
“I Couldn’t Shake the Crew’s Faces” | Mark Anthony Green, Opus

Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why?
I had this idea for a shot… I’ll spare you the details, but it was cool and complicated. Well, possibly cool. But DEFINITELY complicated. Plus it required like 10 people to move furniture and props mid-shot.
We rehearsed the shot days before. My AD—who was my protector and guardian angel during production—saved it for the last shot of the day. Sure enough, everything that could go wrong, went wrong. The camera needed an update—I didn’t even know that was a thing. Certain crew members were off fixing a different problem, so the rehearsal was useless. And we started the shot hours late. Anyway, we ended the day mid-shot. We just left the camera, lights, props, etc., in place. Everyone looked so tired and frustrated. I didn’t sleep that night. Partially because I reworked the shot 15 times, but mostly because I couldn’t shake the crew’s faces. “Am I pushing too hard?” “Am I losing them?” “Am I a bad leader?”
The next morning, I planned on saying something about it at our safety meeting. But from the second I got to set, nearly every single crew member came up to me to talk about the shot. “We’re going to nail it today, MAG.” “I thought about it all night.” “We got this.” One by one…it was overwhelming. I was reminded that morning that there’s nothing more important than the crew. Not because I can’t rig a light, do makeup, conjure blood, etc. (I absolutely cannot do those things), but because they really care. In fact, they care the most. And the biggest honor, truly, was having such an incredibly talented group of people’s trust for 19 days.
I’m forever grateful to New Mexico and all the artists who made Opus with me. And I can’t wait to be back on the battlefield with them. Oh! And we got the shot. It was wonderful. Cool and complicated… and I ended up cutting it in the edit. Movies… am I right?