Call today was 8 am (1+ hour in traffic to Sony), and we had a stage move (moving from one stage to the other) right at our call time. First Unit set lighting came in on a 'pre-call'(you get a pre call when you've got to do something that will take extra time before shooing - like moving from one stage to another) at 9:30, and the rest of first unit came in at 10:30 am.
We got there, saw the list of stuff we were to take over to 26 (Joan of Arcadia's Stage), and started moving..
Looking at the call sheet - we thought that there was about three hours work on 26. Since this director is slooooow, we figured that meant about six - seven hours (which puts the move back to 22 at about lunch), so we decided that the day would go like this:
Move first unit to 26.
Come back over to our stage (22)
Strike the office set that first unit 'shot out' (completed) last night
Do some returns.
Go to lunch.
Come back as they're finishing up - just about the last few shots, and start loading whatever they're not going to use into the stakebed to move.
Go back as they've wrapped and complete the move to 22.
Get them started and go home.
Sounds like a plan, right?
We started sending one of the guys over about 1 pm to check and see how much they had to do - Rob, the rigging key grip, said he thought they'd move about 3pm. The gaffer said maybe 4. The A.D. said he had no idea and to stop bothering him.
We decided to go to lunch early (at 1:30), just in case - that way, in theory, we'd be ready to go when they did move.
Boy, am I glad we went early - when we got back at 2:30, they'd just moved, and the gaffer was screaming at us because he couldn't find us or Clive (the rigging gaffer - he's a Jamaican guy, and he's terrific to work for - he also finds stuff to do off stage because he can't stand first unit's panic and chaos. This isn't normally a problem - it's actually nice to not be micromanaged - except when the shit hits the fan and we can't find him). We explained to the now purple in the face gaffer that were were on our scheduled lunch break (six hours after call time), and we had no idea that they'd called the move, as none of us have walkies. What we didn't mention was the repeated trying and failing to get an accurate time estimate for the move. When someone's that worked up, you can't really reason with them.
The gaffer, in a moment of panic, had called Clive on the phone to yell at him for not being there at the exact moment when they called the move, and said that we'd not done something they'd asked for, which wasn't true - Clive ended up having to get in his car and head back over to the lot where he caught up with us on 26 and we explained to him what had happened (Clive's hilarious when he gets upset - he stomped out of stage 26 saying "I'm gonna go over there and tell him to fuck off, mon").
Turns out the gaffer was just panicking, as we'd gotten them as ready as we could (given that once again, we had no notes about what they wanted), and all we had to do was bring back the big lamps for them. Once we did that, we loaded our stakebed got everything back to 22 and finished up.
We got finished halfway through first unit's lunchtime, and decided that discretion is the better part of valor, so we split.
6 am call tomorrow - I think it's going to be the last day.
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