Thursday, September 11, 2008

Today We'll Try A Little Experiment.

And, so far, with my publication of just a headline, it's working about how I would expect.

Anyway, it's 5:30 a.m. The crew call was pushed from 7:00 to 8:00 am with the pre-calls (early folks) pushed from 6:00 to 7:00. Since nobody heard about any of that until 11:30 last night, I expect a lot of people to take their original call times. So, I'm here.

The cast trailers are parked. Make-up/Hair, Wardrobe and the Honeywagon are parked. The equipment trucks will show up within the 1/2 hour.

The most important thing is that the caterer is parked, but the coffee isn't quite ready yet. I need me some more coffee soonest.

I'm going to try to check in regularly today to keep you up to speed on how the day is going. We'll see how that works out.

Update 7:50 a.m.: Mostly uneventful so far...which makes for extremely interesting blog fodder, huh?

The crew is all in. Half the extras (meat puppets) showed up early and their space wasn't set up yet. Fuck 'em. I hate extras. I really loathe them. I mean we need them and all, but who the hell makes a living sitting in the background of scenes and sitting in a holding area for hours on end when they're not needed on camera. I mean really.

I'll update again later. Gotta go do stuff now.

Update 9:33am: Gee, what's happened in the last hour or so?

Two busses full of Extras showed up. You know how I feel about Extras. They are now downstairs in the Basement of Doom. It was a perfectly nice banquet room before the Extras got here. Now, they've spread to occupy all available space; they've dumped their spare clothing everywhere; they managed to leave 1/2-filled coffee cups all over the place before I even knew they'd had an opportunity to get coffee in the first place; and they're loud. They are what makes a perfectly nice banquet room into the Basement of Doom! I will not be spending any time down there. That's what Locations Assistants are for.

Also, the Mayor's Film Office has been riding me about how much parking we've taken for every location. They keep asking why I need so much for just a little TV movie. I keep telling them I've got a bunch of tractor trailers for the equipment and big long trucks and campers for the cast, Make-up/Hair and Wardrobe. This morning, their Field Rep paid a visit to our set. His reponses to seeing all of our vehicles? "Holy Crap! This is huge. I guess you do need all that space every day. I guess that's one argument I won't need to have again on this show.

Check back in later for more excitement.

Update 1:18pm: Up to my ass in alligators about tomorrow. More later but it involves a sinkhole. Hey, that's gotta be good! Not!

Update 2:10pm: OK, the sinkhole that appeared pretty much exactly where tomorrows first shot will happen has been filled and there's a concrete patch in the road. It won't be pretty, but it won't be a hole in the road and we can drive a car over it. The crew that has more work to do there will take the day and work somewhere else, taking their backhoes and dumptrucks and bulldozers with them. Bullet: Dodged.

The unfortunate part of this is that this came up at about 9:15 this morning while my Assistant Location Manager was driving the directions for us to type up. The sinkhole sorta, kinda took priority, so here it is after 2:00pm and I still don't know which way I'm sending the trucks. We can't just use Google maps or the like. We need to make sure there aren't any clearance issues (we have trucks that are over 13' tall) and that there are no weird, tight turns that the tractor trailers might get hung up on. So we have to eyeball the route ourselves.

And we're filming today at a lovely Synagogue in Queens. We used their kosher caterer to do lunch because I can't bring treyf food in. It was pretty good. I know today is going to run long, so I'm already thinking about getting a 2nd meal for the crew. It'll be due at about 8:00pm, and I don't think there's a chance in hell we'd be done before then.

Can anyone say KFC in the parking lot?

See you again later. I may have someone else on the crew post a guest entry.

Update 9:19pm: I'm home. Have been for almost 1/2 an hour. Haven't gotten off the phone since I walked in the door. Let's just say planning the 2nd meal turned into the "2nd meal from hell". First I was feeding non-kosher in the parking lot for 80 people. Then it turned into feeding 200 people because the extras would still be there and I'd have to find kosher for some unknown percentage of the extras. Then it all had to be kosher and served inside as a sit-down meal. It ended as non-kosher for 80 at 10:00 o'clock after the extras were released.

This was all highly annoying.

So I'm home and I think I'm mostly done working but I still have to talk to the Assistant Location Manager whenever they wrap for the night. If they shoot too late, we'll have to push tomorrow's start time. Which won't push my start time since it's hard to call people in the real world at 11:30 pm to tell them we're not showing up until 9:00 or 9:30. They don't appreciate it.

Also, you should know that I was going to have our 2nd A.D. guest blog one of these installments, but every time one of us had a calm moment today, the other was getting slammed. I'll get you a post from him sometime before we finish the movie. Hey, different voices are fun.

9 comments:

Jim Wright said...

Now? What's happening now?

John the Scientist said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John the Scientist said...

Sorry. Vicodin. More typos than usual. Let's try it again:

But do you really need all those trailers? Get some Sherpas, man! I gotta park somewhere!

:p

Steve Buchheit said...

I was going to say, I'm sure the mayor's office is getting a ton of calls, which is why they're questioning.

But hey, things are going better, that's gotta be good. Right?

And what Jim said.

Tracy said...

Well???? It's been hours now.
Need I remind you that you were once an extra? Maybe these people need to work as extras to pay the bills due to the Republican economy!!!!
God, life would be so much easier if I could fucking type & not keep having to back up & correct all my mistakes. Dammit, just did it again!
My last bitch, when are you finally going to tell us what this production is? Now we know it's a tv movie. What's the big secret? Top secret classified tv movie?

MWT said...

Tracy, if you browse around a bit to some of Nathan's back posts, you'll come to understand why the answer to that is "never."

Tracy said...

mwt, now I have to browse? I guess that will be my job tomorrow @ work. sigh

MWT said...

It's generally a good idea to get to know the people you're heckling before you start. That way you don't constantly put your feet in your mouth.

Also, I like to think we're all entertaining enough to backread. ;)

Tracy said...

Ouch, that stung.
I did find it, I think it was in mid-June. I did find some great posts along the way.