Ah, Friday.

I'm posting this from an internet cafe, as whatever company Pacific Bell became has decided that DSL lines don't really need maintenance on the weekends, after all - I probably won't have access until Monday, or that's what the customer service rep said.

I'm used to having one of those fancy ergonomic keyboards, and I can feel the standard PC keyboard here giving me carpal tunnel as I type this, so I'll keep it short.

Today was my last day on "Emily's" - they finished shooting last night, and we just came in to wrap the lights and do the returns. The first unit boys showed up for a few hours and wrapped their personal stuff, and then split, leaving us to organize a ton of equipment that had just been thrown everywhere.

That's more of a problem than it sounds like - aside from the obvious cable tangle (also known as 'spaghetti'), lights have more than one part (some have more parts than others - I'll explain later when I can type without munching my wrists), and if the parts aren't all kept together in some semblance of order, things get lost and then I have to spend an hour looking for one tiny little thing that's missing. Usually it's not a big deal, but we've had the set guys pulling out all the furniture as well, so we spent the entire day tripping over one another.

I usually wear work boots (I step on a nail about once a year, not to mention dropping heavy things that sometimes land on my feet), but because of the toe I've had to wear tennis shoes this week. They're more comfortable, but offer much less protection. Luckily, I haven't stepped on a nail, but I've definitely stubbed my toes a bit, and I've dropped a few things on my feet as well.

I'll be happy when I can get back into my work boots, and I never thought I'd say that!

Tonight, I'm meeting some friends for a birthday celebration at a bar in Venice (James Beach - it was terribly trendy about two years ago), and then I'm going up to Mr. Movie Star's house to 'hang out'.

I think "hang out" is a euphemism for "have sex", and it's past the third date, so I shaved my legs just in case.

The dangers of thinking, and the consequences thereof.

Call today was 8 am (1+ hour in traffic to Sony), and we had a stage move (moving from one stage to the other) right at our call time. First Unit set lighting came in on a 'pre-call'(you get a pre call when you've got to do something that will take extra time before shooing - like moving from one stage to another) at 9:30, and the rest of first unit came in at 10:30 am.

We got there, saw the list of stuff we were to take over to 26 (Joan of Arcadia's Stage), and started moving..

Looking at the call sheet - we thought that there was about three hours work on 26. Since this director is slooooow, we figured that meant about six - seven hours (which puts the move back to 22 at about lunch), so we decided that the day would go like this:

Move first unit to 26.
Come back over to our stage (22)
Strike the office set that first unit 'shot out' (completed) last night
Do some returns.
Go to lunch.
Come back as they're finishing up - just about the last few shots, and start loading whatever they're not going to use into the stakebed to move.
Go back as they've wrapped and complete the move to 22.
Get them started and go home.

Sounds like a plan, right?

We started sending one of the guys over about 1 pm to check and see how much they had to do - Rob, the rigging key grip, said he thought they'd move about 3pm. The gaffer said maybe 4. The A.D. said he had no idea and to stop bothering him.
We decided to go to lunch early (at 1:30), just in case - that way, in theory, we'd be ready to go when they did move.

Boy, am I glad we went early - when we got back at 2:30, they'd just moved, and the gaffer was screaming at us because he couldn't find us or Clive (the rigging gaffer - he's a Jamaican guy, and he's terrific to work for - he also finds stuff to do off stage because he can't stand first unit's panic and chaos. This isn't normally a problem - it's actually nice to not be micromanaged - except when the shit hits the fan and we can't find him). We explained to the now purple in the face gaffer that were were on our scheduled lunch break (six hours after call time), and we had no idea that they'd called the move, as none of us have walkies. What we didn't mention was the repeated trying and failing to get an accurate time estimate for the move. When someone's that worked up, you can't really reason with them.

The gaffer, in a moment of panic, had called Clive on the phone to yell at him for not being there at the exact moment when they called the move, and said that we'd not done something they'd asked for, which wasn't true - Clive ended up having to get in his car and head back over to the lot where he caught up with us on 26 and we explained to him what had happened (Clive's hilarious when he gets upset - he stomped out of stage 26 saying "I'm gonna go over there and tell him to fuck off, mon").

Turns out the gaffer was just panicking, as we'd gotten them as ready as we could (given that once again, we had no notes about what they wanted), and all we had to do was bring back the big lamps for them. Once we did that, we loaded our stakebed got everything back to 22 and finished up.


We got finished halfway through first unit's lunchtime, and decided that discretion is the better part of valor, so we split.

6 am call tomorrow - I think it's going to be the last day.

A visit to Joan

Six am call at Sony - Still on the same show (my boss told me I'm on through Friday, which is good. I like the shorter days - although there's not as much overtime, it's nice for now to have a life after work.

Tomorrow the shooting crew are using "Joan Of Arcadia"'s sets (we're shooting in what looks like a science classroom - I've never seen "Joan", so I have no idea what the name of the set is), so we had to go over there and get that ready.

The problem with walking on to someone else's stage is that you don't know where anything is - we had to turn on some overhead flourescents, and we had to actually go find the show's best boy (who was called in during his hiatus for this) so he could tell us how they were powered (from the greenbeds, and they came on when the stage power got turned on).

Plus, it kind of feels like snooping in someone else's house. When you come in on a working crew, someone shows you around first thing in the morning so you can find stuff.. there's no crew, it's just the empty sets.

The plaster work on "Joan's" sets is cracking and falling off the walls - I'm sure it cracks all the time (I guess plaster doesn't like heat from lights), but there's usually a crew to repair it - since the show's 'down', there's no one there, so there are piles of fallen plaster all over the place - when we left, there were two P.A.s sweeping it all up.

I hope it doesn't fall tomorrow while we're shooting and hit someone on the head.

Yay! Maybe.

Just got the lab reports back, and the good news is that I don't have Rheumatoid Arthritis or Gout (although the latter would have been a good opportunity to practice my Bobby Hill impression).

The bad news is that the Sony affiliated doctor has no idea what's wrong with my toe, so I'm to go in for more tests, whenever I can make the time to get to my doctor.

Mr. Movie Star has taken to asking if my foot's fallen off yet - every time he talks to me. It's getting less funny every time he says it.

Can you tell this is a sore spot with me?

There's a post on LAist today about someone who's had a film crew in her neighborhood and is unhappy about it:

http://www.laist.com/archives/2005/04/18/heights_of_resentment.php

Having a production in your neighborhood can be horrible, I'll agree.

What I do not agree with is blaming the crews for this. This person's post (and one of the comments) talks about how arrogant the crews are and how we're all assholes for not being mindful of the neighborhood, take up all the parking, and behave like shitheads in general. (I'm paraphrasing, of course).

This is not my fault.

I get a call to come and work. I say yes, because I have to pay my bills. I show up at work, fill out my paperwork and do what I'm told to do until it's time to go home. I have absolutely nothing to do with when we're shooting where, how late we're shooting, how much parking we're taking up, whether or not we block the street, or how many lights are aimed where.

I've been screamed at, called names, threatened and shot at, all because neighbors were pissed off that the producers and the location manager chose to shoot in that area at that time.

Granted, having a movie shoot in your neighborhood can be annoying, and I've cursed production companies more than once for complicating my drive home at 4 am, but screaming at me (or any other crew member), and blaming the chaos on me (in person or via the internet) does no good. I can't change anything.

Anyways, I got wound up enough about it that I posted my own rant in the comments section.


No work today - they're not 'carrying' a rigging crew (which means we're there all the time), but only calling us in when we're needed - but we're back tomorrow - I've got a 6 am call, which is fairly civilized after Monday's O-dark-thirty adventure..

The non daily show, and here's why

I actually do post just about every day, I just don't publish every day..

When I get home from work, I'm totally wrecked and can't think, so I write these Rosie O Donnellish haikus and then collapse into bed.
Because I'm vain and if I'm going to publish a blog, it may as well be halfway coherent, so I'll go back later and prose it up, so to speak.

So, this entry was written Monday evening as I was crushed from fatigue, and then rewritten today (Tuesday).

Here's both versions - first, the haiku thing:

4 am call
late because looking for coffee
stage locked
got sucked in with shooting crew
toe still hurts. labs not back.
equipment returns all day
stuck in traffic

I think that may actually be more incoherent than Rosie's blog.

Here's the prose version, written after I was feeling human again:

Back on "Emily's Reasons Why Not" (thanks, EcamirG for the mental prod).

Today was a 4 am call - Of course I couldn't get to sleep Sunday night before 11, and I had to get up at 3 am. I'm not even sure that counts as sleep.
It being a pre-boutique coffee shop hour, I had to drink 7-11 coffee, and was late to work because I had to drive around and look for a 7-11.

It didn't matter that I was late, though - the stage was locked when we got there, and it took about 15 minutes to find someone on the lot who could open the stage (Studio Operations needs to sleep too, I guess).

After we got inside, we 'struck' (took all the lights out) the bedroom set and did some other busy work, because of course, we weren't given any notes on how they wanted today's set lit - but I found out that the lack of notes is because the D.P. (Director of Photography) can't light until he sees the frame on the monitor. That explains the cluster fuck that is first unit on this show - of course we all got sucked into lighting the set with first unit (except for my boss who conveniently 'had to go to the perms to count stuff' just as soon as they showed up).

Most riggers hate working first unit. I don't mind being 'show boy', but I have to be mentally prepared. When I'm told it's a rigging call, I expect a more relaxed pace, so I'm not ready for the 14 hour hustle that is first unit.

Anyways, we had to hang a bunch of lights while the A.D.'s (Assistant Directors - they do all the dirty work so the Director just has to worry about actually directing) kept asking every 5 minutes how long it would be until we were finished. Hanging lights takes a bit of time - they have to be hung from the grid (which in a dressed set means using ladders as you can't get lifts in around the furniture), powered, and aimed. Having an A.D. stop you every five minutes to ask you how much longer just makes things go slower.

When first unit finally got up and running, we had to start returning equipment - which involved trying to sneak stuff out of the stage between takes so the dock boys could do the check ins (and take the stuff away) outside where we could make noise - at Sony, the lamp dock comes to your stage and counts the stuff there, which is nice - makes things go faster.

My toe still hurts, and of course I dropped a 'chicken coop'* on my foot as we were loading them into the tuggers to go back to the dock. I still have no idea what's wrong with the toe, as the labs haven't come back yet.

Returns took up the bulk of the day's work - we had to hang some more lights when first unit went to lunch, but once that was done we were out of there - just in time to hit traffic on the way home, of course.

I think the prose version is considerably less pathetic.

* chicken coop: An overhead suspended light box that provides general downward ambient or fill light (definition courtesy of "The Set Lighting Technician's Handbook"). Also called a 'coop'. They look like this:

It was a great day - up until that end part.

I'm used to getting up at 5, but for some reason that alarm going off 4 am just kills me. Maybe it's the knowledge that there's not an overpriced coffee joint open yet, but I have a terrible time getting out of bed, and if I don't gather all my stuff the night before, I'll forget something (like my toolbelt, glasses, or sunblock).

I do like going to Sony that early though. Sony is located in the worst possible place for me - there's not a direct route on the freeway from my house (and the infamous Los Angeles traffic starts getting bad at about 6:30 am), so I'm crossing town on surface streets - when I get to go at 5, I'm pretty happy. There's a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (my favorite overpriced designer coffee) almost across the street from the lot which opens at 5, so I even got the 'coffee big gulp' - a good thing since I was on the rigging crew and there's no craft service if you're 'off production' (off production is anything that's not on the crew that's doing the actual shooting - also called 'shooting crew', or 'first unit'. No chaos, but no perks, either).

I usually like to be at work at least 15 - 20 minutes early, especially if I'm on a lot where the security people can be a hassle (Sony, Warner Brothers). Sony's not worked the bugs out of their post 9-11 security system, so it can take a while to get through the guard gate, unless you're there at 5:15, and then the guards haven't come in yet.

So, the day started out really well. Breezed in, got my java, blew through the empty security booth; It was a fun crew today (mellow, nice, good to work with), and we didn't have a lot of 'notes' to fill up our 8 hours.

Whatever this pilot is (I have some strange mental block about the name - 'some-name-I-can't-remember's reasons why not'), it's a 'single camera', so it's shot more like a film, and our job was to get the three sets that were shooting that day ready - get all the 'practicals' (any lamp that you see on camera is a practical - bedside tables, chandeliers, etc.. Set dressing physically places the lamps in the set, but it's our job to make sure that they work) wired, take down the lamps from sets that aren't going to be used again, and so forth.

Under normal circumstances, the gaffer would also tell us which large, unwieldy lamps we should 'rough in' (get them approximately where they're going to work so that when first unit gets there, they only have to move them a few feet and they can get the set lit faster), but not today.

General crew call was 3 pm (that's a bad, bad sign. It means they've been working insane hours - and have had to make the call time later and later as the week went on in order to make 'turnaround' - which is the minimum time allowed between wrap and when you have to be back then next morning. It's usually 10 hours), and the gaffer got there at 2:30 - just when we were getting ready to leave - and pulled us in with the first unit panic.

What we ended up doing was stuff that could have been done earlier in the day had they told us earlier, but I certainly don't mind the overtime!

At some point during the day (right around when we broke for breakfast), my right big toe started to hurt like hell - I thought it was a cramp, and figured it would go away, but it got worse and worse as the day went on, and by 4 pm (when we were done), it was excruciating - so after we were officially released to go home, I limped over to the medical office on the lot and had them look at it.

The medical staff told me that another person on the crew had the same complaint the day before, and then sent me out to a hospital, where they took some blood and x rayed it. The doctor at the hospital says he's got no idea what it is, as the other person refused to have any tests done.

I'll find out Monday when they get the tests results back.

I was supposed to go out with some friends after work, but my toe was killing me, so I stayed home instead and watched bad movies while I lay on the couch with an ice pack on my foot.

Is it still called a 'cock block' if you're female?

Had dinner with Mr. Movie Star tonight at this place - there's no name anywhere (not on the door, not on the menu, not on the matchbooks) so I have no idea what it's called.

We were in a corner, having what HAD to look like a very intimate conversation (sitting really close, hands clasped, etc.. ), when this 'woman' (quotes intentional) just sat down at our table and started trying to chat up Mr. Movie Star. I could not believe it - short of standing up and screaming "Hello, I'm the date here - do you mind?" I had nothing. I couldn't even do that, I was so stunned. I just kind of sat there with my mouth hanging open.

Mr. Movie Star made a valiant effort to get rid of her politely, but she was having none of it. So she sat there, flirting like crazy with a guy who had his arm around another woman.

We ended up running out the back door when she got up to go to the bathroom.

I'm still stunned. I have to confess - she was annoying as hell, but I wish I had that kind of guts.

Mr. Movie Star says that this type of thing has happened to him before.

Unbelievable.

I had to end the evening early as I have a 5:30 am call tomorrow at Sony.
Sony's a half hour drive for me - even in no traffic, so a 5:30 means that I have to be up at 4 am.

A day in gossip central

"Gossip Central" being the NBC/Universal lamp dock.

Since the merger, that lot's been insanely busy, so there are a ton of folks there, and since 'Uni' doesn't deliver equipment to your stage (Sony, Culver, Raleigh, and some of the smaller ones do, Uni, Paramount, Disney and Warner Brothers don't), you and the rest of the crew have to take a truck to the dock to pick up your equipment so everyone who's on the lot rolls into the lamp dock at least once a day.

This is a good thing, as I've almost always gotten work by bumping into someone I know who's 'picking up guys' and gives me a call. Even if no one's picking up (hiring), there's always new folks to meet, old friends to see, and stuff to hear..

The story that's currently making the rounds is that a guy (grip or electric, I'm not sure) at Disney got fired for looking at a woman. Apparently, Disney has a sexual harassment policy in place that states if you look at someone for more than three seconds, that's considered sexual harassment and is punishable by immediate dismissal.
So, dude looks at chick, a passerby tattles, and he's fired on the spot.

I'm not sure how true it is, as there was no name attached to it. The story was just told as "this guy got fired", which makes me think it's an urban legend, but I'm not sure.. I'll have to read the sexual harassment policy really carefully next time I'm at Disney (which isn't that often).

Universal is also unique in that it's got those studio tour trams going through every 10 minutes. All of the studios have tours, but they're much smaller. At Universal, in the summer, the trams come through every five minutes, and they're packed.

Universal makes much more money off the studio tour than they do off the studio itself, so any action on the part of a crew member that's seen as even remotely aggressive towards the tourists will result in immediate dismissal. This means no contact at all with the folks on the trams. No talking, no waving, nothing - if even one person complains that you seemed aggressive or scary (scary is very possible when it's hot and the rigging crews look like homeless people - you get really, really dirty and sweaty when you rig, and it's worse in the summer), the studio security will come and find you and throw you off the lot. I was on a crew with one guy who said something to another crew member that someone on the tram found offensive, and he got kicked off the lot, so all of us try to mind our P's and Q's when the trams go by.

Luckily, the trams make a really distinctive noise, so there's a bit of warning when one's coming - you've got a few seconds to finish the dirty joke or pull your pants back up if you've mooned someone who's working in the facade across the street (those buildings you see in movies - if it's a movie filmed on a back lot - are called facades. They're just the building fronts, with an enclosed scaffolding system behind them so that you can put lights or actors in the windows).

The other rumor is that an actress (name withheld as there's really no way to 'fact check' this and I don't want to get sued) once decided to show her tits to a tram, and was immediately permanently banned from the lot - I think I believe this one, as showing her tits is something that I can see this woman doing, and I've never, ever seen her on the lot.

So. Very. Uncool.

This is the letter that I got in the mail today:

To: Island Cast and Crew

From: DreamWorks Production Safety

Subject: Downey Studios Stage Issues

We hired an independent testing company to conduct a series of environmental tests at the Downey Studios on March 03, 2005. In the buildings known as the mill, stage 1, and 290 we tested for the presence of mold spores. The tests came back positive for several kinds of mold.

We have attached a copy of the report we received on March 23, 2005 from Minte Corporation, the independent testing company, which specifies which specific molds were present and the levels at which they were found. Minte informed us that a normal healty individual, with this period of exposure, should not have been adversely affected by potential exposure of this type. However if you have a compromised immune system, are pregnant, or have any other concerns, you may want to consult with your physician.

I am available to answer any questions that you may have. If you think you have been affected by this exposure please inform the production and consult your physician.

The letter is attached to about 10 pages of graphs and charts that, of course, I don't understand. I seriously doubt I've got any 'health issues' (and if the only fucked up thing there was mold, it'll be a miracle.. Downey Studios used to be a military facility, and there are stories of green glowing dirt and barrels of toxic waste), as I was only there for two days, but it's still unsettling.

I'm not sure if I prefer this new, more responsible film industry over the old one that just said "Hold your fucking breath if you're worried about the shit in the air".

It might be worse knowing. When you don't know, you can't worry about it.

We all worked for years at the Ambassador Hotel, which is full of every kind of asbestos ever made, and never gave it a thought, until someone said "Hey, that stuff fucks your lungs up! You should be wearing a respirator". Now I worry about my lungs.

Yup, definitely worse knowing.

Missed connections, bad art and Mr. Movie Star.

Was supposed to go to the LA Blogging meet up last night -they gave the location as 'somewhere in the farmer's market', so I ended up doing laps looking for them, and couldn't find them - but I didn't get there until about 9pm. I had gone to an art opening (they sound really interesting in print, but when I get there, they suck most of the time. There are enough good ones to keep me coming back, though), and then had dinner with The Blonde, so they might have been gone by the time I got there.

I have to confess to not looking that hard, though. I was meeting Mr. Movie Star for drinks at 10 - at the Chateau Marmont, where the valet is always full and you're at the mercy of street parking on the Sunset Strip.

Got in, after a hassle with the security folks, and met Mr. Movie Star in the garden. He's staying at the hotel while he's working, as he 'just can't deal with the drive from Malibu'. As much as I'd like to bust on him about this, I can't. The drive from Malibu to anywhere that's not also in Malibu sucks.

What I don't get is that I'm totally fine on the phone w/ Mr. Movie Star, but as soon as I'm physically near him, I turn into a giggling idiot. It's not just me - the waitress was giggling, the girl sitting next to us was giggling. Either it's him, or it's contagious (in which case, it's my fault).

Had a fun time, and no, I didn't sleep with him.

No work so far for Monday, but the town's still really busy, so I might get a last minute call.
If I don't get something Monday, I'll start making calls.

Testing photo link

Let's see if I can get this thing to work:



Perfect!

This is from the movie "Goal". Just over the crest of the hill is the 'mexico/us border', which our plucky protagonists are trying to illegally cross.

The chain link fence that you see at the top of the photo is the set.

The big white thing in the lower corner is diffusion - this is a 12' by 12' 'grid cloth'. It softens the light, so that it doesn't cast so many shadows and make the actors look like crap.

Diffusion is grip, BTW.

The rule of thumb is that a light (or anything carrying electricity) is electric, and anything between the light and the actor (color, diffusion, flags, etc.) is grip.

Not such a long night, after all.

I hate working nights, but what I hate more is when I psych myself up for a long night and it turns out to be a short night.

Los Angeles closes down after 2 am, so if you get all hopped up on coffee like I did (in anticipation of an 8 hour worknight), and then only work for two hours, you're fucked - sitting at home with coffee jitters and nowhere to go.

I had a midnight call at CBS in the Valley (CBS has two lots - the one on Fairfax where they shoot "American Idol" - yes, I know it airs on Fox, but it's shot at CBS, and the Radford lot in the Valley where they shoot just about everything else), to wrap a TV pilot. This particular pilot was a 'three camera' show, which means exactly that - the sets are all in a line, with the open side facing the same direction and a 'camera isle' right in front of them were the three (actually four - there's a camera on a boom up above the set as well) cameras are. The cameras all shoot into the set from the same direction. Movies and 'single camera shows' don't work like that.. you have full sets and they shoot from different directions. Single camera shows also never have an audience, and three camera shows almost always do.

We got there after they'd wrapped and gone home, which is fine except that all the good stuff at crafty has been taken away - I anticipated this, and had a big cup of coffee on my way over to the lot - I'd gotten a second cup that I was planning to keep in the car and drink about 4 am when I needed a little lift - drinking cold coffee is one of the dubious skills that I've picked up during my time in the film industry.

The thing about wrapping sets is that the faster you work, the sooner you're done - in this case, we got everything struck (we just took all the lights off the pipe grid. The cable's all staying up as another pilots shooting in that stage next week) in two hours.

I didn't know anyone on this crew at all, though. I don't work at the Radford lot very often, and most of these folks have spent their entire careers there - I met a woman who's been in the union for 27 years - she got in the year after they were forced to admit women, and she's a scream.

She's bitter (as are most folks who've been in this industry for more than 10 or 15 years), but she's smart and funny about it.

Her topics for the night were: 'They're screwing us out of our health insurance" (this is true.. the producers can't cut our pay, so they chip away at our health insurance, even though the 'craft' people - grip, electric, and construction - have the most wear and tear on our bodies and are the most likely to be seriously injured or killed on set), "Those men are jerks - they can talk about tits, but we can't talk about politics", and "Women don't ever make it to full retirement, and here's what those fucking men need to do about it" (this is also true - to retire from our union, you have to work 30 years and 60,000 hours. Very few people of any gender get the hours they need to retire. They get the years, but not the hours. What the 'fucking men' need to do is to lower the number of required qualifying hours, but that's not going to happen).
I told her she should run for our executive board (the folks who set policy for the local), and she launched into an even funnier variation of the "Fucking men and their bullshit" speech.

I was entertained, and I did actually learn a few things!


Stopped off at the Vons near CBS on the way home and had a conversation with the checker about our respective fucked up unions, how she'd coped during the grocery store strike here in Southern California, and if the grocery stores really are tracking your spending with those club cards.

Road trips and missed dates.

Got a last minute call Tuesday to go to work (call time 3:30 pm about an hour north of L.A. - I got the call at noon) on "Goal" - the scene was some folks trying to sneak into the US from Mexico - only they're sneaking through a hole in a fence next to the aqueduct in Acton which had been dressed to look like the border.

It wasn't actually a bad day. Yesterday was supposed to be the last night of the show, but because they're working with kids, the clock ran out on them and they had to add the day. It was only a few shots that they didn't get the night before, so we were out of there by midnight (that's including the time it took us to load our truck). The entire crew had moved on to other projects, so they had to bring in all new grip and electric for the last day.

I went home, crashed, and then the next morning, decided on a whim to go up to Death Valley to see the wildflowers - the heavy rains we've had have resulted in the flower bloom from hell, and it's not likely to do this again anytime soon, so I may as well do something on my day off other than stare at a computer screen or run on a treadmill.

Drove out in the morning (okay, I stopped for coffee first), saw the flowers, shot a bunch of photos, sat in the hot spring (I love hot springs), had more coffee, and then headed home just as it was getting dark.

On the way back, I managed to have a decently long phone conversation with Mr. Movie Star - in which I had to confess that a) I've never seen any of his movies and b) I had no idea who he was until someone told me.
He thought this was hilarious, which was a good thing given that most actors I know are insecure as hell.

We were supposed to have dinner tonight, but I've been called into work last minute (again - some TV pilot called "When I Met Your Mother"), and so I've had to postpone.

He says he'll give me a call after he gets off set tomorrow.

Okay, I'm not insane. "Enterprise" is still a wrap.

Back on "Enterprise".

When I got the call on Friday, our call steward told me it was a rig, which threw me into a state of confusion.

Confusion cleared, though. They're not starting back up, as they have to be out of Stage 8 pronto as Mission Impossible 3 is rigging that stage soon.

6 am call, which was fine, as it gets us into the commissary for coffee and lunch before the crowd hits. The breakfast/coffee crowd hits at 8:30, and the lunch crowd hits at 1:30. With a 6 am call, you have breakfast at 7:30 and lunch at noon.

There wasn't a lot left to do - it was pretty much just clearing the cable that was up in the perms. There were four guys upstairs dropping cable out, and four on the ground wrapping it as it came down to avoid the previously mentioned 'fucking mess'.

One of the guys pissed off the rigging gaffer, though - well, actually he pissed off everyone. Right before lunch, the producer walked on set, and this guy marched up to him and announced that the rig was coming out fast and we'd be done in 'no time'.
This resulted in the producer cutting the crew, so 5 of us (including me) got laid off.

Generally, crew members don't speak (beyond small talk or the occasional sports conversation over coffee) to anyone who 'outranks' them by more than a notch or two.
If you are having a sports conversation with a higher up, and they ask you a work question, you generally refer them to your supervisor ("Gee, Bruce, I have no idea when that's going to be done. Why don't you ask Chris? I'm sure he'll be able to tell you that. Say, how about those Red Sox?"), but most producers know better than to ask questions of anyone except department heads - it's a waste of time, as information is parceled out to us on a 'need to know' basis.

The worst thing you can do on a crew is go over someone's head like that (and he did it right in front of the department head, too). It's seen as brownnosing folks who normally wouldn't speak to you anyway, and it's disrespectful to your supervisor. And it doesn't make you any friends.

The surprise of the day was Mr. Movie Star calling me about 2 pm 'to see what I was doing' - I told him I was glad to hear from him, but I was about to get brained by the crap that was falling out of the perms (the grips were taking out the 'greenbeds', which are temporary walkways hung from the perms - they're heavy wood flats about the size of a door that hang on brackets suspended by 30 feet of chain - they swing like crazy when they're being lowered to the ground, and it's best not to be anywhere near them when the grips are dropping them in.) and asked if I could call him back - only to notice, after he'd said 'no problem babe' and hung up, that his number reads as "Private Call" in the phone's received call log.

That is a serious blonde moment.

D'oh.

Some friends from New York are in town tonight and their band (Slunt) is playing the Roxy tonight, so although all I really want to do is sit home and stare obsessively at my cell phone, willing Mr. Movie Star to call back, I have to go see the girls play.

Getting out of the house will be good for me.