[Chrysler300] cars/300s for movies, adverts, parades

["christopher beilby" <thelastbestgenius@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Things in Australia may be different to America re people wanting/using 
colector cars, 300s, but so far other members have offered sound advice re 
what I have experienced.

Rule 1 - if you or your representative cannot go/be with the car, do not 
supply it if it is a rare car.
Rule 2 - mainly if the car is to be driven, or have actors filmed in close 
in the car - ask who you will be dealing with re what they want to do with 
the car - usually the Director has all the say - if you cannot 
work/reason/compromise with him, do not supply the car. Ask whomever 
contacted you how is the Director regarded by industry workers/peers.
Rule 3, and they nearly always will conceal what they really want if your 
car is to be a 'hero' (main) vehicle - ask for copies/pages of script that 
your car is involved in/featured in - this will tell/show you what is 
likely, and who will be driving/around your car.  You won't get 
copies/pages, but at least they should describe scenes/action/etc..
Rule 4 - ask will they want to mount any cameras, remove bootlid, other 
parts/panels, to fit gear or camera operators/Director, etc in your car - or 
will they want to solid tow or tralier your car while filming?
Rule 5 - find out the rate, and ask a fair price, insist the car be insured 
- if they won't pay or insure, then it is a fair guess they will be hard to 
deal with, and may not care if your car is knocked around.

As an explanation to all the above -  The first key point, as said by 
others,  is they want finished film in the can - your car likely is indeed 
tenth or fortyith priority. Next if the car is to be driven, beware who 
drives it. Best case is a prefessional driver, maybe even a defined stunt 
driver. He likely will be safer than a young actor who never mind he has to 
stop the car within a few inches of some dictated mark, jump out with the 
car hopefully in park, then deliver some lines he may have just been given 
seconds before after some major rewrite!??
And all this before the Director may be a total jerk, not give a stuff about 
the actors, crew, or props.

What is my experince to offer this advice?
1) As bad as it may get?? I provided a 60 Caddy Eldo for the hero car on a 
60s country boy robs a local bank after it won't lend him money for his 
farm, and then flees in it after kidnapping the local female schoolteacher 
because the local cops sees him do it, and knows him.
What a nightmare four weeks over two moths I spent - the actors were young, 
smoked pot between filming, the guy driver didn't drive cars daily because 
they made him nervous, most of the filming was high country roads cut into 
side of up to 300 foot sheer drops - all dirt roads cut into gum bush, a 
small old wooden punt used to carry car over a river, and it was in over 100 
degree summer total fire ban days. Most of the crew loved my car, which 
pissed off the Director, who wrote new secenes where rifles were thrown into 
and at actors in the car. When I said 'enough', (after the scared driver 
jumped out of car half way up a hill and left it and two actors in it to 
roll backwards over a sheer drop, it only saved by me jumping out of filming 
other car and running to it), I was going to pull the car, he grabbed an axe 
and headed for the car, only to be stopped by some of the crew. Filming was 
suspended for rest of day, and he caught a plane out, and filming was then 
totally suspended while the foreign Cable Company funding the film 
appoinited the female lead the new Director. My car was thereafter only used 
after we agreed the scenes/use.
2) not quite so bad - a nightclub I went to often wanted cars for a Parade - 
lots of pretty scanty clad girls in three of my convertibles, but hi heels, 
cigarettes, and show off young guys jumping over the sides!!!
3) Better - a national Coca Cola Commercial - 58 Cad convertible, night only 
shooting, with only an absolute  knockout figure/face and personality early 
20s blonde and her beau in the car - both great to work with and the 
Director etc great - only two locations - parked at a Drive Inn, and coming 
out of a multi story car park
4) really good - an Olivia Newton John (a la the Movie "Grease") production, 
in which she saw mne/my red 62 XKE Roadster drive past her while shopping 
and she asked that they find who owned it and feature it in her 
film/project.  When it cost them $1000 to insure it for one night, they let 
me drive it, and it was only in one scene that took about 3 takes and only 
30 minutes to film. And she was OK/happy with that (so was I).

You all decide - if you are lucky you may get good/reasonable money, meet 
great people to work with, and leave with the experience of having done it.  
If you are unlucky, they will lie about what they really intend to do with 
the car because they know you will never let them do it. The Director may 
also be a bastard, who hates his actors and especially you and your car.  
They may/will want to mount double alloy camera bars across your hood, 
pulled down so hard the multi thousand dollar cameras will not be lost. And 
finally the actor may not be able to drive - in another movie I crouched 
down on the front floor telling the guy how to drive, as the Director would 
not give time for him to do a couple of minutes familarization.  When in the 
car I found out why - he had no licence - as we waited for Director to call 
"Action" he told me how nervous he was, because he had rolled and written 
off the only car he had ever driven before, it some famous female American 
actor's Cadillac, it either in middle of Hollywood, or Palm Springs!!

Do not get sucked in by thinking your car may be worth more because it was 
in a film - surprising how so many never ever realise/know your car was in 
it/movie.

Good luck, hope this helps, maybe many of you over there don't have "sucker' 
written on your foreheads like I often do/have. Surely any 300 does not need 
unwanted dints or damage, so do your homework first?

all the best from Oz, Christopher




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