"Danika" Day 2

Call time 6:30 pm Friday night
Wrap time 7:00 am Saturday morning

What makes night shoots so hard is not the lighting - you do just as much lighting during the day. Night shoots are hard because it's dark, and no matter how much of a night owl you are, at some point you start to get really, really tired. I woke up about 10 am Friday morning(which is really late for me), and call time was 6 pm. Since I didn't manage to take a nap (I can't really sleep during the day), that's almost 24 hours straight.

That hour or so right before the sun comes up is when the fatigue hits and the entire crew's out of their minds. Lame jokes become hilarious, and even simple tasks require an immense amount of concentration. The end of the night is also when most accidents happen - I got hit in the face with a 100 amp bates connector (they're about the size of a paperback book and are made of hard plastic). We were pulling the lamp off a stand - two guys were on a ladder (it was a tall stand), I was on the ground, the guy who was holding the connector dropped it and BAM - Right in the kisser. Okay, it was actually right on the cheekbone, and I've got a really good bruise.

Our crew got cut back today, so we only had three people for a huge lighting set up. Luckily, once we were lit, there were only little changes all night, but it was a scramble there at the beginning. Have I mentioned how grateful I am that this Gaffer isn't a screamer?

The camera department warned us that this producer is notorious for altering time cards in order to reduce crew overtime costs (someone tell me - is that just a labor board violation or is it a federal crime?). My boss ran down the road to Kinko's and photocopied all our time cards and the production reports in case she tries it.

Oh, and the grips went to Starbucks around 10 pm and didn't tell us they were going (we'd have put an order in as well - normally they'd ask, we'd pitch in and then we wouldn't have to lose a guy to a coffee run when we're undermanned).