They call it "Double Dipping"

It's working two jobs in the same day - i.e. working one job during the day, and then going to another one and working at night - it's generally not allowed (if you do it, and the boys at the union find out about it, they'll fine you), but when it's busy, the union will let you do it..

I wrapped a music video (Green Day - I hate them and hearing the damned song over and over and over didn't help) Thursday night ( 11pm - 6am), and then went to rig some TV pilot ("Halley's Comet") today (8am - 2pm). Thank God it was a short day.

Actually, thank God they were both short days. When I was in my 20's, I used to double dip all the time (I think I worked 24 hours straight more than once), and I'd just sleep the next day and be fine. Now, it hits me hard - I can tell when I'm REALLY tired and shouldn't be driving when I see animals that aren't there running across the road. It's really freaky. I'll see some brown furry thing running across the traffic lanes, I'll freak out and slam on my brakes, and then it'll disappear. That means it's time to pull over and take a nap before I kill myself or someone else.

We started out in Van Nuys at a crappy warehouse stage (no 'permanents' - the wooden walkways in the ceilings of a real stage - the warehouse stages just have 'pipe grids'. That's exactly what it sounds like - a grid of pipe hung from the ceiling to rig hanging lights from. Pipe grids are a pain in the ass as you have to use a lift to get to them, whereas on a real stage you have a walkway to get to the lights. I'll be able to explain this better when I'm not insanely tired).
We were "off production" - just taking the lights and cable out before the next video came into the stage at 7 am this morning.

Rock and roll lighting is similar to movie lighting, but different. It's rigged differently - they don't use stands - everything is hung from the ceiling, and they cable differently than we do. That's fine, but it means that you have to think when you're wrapping. If you pull rock n' roll rigs out the wrong way, you end up with a big fucking mess that takes hours to sort out (you know how Christmas lights get all tangled up? Our cable does the exact same thing. It's just a LOT heavier than Christmas lights, and you can't get pissed off and throw it in the trash. You have to untangle it - so it's better not to let it get fucked up in the first place).

One of our lifts died, and the stage manager had to call a condor mechanic to come out and fix it. I had three 'new guys' on my crew, so someone had to babysit them all night - they did fine, though.

Then, after the Starbucks version of a "Big Gulp", I went out to Pasadena to put this TV pilot rig in. It's shooting in a closed hospital (there's a bunch of those in Los Angeles, and they all have film crews in them all the time), so we just had to change tubes in the fluorescent fixtures (actual fluorescent tubes photograph green as the proverbial ' fucking shamrock'. Movies use special "color balanced" tubes. Light is measured in degrees of Kelvin. Different degrees of kelvin results in a different color of light. Again, something I'll have to explain when I've had some sleep), and run a small amount of cable.

It's still busy as hell - on my way home, I called the union hall to register as 'out of work', and got sent right back out for Monday. I'm back on "Enterprise". The call steward said it was rigging, which confuses me, as I thought that show was done.

I'll find out 6 am Monday.

I'm off to bed.

My First Angry Letter to the Editor

Well, it's not an angry letter, but it's a letter..

"Us Weekly" Magazine reported that the crew of Mr. and Mrs. Smith were replaced due to their gossiping about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

What a crock. Most of the time, we're either working our asses off, or trying to set stuff up for the next shot so we don't get said asses kicked by not being prepared.

There's always commentary on the walkie talkies, but on "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", the only snarky comments that I heard on the walkie were aimed at the director.

Anyhow - here's my first letter to an editor. We'll see if it gets published and in what form:

In your April 11 issue, you reported that the crew of the upcoming movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" were replaced for reshoots due to their 'gossip and speculation' about actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

This is untrue. The reason there was a new crew during each successive round of 'additional shooting' (this current round wrapped Thursday, March 24), is that like all crews, they had moved on to other projects during the film's multiple hiatuses, and were not available when shooting started again - hence the need for a new crew.

Contrary to popular belief, film crews generally
don't care about the antics of celebrities.
We are usually too busy trying to get through the day's work to worry about who's doing what to whom in the trailers between shots.

Ladies who Lunch!

Last minute lunch with The Blonde and The Drama Queen at The Ivy - They called me, said they'd gotten a table, and did I want to come and have lunch.

For those of you not familiar, The Ivy is a celeb infested, over priced 'eatery' in West Hollywood.. there are perpetually photogs planted outside, and the food's okay - given my druthers, I'd go across the way to Chaya - still overpriced, but much more interesting food.

There wasn't really anyone good there except - Mr. Movie Star.

I couldn't believe I saw him there, and The Drama Queen couldn't believe it when, after a few minutes of him staring at me like he couldn't figure out who I was, he came over and said hello.

He's still short, and still very, very charming.

He got my number again as he said he'd 'lost his phone'.

I managed to not giggle quite so much this time.

Some light reading for your perusal

There's a fake Michael Bay blog here on blogger (Those of you who've read my entire blog will know my thoughts on M.B.).

It's hilarious, and whoever's writing it is a fucking genius.

Go check it out!

Downloaded the truck for Mr. and Mrs Smith today. It's finally over!

Since I got off work early, I met my friend Rebecca for lunch. Rebecca is a costumer for just about everyone (she's making costumes for KISS and the Pussycat Dolls right now). She's going to make me a purse when she's got some time - I gave her a really rank Louis V. handbag that I bought at a thrift store (one of those cylindrical ones with the spikes), and she's going to take it apart and make me a knock off out of something cool (I'm thinking of turquoise and green patent leather. I like the idea of having something that no one else has).

I'm so glad I got to see her - she's one of my favorite people in the world.

There's about two weeks left in pilot season, so I'm taking tomorrow off to try to get my taxes done, and then I'm back to scrambling for work before it goes dead again.

I still can't figure out this fucking picture program, so I'll just post photos on MySpace.
Here's the URL for my profile:

http://www.myspace.com/peggyarcher

Yay for Double Time!

We got a nice wrap day today..

Good Friday being a union holiday, we got 8 hours at double time! Yay!

We had a nice, easy day as well. All we did was get our equipment onto our truck (as opposed to the 'drop loads' and the rigging package which is HUGE), which took about six hours of easy work, and since there was no production there (no production = no panic), we could do things like speculate about how much money we could get on eBay for a door handle that Brad broke during a take - I think not much, as there's no way to prove that it's an actual item from the movie. The boys disagree.

It's a moot point, as none of us care enough to actually go to the trouble to try to sell the thing.

We got done early, and I went to the gym that's across the street from the Ikea and swam for an hour, and then I went to Fry's (how is it that whenever I'm not going to be able to get there, Fry's will have a phenomenal deal on something I've been wanting for ages.. but on the one Friday when I get off early and have to pass right by on my way home, they have nothing good.. why?) for a bit, and then went home - while it's still light.

Oh, the joy!

Rule #1 - Don't get killed

The official last night of shooting on "Mr. and Mrs. Smith".. This is just stunts, there are no actors (they were 'picture wrapped' last night).

The night started off badly - we had a 5 pm call, which meant that we all got stuck in the horrible traffic on the way out to the Ikea in Puente Hills (our location, on and off, for the past few months. It will thankfully be torn down as soon as we're done with it).

The "best boy" (sort of the second in command) set the tone by -right at call time - announcing over the walkie talkie "Rule number one is this: Don't get killed by the helicopter". This set off the inevitable wave of John Landis/Twilight Zone jokes, but everyone was very, very nervous.

The first fuck up was that one of the 'condors' (these are lift platforms that go about 80 feet up in the air - there's a light in the basket and a guy up there with it to make any changes - it simulates moonlight) was in the flight path of the helicopter which, during the shot, will be swooping down, chasing our stunt doubles who are running for cover into the building.

To move the condor required that locations secure permission to move it into the parking lot of a business about 100 yards down the road from where it was initially set up - not an easy thing to do at 6:30 pm in a largely industrial area. When they finally got ahold of the guy who owned the building, he said "NO". Finally, they got permission to use another lot and got the condor, all it's cable and the generator that was powering it moved.

To move the generator, transportation sent a 'stake-bed', with some of our lights in it, over to the condor (which was about a quarter mile away from the Ikea). Needless to say, while the truck was over there dealing with trying to hitch up the generator, our boss decided that he just had to use one of the lights that was in the stakebed. They had to unhook the generator, put the condor move on hold, and send the truck back over to us so we could offload one light - we then sent the truck back over to finish the move.

The second fuck up involved one of the other condors (we had a total of six- only four of which were ever in the air at the same time) that was placed in the parking lot of the Best Buy next door. Each condor weighs about 16,000 lbs, and they have big tractor tires on them. The asphalt in the Best Buy parking lot started to crack under the weight of the condor - while the basket (with big light and guy) was in the air. Once that was down, and moved (to a spot that the D.P. didn't like as much, but had firmer asphalt), we started to shoot - until the main generator went down.

The entire production staff was getting very, very tense, as all the shots were outside at night - which means that they can only shoot until the sun comes up, and then they have to stop. Since the director is the slowest fucking person on the planet, this delay sent production into a tizzy.

As many bad things as I've said, typed and thought about this particular director, he did put the petal to the metal and make up for lost time. We ended up getting our last shot just as the sun came up.

After we did our hour or so of work to get everything ready, of course we got stuck in traffic. I slept in the back of my truck for two hours and then went home, where I passed out until I got the call to come in on Friday (Good Friday - it's a holiday so it means double time) and wrap the truck.

Sweet.

Call time: 5 pm.

Wrap time 6:15 am

We were out at 7:15 am

Machine Guns are Loud

I've never been afraid on a set before.

Tonight we shot the big gun battle between Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the commandos who are trying to kill them. ALL of the actors had machine guns, the store shelves were 'squibbed' (small explosive charges to make it look like a bullet's hit something) and the noise was deafening. Even from 30 feet away, I could feel the shockwaves coming off the guns as they were fired. I had ear plugs AND noise canceling headphones on, and the noise was still rattling my teeth.

I cannot imagine what it's like to be in combat, where those things aren't loaded with blanks, and in addition to the cacophony you have the chance of actually being killed. Fuck.

The one funny thing was that when the squibs were going off during the action sequence, there were little geysers of pork rinds and flavored popcorn flying into the air as the squibs set them off. It looked like a cartoon, and I was laughing so hard that I forgot to be afraid!

This director is amazingly slow. All night, he would do multiple takes of these HUGE shots that took hours to set up. Someone pointed out that we started shooting Mr. and Mrs. Smith last year, and then we had to stop because Brad had to go shoot Oceans 12. That movie was shot, came out in the theaters and has gone to DVD, and we're still shooting this movie.

I think they should call it "Mr. and Mrs. Smith go to Heaven's Gate".

Call time: 10 am

Wrap time: 3:30 am

It's going to be a long, long day.

I'm on my way into the never ending movie, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith".

Originally, our call time for today was 7:30 am, at an old Ikea about an hour east of Los Angeles.

My boss called me at 8 pm last night to tell me that the call time had been changed to 10 am, because 'Brad Pitt doesn't want to get up that early".

Wow.. I wish I could do that.

For some reason, I can never sleep late.. So, even with my 10 am call (9:30 for breakfast), I'm still up at quarter to seven.

It's going to be a long, long day.

Bleah.

Still sick.

Still working.

The best boy razzed me all day about being sick at work, which apparently I've complained about to him before.

Someone kept stealing equipment out of our pile before we had a chance to count it, so the warehouse guys would have to go and get more stuff. .there are four shows loading at the same time, so who knows who it was.

Had a good time because the gaffer was there, and he's a ton of fun.

Not all the equipment got there on time, so we had to sit and wait - in the rain, as this rental house doesn't have indoor docks - for the rest of our stuff to get there.

Dammit, I hate it when I'm a hypocrite.

I always get pissed when folks go into work when they're sick, so I guess that makes me a big fucking hypocrite..

I'm still sick as a dog, but I got called to do two days loading a truck, which isn't heavy work, so I dosed up with cold medicine and went in.

What's shooting is pickups for a movie called "Goal" which shot mostly in England, and there's 10 days of stuff here.

This crew are the same folks who did "Memento" and "The Italian Job". I love these guys. They're maniacs, and I always have fun when I'm working for them. Unless I'm sick.

Then nothing is too much fun.

Very, Very Sick.

I have the flu from hell.

I feel like crap and I'm drinking this absolutely vile hippy shit given to me by The Sweater Queen (she has long flowing hair, long flowing sweaters, and dispenses all manner of curative hippy glop and goo) in the hopes of not getting knocked on my ass for two weeks.

At least I'm not working. I'd be pissed if I were missing work.

Dragged my sorry ass to the video store and rented a stack of DVDs since I'm anticipating being on the couch for a few days.

Speaking of the couch, it's calling my name, and my eyeballs feel kinda fuzzy.

Another Lazy Sunday

Woke up late - The Blonde and I went to the opening of some club - I can't remember the name. It's on Hollywood Blvd, just east of Highland, and it's all white inside. There's a raised "VIP" area with ugly white couches (I'm wondering what they're going to look like after a month of spilled drinks), and I think it used to be a crack house, but I'm not sure.. The gift bags sucked, too.. An issue of "Jane" and a compilation CD featuring the music of people I've never heard of.

Anyhow.. one of the girls from "The OC" (I don't know which one - I don't watch the show) was there, and she looked really, really bad..

Of course, I sicced The Blonde on her, trying to get her to do a cameo for us. It didn't work. Damn.

So, I woke up late today. Went to the Farmer's Market and then to the gym.

I don't think we're going to be able to shoot tomorrow.. the camera guy hasn't called me back, and The Drama Queen's in flake mode again.. Crap.. I REALLY need to get this thing finished.

I'm starting to stress.

Three day weekend.. Sort of.

Yesterday (Friday) was my last day on the Paramount lot.. I'm back into freelance world - and I'm on a music video tonight (well, actually it's a 2 am call, so I can still go out, I just have to not show up drunk. Scraping the makeup off my face before work would be a good thing as well).

Got to Paramount at 7:30 am, after having been given the wrong call by the scheduling people - I was supposed to be in at 7 am. Fuck. I hate being late - at least the boss wasn't mad..

Worked for six hours tearing out a rig from a commercial that shot Thursday night on New York Street, and then went home. Yay! I love working for less than 8 hours..

I went to the gym (I need to go more often.. I'm getting doughy!), swam, did laundry, had lunch, and went shopping - there's a Lush in Pasadena. Crap. The only thing that was preventing me from spending every cent I own in there was my not wanting to drive all the way to the Promenade. Well, I spent too much, but at least I smell good!

I forgot to call in (to get my call time for Monday.. there's a schedule posted in the lamp dock for the next work day. It goes up about 4 pm, and it's got everyone's name, what their call time is and which stage they'll be working on - it's the employee's responsibility to check this board every day. Universal has one as well, as does Warner Brothers. Sony does not, and on that lot it's the responsibility of the supervisor to give the call time for the next day) before 5pm (I was so giddy with a free afternoon and I lost track of time), so I had to actually go to Paramount to check the call board - I got back to the lot about 6:30 pm, and saw my name in the 'layoff' column - I did a little happy dance right there in the hallway. Don't get me wrong - I don't dislike working at Paramount, I just get bored if I'm in the same place for too long.

As I was leaving the lot, Mr. Movie Star almost ran me over. He threw a "hey babe" my way in a distracted manner and then tore the hell out of there.. One of the security guards speculated that Mr. Movie Star must be late for his manicure. Heh.

I had yet another Craig's List date last night.. I wasn't sure I wanted to go out with this guy- he's really hesitant sounding on the phone - that sort of broken, full of pauses way of talking "Well.... my day was.... okay.. I..... went over.. to the store.... " Every time I talk to him on the phone, I want to reach through the earpiece, choke the shit out of him and shout "Get to the point!" Maybe it's me - maybe I just need to lay off the coffee.

He turned out to be much better in person, and I actually had a fun time. He's a grad student in film, which is interesting because he's not seen very many movies (He's not seen Fight Club, which I thought was de rigeur for the post-post modern budding filmmaker).

Part two of The Blonde's shoot has been rescheduled yet again, due to yet more scheduling problems.. We're going to try to shoot Monday now. I only have a page or so left to shoot, and I think we can do it in less than four hours.. It's basically two people talking. She's stressed about it already.

The Face Plant, and other Indignities

I got worked today.. On top of it being very hot and humid all day, we actually did a lot of hard labor. I'm sore and shaky. I forsee a date with a hot bath and Epsom salts.

To get the equipment (lights, stands, cable, assorted junk) from the floor of the stage to the lamp dock (which is on the other side of the lot), it's loaded into 'tuggers' - these are metal cages four feet deep by six feet wide and about 5 feet tall that have an open side and a hitch that you can tow with a forklift - if you tow it with a forklift, you have to run alongside it like a secret service agent in a presidential motorcade to make sure that nothing falls out the open side, or you can be macho and use brute force tug it along (hence the name) - we had four, and one of them for some reason was very difficult to turn - whichever direction you wanted it to turn, the wheels would lock in the opposite direction, and the damn thing just wouldn't move...

We named it Christine.

We were struggling with Christine - we wanted her to go around a turn and of course she refused - making us unhook her from the forklift and fight with her - when Mr. Movie Star walked by. He winked at me and said "Hey, babe." I giggled, and then Christine turned unexpectedly, threw me off balance and I fell right on my ass. Christine then continued to turn and whacked me in the head with her hitch. To make it worse, these insane giggles were coming out of me as I sat on the blacktop with a bad case of the flop sweat and a big rust mark on my head where the hitch nailed me.

I guess Christine didn't approve of Mr. Movie Star.

The boys, of course, thought this was hilarious. The Artful Dodger almost fell off his bike because he was laughing so hard.. Mr. Movie Star gallantly helped me up, asked if I was okay, and then winked at me again before he walked off.

The boys took to imitating my insane girl giggle for the rest of the day. Anytime someone would say my name or speak to me, they'd start giggling. Eventually, it escalated into my being called "Giggles".

I suppose this is Karmic retribution for that whole Walrus thing.

The Boob and Mr. Movie Star

Spent yet another day up in the "perms", continuing to tear out the ugly cluster fuck that was the power run for "Girlfriends".. The job has changed, though.. they now need the stage for a pilot, so it's not a complete tear- out.. it's just cleaning up most of the stuff, stacking it neatly, and leaving it there for the next rigging crew.

The 'count to ten' syndrome in action, only this time it's definitely worked in my favor. Having to tear out all the heavy cable (All of the cable we run is heavy - "heavy cable" is the heaviest stuff that we have.) and drop the stuff to the floor - while it would have been another day of work - would have really been painful - literally painful.. On days when there's a lot of cable, I go home sore and feeling sick, no matter how much water I've had.. Add the antibiotics into the mix, and that's Not A Good Thing.

We're still chopping up the "horse cock" and pitching it into the dumpster. It's still fun! The Artful Dodger brought a CD player up into the perms today and put on a Madonna CD.. I don't mind listening to Madonna, but it's just funny to see a grizzled crew guy bopping around to "Ray of Light". You'd think he'd like country or 'rental house rock' (that's classic rock, but it's all they play in the rental houses - hence the term).

At lunch I went over to the stage where "Enterprise" is wrapping, to give the boys copies of the by now infamous bridge photos, and I ran into Mr. Movie Star - smoking and making phone calls outside his stage door.. He's still not that cute but very, very charming. I showed him the bridge photo and told the story about the UPM busting us.. he thought it was funny, and then said that he was really disappointed that I was all the way across the lot as he liked talking to me. I felt all fluttery inside - I never, ever feel fluttery inside when an actor (famous or not) talks to me. Damn.

The conversation ended with my telling him to come over to my stage anytime - all he would have to do is walk on the stage and scream my name - and him responding by telling me that it would be much easier if I just gave him my phone number.

I just gave my phone number to an actor. I still can't believe I did that.. He must have had me under some sort of weird movie star spell.

Good thing the boys didn't see it - I'd never, ever hear the end of it.

The boob hurt like hell this morning, bright red and very painful - of course, I whacked it with a connector first thing in the morning (as I was hoisting a piece of 'horse cock' up to throw it over the rail into the dumpster), and ended up screaming in pain - the source of which I CAN'T explain to the boys.

After lunch, though, the boob felt better.. I guess the antibiotics are taking hold - redness is down, and it's much less painful, although still swollen.

We had a 'permit' today.. He's not union, but is trying to get his days to get in. Nice, nice guy. He's hilarious, and we didn't rib him too bad. He's back with us tomorrow.