The first week is the hardest...
Somehow, even after all these years, I still manage to forget just how tough it is to get a show up and running. You start at zero, with an empty stage, and five long, hard, up-early-work-late days later, the sets are almost finished and the lighting roughed in. Much remains to be done in the week(s) to come, but the worst is almost over.
A good thing, that, because on this gray Saturday morning, everything hurts. A wide variety of shooting/stabbing/aching pains now afflict my back, neck, arms, hands, legs, and feet, thanks to the sustained beating delivered last week. And since I have to be at the airport in one hour in order to wait two more hour before being shoehorned into an aluminum cylinder for the fifty minute flight back to the home planet-- a process I shall reverse tomorrow morning -- that's it for this week's post.
Right about now I'm wishing the loving couple had simply decided to elope in Las Vegas rather than stage a real wedding, but they didn't -- so away I go...
5 comments:
Question:
Does anyone ever take a small camper and just live on the lot for a crunch week, or during principle photography, in the case of a feature?
It would seem tempting: Roll out of bed, walk 5 minutes to set. Work. Detour to the lot's gym for a shower, walk to the camper and crash...
I've never lived in LA, so I don't know if this would even be possible.
Doug --
I'm sure it's been done in one form or another, but I don't personally know anyone who has actually lived on a studio lot.
A friend of mine did a feature in China a few years back, and there the studio employees all lived in dormitories on the lot. They received no salary, but divvied up what was left over in the production budget after filming was complete. That's powerful motivation to save every C-47 and scrap of gel...
My "home lot" spans the concrete ditch that is the LA river, and under the bridge are a couple of dozen small trailers used for productions whenever things get so busy that office space becomes scarce. More than once I've pondered -- while trudging across that bridge after a long day -- throwing a sleeping bag down in one of those trailers and making the best of a rough situation.
Come the Big One, half the studio employees will probably end up living down there...
"Come the Big One, half the studio employees will probably end up living down there..." - the suits maybe?
The setup/prelight for your shows sound brutal Michael. It sounds to me like the electric department is seriously understaffed. Is that the norm on all shows?
In Bombay during the monsoon where a drive home from the studios at Filmcity could take more than 3 hours on a bad day, I have sometimes slept in the Grip Truck, and always regretted it. Heat, humidity and pounding rain outside so you can't wind your windows down.
Michael my friend, count your blessings. I have flown from LA to Atlanta and back at least one weekend a month for 10 years to see my daughter. Get off at 6am on Sat, get on the 9am flight and return on Sunday afternoon and have a delay or cancellation more often than not. It sucks. You're blessed to have that place.
Sanjay --
Every show is different. We shot the pilot for this one on a good-sized sound stage equipped with perms and catwalks up high. Being a cheap-ass low-budget cable show, we were then shunted onto on a much smaller, much less user-friendly stage for the subsequent series -- no perms, no catwalks, just a pipe grid hung from chains with metal troughs overhead carrying all the dimmer feeds -- and that's what made the prep so difficult. I've worked on this stage before, and I hate it... but a job is a job. We did get extra guys, but with so many sets jammed into this cramped stage (the proverbial 20 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag), getting anything done has been -- and will continue to be -- a real struggle.
Back in the day, I used to work with a Key Grip who would routinely get drunk after wrap, then crawl under the grip truck and sleep it off 'til morning. I don't think he could pull that stunt in monsoon season, though...
D --
Having had no reason to fly for a very long time, I'd yet to experience the joys of waiting in those endless serpentine security lines until last weekend. Not so much fun, that. I can't imagine enduring such a hopelessly bureaucratic ordeal on a regular basis (and for a much longer flight) while getting beat up on an episodic five days a week.
You're a much better man than I...
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