Friday, July 22, 2005

"Danika" Last Day

Today was our 'load out' day.

This is when we unload the truck, and inventory all of the equipment with the rental house to see what the L&D (Loss and Damage) is. Considering that the show was all location (we didn't spend a huge amount of time on a stage, and the longest we were in the same place for was 10 days), the L&D wasn't bad at all - but everything we lost or damaged was expensive, which drove the best boy nuts - and forced him to spend about an hour on the phone with anyone he could reach to try to locate the missing stuff.

Our equipment was rented from Santa Clarita Studios, and it was hotter than hell up there - added to that the worst air quality in the greater Los Angeles area. The good news is that since our package was so small, we were out of there fairly quickly.

We went to lunch at a sushi place in Santa Clarita that one of the guys swore was great, but I'm spoiled living in LA, so it just seemed mediocre to me. The fish was good, but the rice was too crunchy.

We drove the waitresses nuts by not sitting at the sushi bar and demanding separate checks, and then at the last minute, the gaffer decided to buy everyone lunch (thus rendering the separate checks pointless). I can never, ever go back there - they'd probably remember me and rub the food around on the floor or something.

The grips had more L&D than we did. They tore a 20' x 20' day blue (very expensive), and broke a mirror board (even more very expensive).

Plus, they found out that we drank all their beer last night after they'd finished loading their equipment and gone home (the perils of sharing a truck).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes! It's Jagermeister time!!

I was once on a project that enjoyed huge success for the client. In gratitude, we (the people who did all the actual work) were invited to a fancy dinner to celebrate. It was a really kind gesture that surprised the five of us who had worked so hard to make it happen... until the bill arrived. Turns out only company management got their meals paid for, and any invited extras had to pay for their own meal. Typical.

Peggy Archer said...

WHAT?!?!

That's just wrong.

Anonymous said...

Yeah... almost as wrong as having to load a light truck in scorching heat while everyone else gets to have a cold beer. Sometimes hard work is its own reward because that's all you are going to get out of it! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hear hear!