The Cell Phone Saga: Part 2

In May, my cell phone broke in half. When it did, I filed an insurance claim, ponied up the deductible, and took the replacement.

Last week the new phone broke in exactly the same place - at the hinge on the right side.



I called the insurance company, expecting to be apologized to, and of course, offered a new phone for free.

When I'm wrong, I'm so very, very wrong.

During my conversation with the insurance company's customer service representative, I learned the following things:

Asurion (the insurance company) does not, in fact, send out 'new' phones. What they send out are 'reconditioned' phones - which means that they fixed someone else's piece of crap Motorola's broken hinge, then sent it to me and charged me fifty bucks. From what I understand, organized crime works along these same lines.

Replacement phones have a seven day warranty. Only. Fuck you if your phone acts up or breaks any time after sunset on day 7.

Customers are limited to two insurance replacements per calendar year.

Have I mentioned that Asurion are evil jackasses?

Upon learning that I'm only allowed to make two claims per calendar year - even counting a shitty 'reconditioned' phone from hell, I cancelled my insurance in a fit of pique and bought a used phone off eBay.

Looking at phones on eBay, I hadn't paid any attention to anything other than price and what service they were programmed for, and had bought the cheapest one; my reasoning being why drop a ton of cash on a phone that's only got to last until the end of November - when I get my biennial upgrade.

The phone got here today, and I marched into the Verizon store to learn that non G-something phones (basically, any phone manufactured prior to last week) can't be activated in Los Angeles due to some fucking regulation about something.

This is what I get for trying to be clever.

The customer service lady at Verizon's Hollywood retail store, who normally has a disposition similar to that of a cat who's just been given a cold bath, actually apologized to me for not being able to activate the phone, and then told me they were going to give me a new phone for free!

Verizon have never given me anything for free. Not a charger. Not a plastic headset earbud. Not advice. Not a kick in the ass. Nothing.

As I was looking around the store for the cameras, thinking I'd been punk'd, she smiled at me. Somehow, that was the most alarming part of the entire exchange - a creaky, out of practice smile from a woman who usually can't be bothered to even look up at the customer while she snarls "We don't do that here."

Unreal.

They gave me an LG VX3300, which is functional, but which lacks the display screen on the front, so I have to actually open up the phone to see who's calling. It's annoying, but I was afraid to complain; I clutched my unheard-of free thing from the great Verizon gods and scurried out of the store, amazed that I hadn't just been screamed at and sent packing along with my ghetto eBay phone.

I had an LG three phones ago and loved it. We'll see how long I can live without the outer display screen. Right now, it's really driving me nuts.

Whatshisname's Big Music Video

Yesterday's adventure was a rig day for a music video (I'm off of Bones. The gaffer is leaving to do Fast and Furious 3 in Tokyo, and when a new gaffer comes in, he or she usually brings his or her own crew. If I can find out who the new best boy is, I might be able to get back on).

I'm lucky in that I've managed to spend most of my career not working on music videos (I think I've only done 10 or so), and that's a good thing. The hours are long, the pay's not good, and for some reason music video directors pick the crappiest, dirtiest, most uncomfortable locations they can find, such as yesterday's asbestos riddled airplane hangar - part of the former McDonnell-Douglas plant (which is now called the "Playa Vista Stages").

I'm being unfair - the actual hangars don't have that much asbestos in them. It's mostly oozing out the walls in the office buildings, which I've also worked in - ironically, on another music video.

This video that we were rigging was for some guy that used to be in Creed, but is now a solo artist, and the set is a raised lucite stage with about 400 nook lights underneath it - shooting up through the clear floor (actually, the real number of lights is 700. There are 400 under the stage itself and another 300 around the outside of the stage), in addition to a bunch of other BFL's* that are crammed into the 10-ton waiting for those poor bastards on first unit today.
When a gaffer lights like this (lots and lots and lots of lights), it's called "flamethrowing".



The thing about nook lights is that they get really, really hot. 700 nook lights get, well, 700 times really, really hot.
The running joke was that lunch for the shooting crew would be barbecued musician.



Nooks also blow globes a lot. I pity the fool that has to crawl under there and change one after those lights have been burning for 12 hours.

* BFL = Big Fucking Light

D'oh! Again.

Of course because I made plans for today, I got called in to go to work.

Luckily, it's at the stages at Playa Vista (near the ocean for those of you not in LA), so it'll be nice and cool.

Last night, when I called to cancel on him, Mr. Movie Star heaved a frustrated sigh and muttered something about maybe having better luck getting both of us in the same room next week (he's on a Wednesday - Sunday schedule but only has today off this week because of a still shoot on Tuesday).

It sucks, but I have to take the work when I can get it - if you turn folks down, they stop calling you, plus I never know when I'm going to work next.

An Open Letter to Michael Bay

Despite the performance of your last movie, you're still one of the most powerful men in Hollywood.

Therefore, I'm sure you have a girlfriend. Why don't you let her dress you?

When two grips and an electrician (all women - I was the redhead who spewed pasta and barely missed the Local 80* Goddess seated across from me. Just so you know, we were laughing at you, not with you) point at you and break into hysterics as you walk past, it's high time for a closet cleanout.

You're not a bad looking guy. Really, you're not. You have a terrific smile and you're more than a little sexy. Were it not for the heinous jeans and moldy tennis shoes, I'd do you in a heartbeat - but you really do need to update your look.

Please. I'm begging you.

The Goddess (who's been on location in Australia where the men dress like crap, and yet she still laughed at you) will even consider speaking to you in less than insulting tones if only you'll dress like less of a retard in the future.


*It's customary to refer to departments by the local number. Grip is Local 80. Set Lighting is Local 728. Camera is Local 600. While this may seem like jibberish, standing in the middle of the set and yelling "seven twenty eight" will result in all the electricians turning our heads and saying "What?".

Never believe anything anyone says to you..

The best boy on Bones brought me in for the second unit shots yesterday - the cafe shots that were supposed to be done on Tuesday, but got dropped. He swore up and down that it would be a short day. It was, after all, only an eighth of a page, with no dialogue.

I suppose it was a short day in that it wasn't 14 hours, but it was way longer than the 4 hours he promised me. That'll teach me to tell friends I might be able to meet them after work.

To be fair, we did only shoot for a few minutes, but because the director and actress were having to run back and forth to squeeze our two shots in between whatever they were shooting on Stage 6, we spent a lot of time sitting and waiting..

Luckily, our second unit gaffer was hilarious. He's close to retirement, so he didn't give a shit what he said or who heard it:

"That makeup guy looks like Uncle Fester from that monster TV show. Hey, Uncle Fester, get your ass out from in front of the light!"

"That director's an idiot."

"I need coffee." Turns to producer "Hey, kid go grab me some coffee, willya?"

I actually got a stitch in my side from laughing so hard - the last time I got a stitch in my side on a set was the time the director on a movie of the week ripped a giant fart right in the middle of a love scene.

I think that may be the most fun I've had on a set in, well, it might be the most fun ever.

Old guys are great to work for, because there's no second guesses. He'd be chatting with the DP about fishing, turn around, say "Hey, put a light back there for that thing, willya? Just hit it from an angle. Thanks!", and then go back to his conversation.

We'd place the light, gab about whatever the topic was, and then a few minutes later he'd turn around and casually place another light.

The shot looked gorgeous. I mean heartbreakingly beautiful. The thing that made the whole episode tonight so impressive is that it's much more difficult to light with 'hard light' than 'soft light',* and the entire set was lit with hard light.

So we lit it, sat there for two hours, and then shot the first angle when the director got there. The director left, we set up for the reverse angle, and then sat there for another three hours waiting for the director and actress to show up after they wrapped on Stage 6.

Because we were only there for two shots, we had no craft service and they never broke us for lunch. Luckily, Kitchen Confidential was shooting on Fox's New York Street (right across the way from the cafe where we were shooting), and we were able to raid their craft service truck. They have much better food than we do, which makes sense since it's a show about gourmet chefs.

Call time: 7 pm
Wrap time: 4 am

*Hard light is just what it sounds like. No diffusion or 'softener'. The old black and white film noirs are lit with hard light. Done right, it's amazing and creates a sense of depth in the frame, but hard light casts shadows, so it can be a bit tricky to make it look good - A gaffer has to really know his or her shit to light with hard light. Soft light is easier to use as there are no harsh shadows, but it can look flat and crappy. Actually, it usually looks flat and crappy, but since most audiences don't know the difference and it's faster to use soft light, that's how most movies and TV shows are lit these days.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Working 14 hour days every day is really tiring.. All I really want to do at night is wash off the layer of grime and pass out for my allotted 8 hours before I have to get up and go back to work.

It makes writing the blog hard, because when I get home I don't have any energy to sit at the computer and collect my thoughts.

So - highlights of the past few days have been:

Tuesday - we set up for two shots in the Fox commissary (which is doubling for a Starbucks) at the end of the night. Because the director was so slow (14 hours to shoot two scenes of three people talking in a room), they scratched the shot - at the last minute, after we'd rigged it, had all the lights burning, and were sitting there waiting for the actors to walk on set. And they wonder why they're over budget.
Call time: 9:30 am
Wrap time: 11:30 pm

Wednesday - on location with a company move* from a tenement in the drug dealer infested neighborhood of Pico - Union (where an angry neighbor leaned out of his balcony and threw water on some of our lights) to a residential area (West Adams) filled with more neighbors who were NOT happy to see us. I can totally understand this - once again, we were the victims of the slow director who took 12 hours to shoot two scenes of people talking in a room, so we got to a residential neighborhood for a night exterior at 10 pm. On a weeknight. I'm surprised they weren't shooting at us. I went up in the condor and got stung by a bee that had gotten tangled in my hair. This was at 1 am - for some reason I thought bees slept at night.
Call time: 11 am
Wrap time: 1:30 am

Thursday - the director must have gotten a talking to, because he moved considerably faster Thursday. We were back in the set of death on Stage 6, but we had an extra guy (making our crew total 8), so we didn't get peeled quite so badly.
Call time: 12:30 pm
Wrap time: 1:00 am

Tonight, I'm on the second unit that's shooting the coffee shop shot from Tuesday. I've got a 7 pm call, but it's only two shots and there's a different director, so I shouldn't be there that long.

* A company move is two (or more if you have a really sadistic production manager) locations in the same day. What this means for us is that we go to the first location, unload our truck, set up all our stuff, shoot, wrap the set, load our truck, go to the next location and do the same thing. Company moves, although sometimes necessary, suck and crews hate them.

Teamwork is for Sissies

It takes a few days to get used to a new crew, and then one starts to see the dynamics of the group. Working the set in any department is all about teamwork, and a couple of these guys are just not team players.

We have walkie talkies in order to communicate - one person brings a light, another brings power, someone else brings any gels or diffusion or anything else that's needed..some lights are so heavy that they need two or three people to lift them.. We have walkies so we don't work harder than we absolutely have to. More than once in the past few days, I've brought something that was asked for or pulled over power, only to get there and have one of the guys say "Oh, I've already got that." FUCKING TELL ME ON THE WALKIE, ASSHOLE, SO I DON'T WASTE TIME AND ENERGY BRINGING YOU SOMETHING YOU ALREADY HAVE. For fuck's sake, it's not like I don't have anything else to do.

It's the hero syndrome. They want to be superman - "Look at me boss, I got that for you. Oh, I got that too. Look how hard I'm working! You don't really need those other guys - I'm a hero!"
It's worth noting that the guys who do this (and it's only two of them), are both really young - as they get older, lose the testosterone and gain experience, I'm sure they'll settle in, but right now it's an enormous pain in the ass on a show that's not that easy to begin with. As a crew, teamwork makes you, and lack of it can break you - these days have been a lot harder than they've needed to be because of the lack of teamwork, and "Danika" was a lot easier than it should have been most of the time because everyone worked together so well.

Call time: 10:30 am
Wrap time: midnight

Peeled like a Grape

I was back on "Bones" today. One day has turned into the entire week. The best boy, first thing in the morning, told me that it was just today, and he didn't have any work until Thursday. I made plans for Tuesday (Mr. Movie Star's on a Wednesday through Sunday, so his days off are Monday and Tuesday), and then had to cancel them two hours later when the best boy asked me if I wanted to work Mon - Wednesday. Then, since I made other plans for Thursday, he asked me if I wanted to work the entire week.

No extra curricular activities for me until Saturday (although maybe not even then. We have night shots on Friday, which means I'll see the sun come up on Saturday morning).

As I tried to get into the Fox lot first thing in the morning, I discovered that Production forgot to call my pass in, and the guards wouldn't call anyone - I sat there for half an hour waiting for the pass to come through (guards at other studios will get on the phone and try to reach someone. Guards at Fox will ask you if you know who to call, and if you say no, they'll shrug and say "I can't let you through without a pass". It's enough to make me want to tear out my hair), and the whole debacle - production calling the pass in twice, and it not going through - made me 20 minutes late for work. I HATE being late.

Once I got to work, we were in the big set all day, and running like crazy. Most of the time sets are lit with soft light from above for ambiance, and all you have to do is bring in eyelights or a hard 'kick'* but this DP doesn't like the way that looks, so it's all hard light, which is much more difficult to do, and takes more units. We used every light in the floor set, and then blew a 400 amp** breaker on the transformer coming into the stage.

Then the dimmer board went down. Twice. We continued to run like crazy - at one point, I was standing under the catwalk, and I felt something dripping on me. I thought it was an overturned water bottle. I looked up, and it was one of the other juicers sweating like he was in a sauna. Of course, every time crafty brought food he'd do it right when we were lighting, so by the time we got done, the food was gone. By lunchtime I could have eaten a horse - which would have been preferable to the swill Fox serves in their commissary. Blech. I ate about half a rancid salad (when you're running around and sweating, you can't eat anything heavy like a burger or spaghetti or you'll throw it up. All of us have learned this the hard way) and then I spent WAY too much money in the Studio Store on Simpsons stuff.

The second half of the day was more of the same. When you run around like crazy because you're getting worked to death, it's known as 'getting peeled'. We got peeled like the proverbial grape today. By the time I got home I was completely wrung out - but I still managed to watch two "Simpsons" episodes from the Season 5 DVD!

Call time: 7 am
Wrap time: 10 pm

* A "kick" or "kicker light" is a hard light that shines onto the back of an actors head, and gives a bright backlight. This helps to prevent the actor from blending into the background.

** Amps are a measurement of power. 1,000 watts equals 10 amps. Our power is 'three phase' which means that we have three 'legs' carrying (in this situation) 400 amps of power each. On each side of the set. On the floor only. The power for the hanging stuff is off a different transformer.
400 amps per leg, three legs = 1200 amps. Two sides of the set = 2400 amps. Hanging stuff is probably another 2400 amps. We burned so many lights that we blew a breaker. That's nuts. To put all these numbers in perspective, if you live in a two bedroom house, you probably have 100 amps of power in the ENTIRE house. My two bedroom built in 1925 has 80 amps of power in the entire house.

"The Aristocrats"

Since I felt better late this afternoon, I decided to go to the 8 pm screening of The Aristocrats at the Arclight, mainly because afterwards there was a question and answer with Larry Miller, one of the comedians in the film. Larry Miller gives really good Q & A - he basically turned it into 20 minutes of improv comedy, even if he refused to actually tell the joke live - something about not wanting to tell a version that just wasn't dirty enough to follow the movie (which was spectacularly filthy).

I won't break the 'code of silence' and give away the joke, but if you're not easily offended (this is key - the joke, when told well, is funny as shit, but offensive beyond belief), go see it! It's hilarious and everyone in it is great (my one complaint is some of the camera work - they shot two angles and kept switching back and forth to make it more interesting. These people do NOT need to be made more interesting), but...

There's one person in the movie who was such a standout that I don't understand why reviewers haven't mentioned him more often.

The mime.

The mime stole the show - so much more than I can say without veering into spoiler country.

Go see the movie.

Oh, and I now have a girly crush on Bob Saget, because his version was so awesome.

Very Angry Tummy

One of the advantages of having a really acidic stomach is that I don't tend to get food poisoning easily, but every now and then some sort of food comes along which is so bacteria heavy (or something) that it defeats even my normally iron tummy.

Last night, second meal was Tito's Tacos, which everyone raves about, but which have left me nauseous (even almost 12 hours later) and really wishing I could just throw it up.

I had such big plans for today, too. Laundry, beach, gym, general fabulousness... now I'm sitting at home in my underwear carrying the bathroom trash can around with me because the view from in front of the toilet got really boring.

Blech.

Dem Bones, dem Bones.

I had an 11 am call (on the tv show "Bones"), with the idea that I'd get there in time to help first unit with a stage move. Since they worked so late the night before, crew call got moved to 10:30 (it was originally 8), and our union has a rule that you can't change a call after a certain time of the day, so since they couldn't change my call and they didn't need me for the first half of the day, I spent the morning on the rigging crew.

Rigging and working first unit are two entirely different mindsets, so going from one to the other (also known as a 'rig/operate' day) is kind of a mindfuck. The riggers on this show have been working 14 hour days, 6 days a week - in two shifts. This is unheard of for a tv show ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith" had two shifts of riggers working 12 hour days, and we all thought that was insane) - most rig days are 8-10 hours and a 5 day week. The riggers (whom I've worked with at Paramount) all have that 'thousand yard stare' because they're so tired. .

The sets for this TV show are HUGE. Someone said (and I believe them) that they're the biggest sets ever for a TV show. On Fox's Stage 6, the set is built out to the firelane on all four sides and all the way up to the perms. I'll have to try to dig up the dimensions of the stage somewhere (Fox doesn't post them on the stage wall like everyone else does. If anyone has the dimensions of stage 6 - length, width, height to perms - I'd love to know).

Most of the sets are steel, too - sets are never, ever steel. Steel is expensive. Steel requires paying higher construction costs, because you have to pay a welder a bazillion dollars an hour to cut and weld instead of just staples and nails on plywood. This set alone (there are two others) had to cost about two million bucks just for the materials (I think it's an insane gamble, spending this much money on the set for a TV show that hasn't even aired yet).

Unfortunately, one of the things they forgot to put in the super expensive set was 'wild walls'. Wild walls are walls that come out, or swing open so the set's easier to light, shoot and generally get in and out of. I think there are four wild walls, and they're all in the smaller sets that are off to the sides of the main set. It's a bitch trying to get in and out of that big set - you have to walk around to one of the four access points (one in each wall - in a set that's well over 100 feet long and 90 feet wide). During my rigging half of the day, I was placing lights in a sort of overhang filled with silk bamboo plants (nicknamed 'Vietnam' because you had to walk hunched over through the stand of bamboo), and every time I forgot something, I'd have to go across the catwalk, down the zigzaggy stairs (with freshly painted handrails so nothing to hold onto), across the set, out the door, and back across the stage to where our stuff was - about 20 feet away had there been a direct path.

After lunch (warmed over commissary food - yum. Actually, I shouldn't say that. Since we had lunch after the commissary officially closed, they probably cooked us something new), I 'fell in' with first unit on the big set - they're a nice bunch of guys, and the gaffer's a good guy. The only complaint I have is that he doesn't use his walkie talkie. He'll turn it on, say something to you, and then turn it off again. This sucks if you have a question. You have to get one of the other guys on the radio and have them ask the gaffer the question, and then he turns his walkie on, answers the question, and turns the walkie back off again. Very, very annoying.

Call time: 11 am (mine - general crew call was 10:30)
Wrap time: 1 am

I'm back today - on a 12:30 call, which means I'll get home around 3 am if they work a 14 hour day. I didn't have to sign a 'no photo' clause, so I can bring the camera today and take some photos.

Damn Insomnia

I got called last night to work on a TV show ("Bones"). They have an 11 am call today (which means they've been working really long hours and are pushing the call later every day in order to make turnaround), which also means I can't go to the LAist party, which is tonight, and which will be long over by the time I get off work. Damn.

Of course, as soon as I decided it was bed time, I lay there, wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

Because I can't take sleep aids - Tylenol PM and Nyquil make me hyper, and the stronger ones will knock me out for 15 hours and I'll be groggy for the entire next day - pretty much all I can do when this happens is lay there and hope I'll be able to sleep.

At some point I gave up and turned on the TV, but even Jay Leno reruns didn't bore me enough to knock me out.

This starts a really vicious cycle. I drink coffee all day to stay awake because I'm tired, and then when I get home, I'm too amped up to sleep. There's an art to timing that last cup of coffee so I can stay awake until wrap (which I'm betting will be 1 am at the earliest, but we'll see) but still be able to get some rest when I get home.

Sold! Maybe.

We just got offered a co-production deal for the TV show.

This is not quite what I wanted, but it's better than a buy-out (which is for chumps - it's a one time fee, and I'd have to sign over my intellectual property rights. Screw that).

What I really wanted was to produce the show ourselves - which would give me a bigger slice of the pie. I have to assume that the show will either never get on the air or will be a mid-season replacement that will air four episodes and then die an unmourned death (call me a pessimist if you like), so I'm trying to get the biggest slice of pie I can. If I produce it myself, then I get more cash. On the other hand, with a co-production deal, I don't get as much, but if the show tanks, I have someone besides myself to blame.

Now begins a phase of legal wrangling in which our hold fee (deposited into an escrow account, of course. No new car for me*) stops us from pitching the show anywhere else - except that we haven't signed anything yet, and since NBC's desperate, I'm going to slip them a copy of a different show using some of the same footage..

I'm greedy and evil, but surprisingly, it's not bothering me.


* When Nigel died, a friend of mine sold me her Explorer for what the scrapyard paid me. I hate Fords, and this one's not changing my mind. Priority one right now is saving enough to get another car.

Bad, bad me.

I should be ashamed of myself. Really, I should.

I missed most of yesterday's Defamer link fun due to a migrane, but the email floodgates opened up while I was 'resting', and here are excerpts from a few of the choice ones (all of them have had the more glaring spelling and grammar errors corrected - cause I'm nice like that):

You should be ashamed of yourself. Just because someone has money doesn't make them bad. You're mean. (Incorrect guess at Mr. Movie Star's identity deleted) should dump you.

The above is not an excerpt. That's the entire email.

How could you publish a innocent man's address on the internet? What about his right to be left alone? What about his rights to live his life in peace and not be bothered all the time and have his private life splashed all over the internet? That's slander, and he should sue you.

#1. Slander is spoken, libel is written, but neither apply here. Here's an explanation.
#2. For fuck's sake, I'm not going through his trash. I'm just going to the beach.

I'm sure David Geffen's a nice, nice man and doesn't deserve to be made fun of by commie liberals like you. You just want everyone to be a ghetto living (racial slur aimed at an ethnic group of which I'm not a member deleted) like you.

Wow.. This is the second time in three days that I've been called a 'commie'. Pretty good for a blog with no political content, huh?

I don't know David Geffen either, but just speaking in general terms, one does not become the head of a media empire by being a nice, nice man. Again, that's just a generalization on my part.

I never insulted anyone, nor did I post anything with malicious intent. I simply went to a beach - a beach where the law of the state in which I live gives me the right to access.

Bite me if you don't like it.

I'll see the rest of you at the beach.

Hangin' with "Biggie D"

This is David Geffen's house.



This is the coastal access way next door to David Geffen's house.



David Geffen fought the California Coastal Commission for a long, long time (and spent lots of money) because he didn't want to allow the unwashed masses like you and me access to the beach - an area that, according to California state law, can't be walled off from the populace.

The California Coastal Commission stood up to Geffen's army of immaculately dressed corporate drones and won.

So - I'm pleased to announce that the court mandated coastal access is now open, next door to David Geffen's 'estate' at 22132 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu (also known as Carbon Beach).

I didn't bring my camera onto Carbon Beach itself (salt water + sand + electronics = bad), but I can assure you that it's gorgeous, and well worth the litigation. It's a natural small bay so the waves aren't to crazy if you want to swim, the water is crystal clear and not nearly as cold as Zuma (the other white beach), and there's a conspicuous absence of the floating trash that's become a part of the Santa Monica Bay experience. As I was being given the bum's rush at closing time, dolphins cavorted just beyond the breakers, backlit by LA's amazing golden late-afternoon sunlight.

Heaven. Pure heaven. I highly recommend the lot of us descend upon our court mandated community accessible beach. It's open from 9 am until 6 pm SEVEN days a week.

If you're not familiar with the area, may I suggest Mapquest.

Once again, that's 22132 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California. It's north (by quite a ways) of Topanga Canyon Blvd and south of Pepperdine University.

Buzzle.com article about this particular battle in the coastal access war