When I get home from work, I'm totally wrecked and can't think, so I write these Rosie O Donnellish haikus and then collapse into bed.
Because I'm vain and if I'm going to publish a blog, it may as well be halfway coherent, so I'll go back later and prose it up, so to speak.
So, this entry was written Monday evening as I was crushed from fatigue, and then rewritten today (Tuesday).
Here's both versions - first, the haiku thing:
4 am call
late because looking for coffee
stage locked
got sucked in with shooting crew
toe still hurts. labs not back.
equipment returns all day
stuck in traffic
I think that may actually be more incoherent than Rosie's blog.
Here's the prose version, written after I was feeling human again:
Back on "Emily's Reasons Why Not" (thanks, EcamirG for the mental prod).
Today was a 4 am call - Of course I couldn't get to sleep Sunday night before 11, and I had to get up at 3 am. I'm not even sure that counts as sleep.
It being a pre-boutique coffee shop hour, I had to drink 7-11 coffee, and was late to work because I had to drive around and look for a 7-11.
It didn't matter that I was late, though - the stage was locked when we got there, and it took about 15 minutes to find someone on the lot who could open the stage (Studio Operations needs to sleep too, I guess).
After we got inside, we 'struck' (took all the lights out) the bedroom set and did some other busy work, because of course, we weren't given any notes on how they wanted today's set lit - but I found out that the lack of notes is because the D.P. (Director of Photography) can't light until he sees the frame on the monitor. That explains the cluster fuck that is first unit on this show - of course we all got sucked into lighting the set with first unit (except for my boss who conveniently 'had to go to the perms to count stuff' just as soon as they showed up).
Most riggers hate working first unit. I don't mind being 'show boy', but I have to be mentally prepared. When I'm told it's a rigging call, I expect a more relaxed pace, so I'm not ready for the 14 hour hustle that is first unit.
Anyways, we had to hang a bunch of lights while the A.D.'s (Assistant Directors - they do all the dirty work so the Director just has to worry about actually directing) kept asking every 5 minutes how long it would be until we were finished. Hanging lights takes a bit of time - they have to be hung from the grid (which in a dressed set means using ladders as you can't get lifts in around the furniture), powered, and aimed. Having an A.D. stop you every five minutes to ask you how much longer just makes things go slower.
When first unit finally got up and running, we had to start returning equipment - which involved trying to sneak stuff out of the stage between takes so the dock boys could do the check ins (and take the stuff away) outside where we could make noise - at Sony, the lamp dock comes to your stage and counts the stuff there, which is nice - makes things go faster.
My toe still hurts, and of course I dropped a 'chicken coop'* on my foot as we were loading them into the tuggers to go back to the dock. I still have no idea what's wrong with the toe, as the labs haven't come back yet.
Returns took up the bulk of the day's work - we had to hang some more lights when first unit went to lunch, but once that was done we were out of there - just in time to hit traffic on the way home, of course.
I think the prose version is considerably less pathetic.
* chicken coop: An overhead suspended light box that provides general downward ambient or fill light (definition courtesy of "The Set Lighting Technician's Handbook"). Also called a 'coop'. They look like this:
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