Guard Gate Hassle Wednesday!

Of course, not only did my old Paramount ID not work but my name hasn't been in the computer at all - each morning, I've pushed my bicycle up to the gate, given the guard my name and had him tell me I've not been issued a pass. My boss has been calling his crew list into the production office every night, they just don't seem to think that riggers are important enough to call our names into the security office.

Each day, I've sat there at the gate, called my boss on his cell phone and had him exchange angry words with said security office (our call times have been way earlier than the production office staff come in, so we've not been able to call them).

Needless to say, this has made me late every single day. No matter how much extra time I allow, it all seems to get eaten up at the guard shack, where an increasingly frustrated guard has tried to do everything he can to help me. I need to bake him some cookies or something.



Today, my boss finally snapped and got me paperwork for a new pass (he wasn't going to get me one, as he's only allowed to issue badges to so many crew members and the rigging crew's not going to be on this show full-time, but this whole debacle has really been annoying him), so when we went for our morning coffee break I stopped in at the operations office and got my new badge.

I don't know why, but everyone looks bad on their Paramount IDs. I usually take a decent photo, and even I look like a fucking convict.

I think it's the lighting.

At least I won't have the hassle at the gate tomorrow.

Today, the company was on location (a half mile or so from the studio), so we ended up cleaning up after first unit (they get busy lighting and don't make everything neat, which is fine - it's keeping me working) and getting the stages ready for when they come back on the lot.

Tomorrow, we're working on stage 12, which, it turns out, used to be called stage 13 - the old DC cans are still labeled 13 although the stage is now numbered 12. The other day, when one of the fluorescent fixtures we were powering up caught fire (flames and everything - exciting!), it was jokingly blamed on the stage's being unlucky.

I wanted to go into the perms to check for good graffiti, but there's no backboard on the ladder* and it freaked me out.


*Most stages with permanents have had stairways installed, but on the smaller stages where there's no room they left the old ladders, but installed backboards (it's like a big tube around the ladder) so if you fall backwards, you'll just lean into the backboard and not fall 40 feet down to the deck.
For some reason, quite a few of the older stages at Paramount have not had backboards installed - including Stage 7: the tall stage (four stories or so up to the perms, and no backboard on the ladder - yikes!)

Couch of the Day: