was on the phone with the detective. Mike was kind enough to put the conversation on speakerphone so I could hear.

“How well do you know this Tony Fernandez character?” the detective asked.

Holy crap, I’m a suspect!

Mike: “Pretty well, he works for me. I’m positive he didn’t take the equipment. He just left it on the bus.”

Detective: “Well, he sounds like an idiot.”

Thanks, police!

Three mornings later, after two long days of pulling my hair out and feeling like a turd, Mike gave me a phone call. I answered expecting to hear about how we are going to do something different today in our search for what I had lost. Instead, this is what Mike told me, “Tony. They found the gear.”

He continued, “Some guy picked it up off the 77 bus. Then this morning he tried to sell it at one of the camera stores we called.”

No way. Something actually worked out for the better? Giving every camera store in the city the serial numbers for the gear worked? Mike, Ian and I were ecstatic!

The camera store said that the guy who tried to sell the gear was a complete mess, a junkie. He couldn’t remember his name or his address, when the store clerk asked for his phone number the man handed the phone over and just said “It’s in there.” The man tried to use a bus pass as a form of identification, that’s how far gone he was.

Mike decided to not press charges against him. The gear was back in his possession, not a single piece missing or damaged. That was good enough for him.

That night we all went out to drink and celebrate — and Mike and Ian gave me shit all night. “Don’t leave blank on the bus” and “Don’t forget blank” are going to be thrown my way for quite some time. If that’s all I have to deal with from this incident then I’m getting off pretty lightly. Mike and Ian could have fired me and made sure I never worked again; instead they kept cool and helped fix the problem.

I’ll be forever thankful for that.

Next week: Tony in Miami…