Late-night call times somehow seem just wrong - first off, there's the drinking coffee at 10 pm. Then, there's going home and going to bed at 6 am.
Then, there's the aforementioned sleeping all day (okay, not all day, from about 10 am to 3 pm, but it's that time of year when the weather's not too hot and it's beautiful to be outside, so I HATE being in during the day).
Then, there's the recovery time.
I got to work Wednesday at midnight, and we were done by 6 am (the joys of being 'off production'. We were just coming in to wrap out and load the truck. We ended up spending most of the night standing around waiting for them to call it. I think we only worked for about two hours, and in case you're wondering I have no idea who the video was for. Some forgettable rap group) , although it was this morning before I felt human again. The older I get, the more those all-nighters (or semi-all nighters) hurt me.
As promised, here's the pig race video (I'm a YouTube newbie, so let me know if I've done something wrong and fucked it up):
Friday, October 06, 2006
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Sleeping the sunny afternoon away
Monday, we wrapped everything - we got to Sony at 5 am and got everything wrapped before lunch, then spent the rest of the day at the rental house, unloading the truck and counting out equipment.
We did pretty well - 10 sets in 2 days (Disney Ranch and the Sony lot), and we only lost three stingers.
Normally, when you do that many rigs, the L&D (lost and damaged) is a lot higher, so the rigging gaffer was pretty happy with us, so hopefully I'll get called back when this crew goes to another job.
Tuesday was laundry day (and I went through an entire bottle of "Shout" - wrapping cable makes my clothes really dirty - I looked like a transient at the end of each day), and after I got all my clothes clean I went and saw School for Scoundrels (which I worked on, and wasn't intending on seeing, but a friend really wanted to see it so we went).
I'm still on a super-early schedule, so I was up at 6 am Tuesday morning and 7 am today (hey, I managed to sleep in!), and I have a midnight call tonight at Long Beach Airport (although I'll probably head down early and swim beforehand), so I'll have to take a nap this afternoon, although sleeping during the day makes me feel weird (but I have to - I can't work at night without a nap).
Right now, I just got done at the gym, had lunch at Baja Fresh (two chicken soft tacos, no cheese - Carly's book party's coming up and I'm determined to fit into some of my super-hot smaller sized clothing) and now I'm sitting in a coffeehouse (Groundwork - they have free wireless and it's a cool place, although I wish the food were better) with my ghetto little IBM laptop (everyone else here seems to have those super-expensive Mac powerbooks), typing and trying not to listen to the guy sitting at the next table, who's loudly complaining about his boyfriend to another guy who's commiserating by loudly complaining about his boyfriend.
I love LA.
Oh, and you know you're getting older when the homeless punks on Sunset Blvd. start calling you "Ma'am" and saying "thank you very much" when you give them your Baja Fresh chips.
We did pretty well - 10 sets in 2 days (Disney Ranch and the Sony lot), and we only lost three stingers.
Normally, when you do that many rigs, the L&D (lost and damaged) is a lot higher, so the rigging gaffer was pretty happy with us, so hopefully I'll get called back when this crew goes to another job.
Tuesday was laundry day (and I went through an entire bottle of "Shout" - wrapping cable makes my clothes really dirty - I looked like a transient at the end of each day), and after I got all my clothes clean I went and saw School for Scoundrels (which I worked on, and wasn't intending on seeing, but a friend really wanted to see it so we went).
I'm still on a super-early schedule, so I was up at 6 am Tuesday morning and 7 am today (hey, I managed to sleep in!), and I have a midnight call tonight at Long Beach Airport (although I'll probably head down early and swim beforehand), so I'll have to take a nap this afternoon, although sleeping during the day makes me feel weird (but I have to - I can't work at night without a nap).
Right now, I just got done at the gym, had lunch at Baja Fresh (two chicken soft tacos, no cheese - Carly's book party's coming up and I'm determined to fit into some of my super-hot smaller sized clothing) and now I'm sitting in a coffeehouse (Groundwork - they have free wireless and it's a cool place, although I wish the food were better) with my ghetto little IBM laptop (everyone else here seems to have those super-expensive Mac powerbooks), typing and trying not to listen to the guy sitting at the next table, who's loudly complaining about his boyfriend to another guy who's commiserating by loudly complaining about his boyfriend.
I love LA.
Oh, and you know you're getting older when the homeless punks on Sunset Blvd. start calling you "Ma'am" and saying "thank you very much" when you give them your Baja Fresh chips.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
I've got a truck full of cable and an ache in my spine.
Friday's work was on the Sony lot - rigging 8 or so sets (pickup shot days move fast because it's just a few snippets, hence the large number of locations) in different areas of the lot in one day.
It was the same drill as yesterday - rig a set before first unit got there, wrap it after they shot, use that gear to rig the next set. We ordered more equipment, which enabled us to leave three or four sets down at the same time, which was a good thing since the shooting order got changed (and a shot dropped at the last minute) and we would have been up shit creek without the extra stuff.
Our day started out with our 10-ton truck breaking down (I don't know what was wrong, but I overheard one of the drivers say to another "It's not going to get any better" as they were looking at the engine), so we had to offload all of our equipment onto a much smaller truck (not a big deal, since we were going to lay all of it out) for the day's work.
Since there were so many sets, we never stopped working for the entire 12 hours (there's usually some down time involved, even on rigs), and I was too worn out Friday night and Saturday to do much of anything.
It's Sunday night and I'm still worn out. I guess I've been set boy too long, and these two heavy rig days have hurt me bad - I know I've been mostly rigging lately, but I've not been throwing around as much heavy cable as I have been for the past few days - this rig was all 4/0 ( it's the heaviest cable we have - 100 foot coils of it weigh 100 lbs. It's pronounced "four ought", as in "I ought not to be lifting this shit by myself").
I have to be at work at 5 am tomorrow, which means I have to leave my house at 4 am in order to get there, park, make it through the security checkpoint and walk across the lot to where we're meeting.
We're wrapping the rest of the cable and taking it back to the rental house, as there were only two shoot days on this.
Today was the last day of the LA County fair, so a friend and I went, ate some deep-fried food (the deep-fried avocado was a disappointment), drank some beer, watched a pig race (video coming soon), and then came back home.
I'm off to bed.
It was the same drill as yesterday - rig a set before first unit got there, wrap it after they shot, use that gear to rig the next set. We ordered more equipment, which enabled us to leave three or four sets down at the same time, which was a good thing since the shooting order got changed (and a shot dropped at the last minute) and we would have been up shit creek without the extra stuff.
Our day started out with our 10-ton truck breaking down (I don't know what was wrong, but I overheard one of the drivers say to another "It's not going to get any better" as they were looking at the engine), so we had to offload all of our equipment onto a much smaller truck (not a big deal, since we were going to lay all of it out) for the day's work.
Since there were so many sets, we never stopped working for the entire 12 hours (there's usually some down time involved, even on rigs), and I was too worn out Friday night and Saturday to do much of anything.
It's Sunday night and I'm still worn out. I guess I've been set boy too long, and these two heavy rig days have hurt me bad - I know I've been mostly rigging lately, but I've not been throwing around as much heavy cable as I have been for the past few days - this rig was all 4/0 ( it's the heaviest cable we have - 100 foot coils of it weigh 100 lbs. It's pronounced "four ought", as in "I ought not to be lifting this shit by myself").
I have to be at work at 5 am tomorrow, which means I have to leave my house at 4 am in order to get there, park, make it through the security checkpoint and walk across the lot to where we're meeting.
We're wrapping the rest of the cable and taking it back to the rental house, as there were only two shoot days on this.
Today was the last day of the LA County fair, so a friend and I went, ate some deep-fried food (the deep-fried avocado was a disappointment), drank some beer, watched a pig race (video coming soon), and then came back home.
I'm off to bed.
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