top of page

 

The making of "A Good Little Score"

 

     Most of this episode was shot over a two day span in John Putnam's offices at Putnam Sourcing in Vernon, L.A.  Shots of Eric Michael Cole playing the part of  Kevin, on the receiving end of a phone call and Paul and Strauss standing outside of Quong's door were shot elsewhere.

     This first day of shooting was inside Quong's office. We used the Losmandy spider dolly for the opening shot. I did away with the home made pvc pipe dolly and splurged on a rental. I was glad I took a few practice shots the day before shooting, because I learned I had rented a dolly without all the necessary parts. I called back to the rental place and they told me the office was closed down for the weekend, but they would contact a friend from another rental place that would lend me the required parts and they would work out the cost between themselves. So a few freeway drives later, I had the actual gear I rented. The lesson learned here is, treat your gear like weapons needed for combat and you'll make sure everything works, as opposed to hoping it works when it's time to shoot.

     The next day the dolly shot took a while and Colin Palmer, the assistant director, reminded me that with each undesirable dolly shot, we were getting behind on time. Once we got that shot though, we moved quickly. The cast was on point and we burned through the scene. A stumbling block came when Isaac, our lead, had to insult Caan, (played by Scott Krinsky), in Italian. Luckily we had DIego Pallavicini, (helping behind the scenes as well as playing one of the traders), there to offer various Italian insults with the correct pronunciations. I decided "pezzo di merda" (piece of shit), had a nice ring to it and we forged on.

     The second day of shooting was actually the first part of the episode when Paul walks into his place of business. Once again the Losmandy spider dolly was used to open the scene. I ended up scrapping one of the shots I was stoked about though, because it just didn't work in the editing room. Around this time I had been watching the series, "Hemloch Grove" and they use this cool shot: when someone enters a room, they dolly backwards and the room seems to get lengthier.  It's a real sense of foreboding and I thought it would be good for Paul's perspective when he entered Tierney Traders. However with the urgency I was trying to convey upon Paul entering the trading room, the shot didn't cut well with the others.  

    The computers were monitors I bought from a cyber waste dump. They told me $10.00 for an LCD screen. I told them I'd shop around a bit and get back to them. When I got back to them, the scumbags changed the price to $25.00 a screen. By going back to them, they knew I hadn't found anyone cheaper with matching monitors - rookie mistake. The screens were all old and broken. Brett Lynch came through with green screening them in post and making them what you see now. If you ever green screen, know that it is a lot easier to do if what needs to be green screened does not move in frame. You'll notice the shots at the LCD screens from behind Paul and Strausse are on sticks (tripod), where sans the dolly shot, the other shots in the trading room are hand held. 

    Brett Lynch AD'd this one and worked the camera for the pickup shots outside of Putnam sourcing. Sebastian Heinrich did the sound. At the end of this shoot when everything was packed up and everyone had just left, I was closing down Putnam Sourcing when the whole street lost power. I stood guard until the cops came trolling down the block. Standing guard on the blacked out street was okay, because If the blackout happened a little earlier, it would have meant a whole extra day of shooting.

 

Stock trading Glossary:

 

Guidance - Most publicly traded corporations issue an official prediction of their own near future profit or loss, stated as an amount per share. It is usually given in a quarterly report to forecast the corporation's performance in the next quarter. Sometimes it is referred to as 'earnings guidance.' Traders look at a company's guidance as one of the many variables used to predict how a company will do going forward.

 

Divedends - When a company makes profits, it can put those back into the company (retained earnings) or it can distribute portions to the share holders. In a publicly traded company, this distribution is done via a dividend that is paid to shareholders in a fixed amount per share.

 

Long it, or long a stock - holding stock. 

 

     

bottom of page