Friday Photo

Stair Car
Originally uploaded by Peggy Archer.

My version of a celebrity sighting!

The infamous (for those of us who watch the show) Stair Car from "Arrested Development" - now painted yellow and riding a flatbed through Hollywood.

"Danika" Last Day

Today was our 'load out' day.

This is when we unload the truck, and inventory all of the equipment with the rental house to see what the L&D (Loss and Damage) is. Considering that the show was all location (we didn't spend a huge amount of time on a stage, and the longest we were in the same place for was 10 days), the L&D wasn't bad at all - but everything we lost or damaged was expensive, which drove the best boy nuts - and forced him to spend about an hour on the phone with anyone he could reach to try to locate the missing stuff.

Our equipment was rented from Santa Clarita Studios, and it was hotter than hell up there - added to that the worst air quality in the greater Los Angeles area. The good news is that since our package was so small, we were out of there fairly quickly.

We went to lunch at a sushi place in Santa Clarita that one of the guys swore was great, but I'm spoiled living in LA, so it just seemed mediocre to me. The fish was good, but the rice was too crunchy.

We drove the waitresses nuts by not sitting at the sushi bar and demanding separate checks, and then at the last minute, the gaffer decided to buy everyone lunch (thus rendering the separate checks pointless). I can never, ever go back there - they'd probably remember me and rub the food around on the floor or something.

The grips had more L&D than we did. They tore a 20' x 20' day blue (very expensive), and broke a mirror board (even more very expensive).

Plus, they found out that we drank all their beer last night after they'd finished loading their equipment and gone home (the perils of sharing a truck).

"Danika" Day 15

Last shooting day of the movie. We were only in one set (a motel room), but it took every light we had in the truck. When the best boy told the producer that we had no more lights or cable (she'd asked him if there wasn't something he could send back a day early), she didn't believe him and had to go look at the empty truck for herself.

Since we don't have a rigging crew or enough equipment to pre-rig, it took us until lunch to break down the old set and get the new set cabled and lit, but since we were only shooting one scene today, after lunch we just sat there and didn't do much of anything. We couldn't get a jump on wrapping as everything we had out was working, so we sat there.

The director's assistant (NOT the Assistant Director) came in today wearing flip flops. Since we were pulling enough power to light up a city block AND it was a shower shot so there was water all over the floor, about 10 people mentioned to him that he should put on some closed toed shoes - Cupcake being the 10th person . He got mad about it and ended up threatening kick Cupcake's ass (Cupcake's 4 inches taller and outweighs him by at least 30 lbs) if it got mentioned again. Needless to say, we all thought this was hilarious, and for the rest of the afternoon every time Cupcake left set, did something or said anything someone would threaten - in a squeaky falsetto, of course - to kick his ass.

We also found out that our producer/UPM used to be a teamster (well, I'm sure she still has her teamster card, but she's obviously not driving talent around anymore) - Pretty cool!

When they finally called wrap it was 1 am and still hotter than hell, which made it more torture to watch all the producers, director and folks who didn't have to load trucks stand in the parking lot and drink icy cold beer while we were dripping with sweat trying to get out of the stage as quickly as possible.

By 3 am, the parking lot soiree was over, and everyone had gone home, except us and the grips.

We didn't finish until almost 4 am.

"Danika" Day 14

Today was "old Hollywood Day" and a bunch of the AD's and producers showed up in ties and nice clothes - when you look at those old pictures of sets, everyone had on nice shirts and ties, but I think it was because that day was "picture day" and the crew had to dress up. My job hasn't changed that much in 100 years, and a tie is a serious hazard when you're dealing with hot lights and heavy equipment - so none of us participated, although my boss did throw a tie on over his t-shirt (but he doesn't handle lights).

They added shots first thing in the morning (some close up stuff in the van that the didn't get at Universal), but it was all shot using available light, so we were able to clean up yesterday's set, and light both of today's sets (actually three sets, since they have EPK on set again today).

This means the day started out with a bit of a hustle. We were really busy until lunch, when we moved into a set where the lighting didn't change much for the rest of the day.

I'd rather be busy. When you just sit there, time slows and you can think about how hot you are, how much your feet hurt, etc..

The HMIs were fine all day until one of them got too hot and it's globe blew up - on the last shot, of course. It made a sound like a gunshot, and at first I thought a stand had fallen over because the grips were out there working - but then one of the guys got on the walkie and said "We blew a globe", which got everyone scurrying back there - normally when HMI globes blow up, the lamp catches on fire, but thankfully that didn't happen this time.
We just dumped out the glass shards, put a new globe in and everything was fine.



One more day.

"Danika" Day 13

What a rotten day. I was late because I got lost trying to find the stage - it's one I haven't been to before, and I looked briefly at the call sheet, thought it was a place called Delfino (which I have been to), and went there. Oops. I had to call my boss to get directions, because I stupidly left the call sheet at home.

Thank heavens for the Thomas Guide.

The stage where we're shooting for the next three days (Thursday is the last day of this movie) is a few miles up Interstate 5 - almost in Santa Clarita - and it was well over 100 degrees outside when I got there and we had to start pulling lamps off the truck. We rushed and got all the lamps set up and patched into the stage power in about an hour (which is really fast), and then..

Our lights didn't work.

HMI's are funny - because of the way they work*, they're picky about power, and they did NOT like whatever was coming out of the stage's transformers. We'd get them burning, they'd burn for a few minutes, and then click off. Finally, we figured out the nature of the problem (after trying everything we could we could think of in a desperate effort to get the damned things to burn), so we had to run cable from our truck into the set - while the entire production sat and waited on us. It's never, ever good when production's waiting on you.

After we got everything working, the sound guy kept saying that he could hear the fans on the ballasts so he went and covered them with a blanket. This made the ballasts overheat and the lights click off again. We then had to reroute all the power for the THIRD time to put the ballasts in a different room.

The best boy was really pissed about all this. It took us almost to lunch to get the problems sorted out. We ended up swapping out a few lamps, and the rental house guys tried to help us troubleshoot when they came out.

Did I mention that today was the day production really, really wanted to start shooting an hour after call?


Production didn't want to pay for the stage's air conditioner, so the stage management turned it off about four hours into the day - we tried to get it turned back on by arguing that since we weren't using their power, it would even out. The compromise is that they'll let us turn it on during lunch and between set ups. That means that inside it's 90 degrees, not 100.

Cupcake's back, and for some reason he's being REALLY rude to me.

Two more days.

*HMI's don't use a bulb (or globe) like normal lamps. The globes have two metal rods which sustain an arc of electricity - kind of like an arc welder, or a lightning bolt.
They have ballasts, which electronically ignite the bulb and maintain the correct amount of power to sustain the arc. The old ballasts from the 70's were magnetic, and were basically a big clutch. They worked great, but they were heavy as shit. The new ballasts are computerized and although they're a lot lighter, they don't work as reliably. They need clean power and they HATE any kind of moisture.

"Danika" Day 12

Today was our second (and last) day at the Uni lot. Still hot, still no golf cart (I unsuccessfully tried to find an unattended one with the keys still in it), so we're stuck.

We had two units today, but no extra guys so we were all running around like crazy trying to light two sets - not making things easier is that the second unit DP is an annoying micro manager who makes everything harder than it has to be. He was just working my last nerve when the second unit grips hit a beehive with the corner of a frame, and since I'm allergic to bee stings, I had to go back over to the first unit very, very quickly. The rest of the day was spent on 'bee watch' as every so often one of the by now really pissed off bees would fly over to the main set and buzz around - I could tell where the bee was because the crew or extras around the bee would all of a sudden get up and do that funny hand waving 'bee dance'.

We also had EPK (Electronic Press Kit) on set today. What they do is set up a video camera somewhere and do interviews with the cast, producers and director. They normally set up where they can see the set without being in the way, or ask us for a couple of lights to use as background. This guy set up in the other movie's space - and set up the camera so that the interviewee was in the shade, and the background was in the blazing sun. Then, because the interviewee was nothing but a silhouette (video cameras, as I'm sure you're all aware, expose to the brightest part of the frame), he made us get out an 18K (big, huge light) and light his little set instead of just moving the camera 15 feet.



We had a motion control shot, which took forever to set up, so we lost the light for the last shot of the movie (when the VERY IMPORTANT plot twist is revealed) - the sun was going down so the shadows on the plate shot aren't going to match the shadows on the live shot. Of course that meant that we had to get out all the big lights for the very last shot.

Our DP is really, really good at shooting with low light levels, so the Gaffer said that he might surprise us and make the shot match. I hope so.

On the last shot, they needed more cars driving through, so if you see the movie, the Scion box thing (I don't know what they're called) that's the second or third car to cross the frame is driven by my boss - the best boy electric. The director walks through the frame as well. He's wearing a light blue short sleeved shirt.

Shopping

Warning for the guys! Today's post is very girly.

Read at your own risk.


Mr. Movie Star cannot dress himself.

I'm serious.

He has a closet full of expensive, well cut clothes that fit him, and yet once he actually tried to leave his house wearing baggy orange corduroys with a hole in the butt, a green tee shirt, and a blue fisherman's hat.

I think a stylist 'garanimalized' his closet for him - when he has to get dressed up, he looks great, but all of his nice clothes are organized by outfits, and there are actually little colored tags sewn into them so he can tell what goes with what.

I was sitting right on the edge, and today's outfit pushed me the rest of the way over (threadbare olive drab camo pants with brown corduroy patches in the crotch, orange flip flops and a purple tee shirt with the neckband and sleeves cut out - once again, he was planning on leaving his house dressed like this), so this afternoon he finally let me update his casual look (i.e. I went on a rampage and threw away the most worn out, stained and generally heinous stuff that he'd been wearing and then we went to get him some new clothes).

Mr. Movie Star is a typical guy in that what he'd really like to do is go on the internet, order a bunch of stuff from the Gap website and then throw it in a pile in the corner if it doesn't fit.
In a panic to not go shopping, he informed me that he was far too famous to go wandering around the city on a Sunday. I argued that I thought he was probably okay in Beverly Hills, and if I was wrong and a hoarde of teenage girls attacked him, he'd at least have nice new underwear when they tore his clothes off (don't get me started on his underwear - that's a whole post on it's own).

Also, I was holding most of his rags hostage, so he really had no choice.

I managed to find a suitably enthusiastic salesgirl with tastes similar to mine, we spent a few moments discussing Mr. Movie Star's wardrobe needs, and then she shoved him into a dressing room and just threw clothes at him until we found a good number of items that were casual and comfortable yet presentable - and nothing clashes with anything else so no 'garanimalization' needed.

As we were leaving, Mr. Movie Star had that "deer in the headlights" look that guys get when they spend three hours trying on clothes, so we decided to grab some dinner. A nice meal and a couple of glasses of wine later and he'd finally relaxed, although I doubt I'll ever get him to thank me for throwing out those horrible orange pants.

And although there were polite autograph requests throughout the day, the dreaded hoarde of screaming teenage girls and rabid paparazzi never did materialize.

"Danika" Day 11

Today was a fun day - we shot car crash stuff on the Universal back lot's New York Street.



The buildings in the foreground look real, but are in fact facades (the white thing in the background is Universal Studios Theme Park). This is what they look like on the inside:



Due to the technical nature and required safety precautions, even simple car crash stuff like our shot today (minivan runs red light, gets t boned by school bus) is insanely complicated. They have to take out the gas tank and fuel line of the van (so it won't explode and burn when it gets hit), and then they have to rig up a cable to pull it through the scene (there's no gas tank, so the engine can't run), and then they have to rig the windows with explosive charges so they'll blow out in a cinematic manner. The timing of stunt drivers has to be perfect, so they rehearse it a million times to make sure they've got it right.

Since they can only do the stunt once (we only have one van), the scene gets shot with a bunch of cheap cameras that are placed in metal boxes called 'crash housings' and then hidden in the set.





Since it's all day exterior, we didn't have much to do. We ran some cable in case we had to get out lights, but they got everything done with available light.

The grips, on the other hand, were really busy all day.



They had a bunch of cameras rigged in vehicles, they had a big green screen to rig, and they just generally got slammed. I almost felt bad for them as I sat on the gate of the truck and read my paper.

Rigging right next to us, in the 'town square' (no matter how they dress it, it's still recognizable to me as the set of "Back to the Future") was a TV show called "Ghost Whisperer".

They were getting territorial, and tried to stop us from crossing some line which marked 'their' turf - there was some sort of producer pissing match, and ours must have won because we ended up being able to use a little bit of their space to rig the van, although they still refused to let us run cable through the area.

The only bummer is that we couldn't get a golf cart (they've all been rented), so we couldn't sneak into the theme park and go on the "Jurassic Park" ride, as we're at the opposite end of a HUGE lot.

Darn.

They had a shot on another part of the lot (I have no idea what it was), and they had extras (background actors) driving the cars because the stunt drivers were busy rigging the crash. One of the AD's told me they shot it seventeen times with the extras driving and still couldn't get the choreography right. Then, some of the stunt drivers freed up, went up there and they got it right on the second try.

"Danika" Day 10

Today was our last day in the house. The entire two weeks we've been here, the neighbors have been pissed off about it, so tonight they called the permit office to try to make us have an earlier 'out time' and then the cops - to make sure we left on time. The cop showed up at lunch (4:30 pm), and then sat there, tapping his watch until 9:30, which was the time we were required to wrap (in order to be completely out the house - 'tail lights' - by midnight).

The rumor was that the cop was going to 'pull the plug', or forcibly shut us down if we tried to go late, but the official wrap time was 9:31 pm.

Still insanely hot, both inside and out. The upstairs bedroom felt like a sauna, and for some reason it got insanely humid after lunch. I felt like I was in Louisiana or something. The upside is that I've been drinking so much water that my skin looks great - really great. I look like I've spent a million bucks on it.

Although I wanted to be on the wrap crew, I'm still on first unit. The wrap crew came in at 6 pm - just as it was cooling off, and they were out of there before midnight.

I'm so glad we had a wrap crew (we needed one because we wouldn't have made our turnaround if we'd had to wrap the house ourselves) - our last setup was HUGE. Although this Gaffer tries not to 'die big', I think we had every single light off the truck. The wrap guys would wrap a lamp and put it on the cart, and then one of us would run down and grab it. Eventually they gave up and all went to craft service until we were set.

Quote of the night from AJ, the set dresser, as he ran up and down the stairs trying to make his only set of sheers cover both the upstairs and downstairs picture windows:

"I hate this shit so much, you don't even know."

"Danika" Day 9

The only thing I remember about today is the heat.

Crushing, inhumane, draining heat. The air conditioner couldn't keep up and the set got hotter and hotter - and I thought it was bad until I stepped outside and the blast of air felt just like it does when you open your oven door to check on something that you're cooking.

Craft Service has a TV in his trailer and one of the guys told me that the official temperature for today where we're shooting was 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

"Danika" Day 8

It was hot today - by noon we all had that 'not so fresh' feeling; sticky, grubby, sweaty.

When they initially called me to work on the show, the best boy said "The pay's not that great, but we have a really small lighting package, so we can't get too crazy".

There are advantages and disadvantages to having a small lighting package. The advantage is that you don't have to run a lot of cable, and you can't get crazy and start 'flamethrowing', but the disadvantage is that you don't have that many lights. Every time we 'turned around' (had a shot looking in the opposite direction from the previous one), we had to march the big heads from one side of the house to the other. Since all the scenes today were day scenes, as it got later in the evening we had to aim more lights into the windows as we slowly lost the light.

We had an extra guy yesterday, but we really, really needed him today.

Doing way too much work when you're shorthanded is known as 'getting peeled'.

The Gaffer came outside at one point, surveyed the lighting set up and the exhausted, sweat-soaked crew and said "I'm really sorry, guys. I had no idea this was going to get this big". I still think he's a great guy, and I'm still happy that he's not a screamer.

Cupcake's replacement is a a guy who's nice enough, but who's nickname is 'panic attack' (courtesy of the guys on the Paramount lot). He gets overwhelmed in the middle of a set up and starts to get wound up and freaked out. This is a bad thing. One of the things you never, ever want to do is make production think that you're not in control. It makes you look like you don't know what you're doing.

Production are freaking out about the damage to the house (it's not that bad, actually. I think they thought they weren't going to have to make any repairs. As it is now, all they'll have to do is shampoo the carpets, repaint and fix a couple of scratches on the wood floor).

We had to have a meeting about it first thing in the morning. Since set lighting didn't cause any of the damage (we've been really careful), after the meeting the Gaffer jokingly said "So, guys - there was a lot of damage to the house yesterday. Keep up the good work, everyone!"

"Danika"

"Danika"
Originally uploaded by Peggy Archer.

The new camera's not as good in low light as the old one, but here's my attempt at art in low light.

"Danika" Day 7

The day started out in chaos. The shooting order changed at the last moment - we started out downstairs, moved upstairs, moved back downstairs, moved back upstairs and then finally moved outside - where we hustled to light the scene and then sat there for an hour, waiting for it to get dark enough to shoot a night exterior.

At least half today's work was reshooting stuff that the director didn't get, or decided after the fact that he didn't like.
This is insanely demoralizing to a crew. You shoot a scene in teeny tiny pieces and it seems like it takes forever, but then you're done and you move on to the next scene, getting through the work bit by bit. To go back and reshoot something that you did a day or week or a month ago makes us feel like we're not making any progress.


One of the interns ( the producer dug up a bunch of USC students and convinced them to slave away for college credit since she can't afford Production Assistants) is very, very nice, but dumber than the proverbial pillowcase full of hammers. Simple requests such as "photocopy this call sheet and hand it out to the crew at wrap so they know what time to show up tommorow" tax his mental abilities and he overloads and just shuts down. The result of this 'mental shutdown' is him standing perfectly still with a blank stare while he processes whatever information it was that caused the mental logjam.
Unfortunately, he usually does this at the worst time in the worst place - for example, in the only doorway into the set right after they've called "Moving On!"*

Today, the second AD had enough of the complaints from the crew (I overheard one of the grips saying "How the hell am I supposed to get into the set when Forrest Gump is parked in the fucking door?"), and banned him from the set.

He spent the rest of the day in the backyard, sitting on an HMI ballast, forgetting to call 'rolling' and 'cut'**. I thought about trying to explain to him why he shouldn't sit on them (they emit a sort of electrical energy that many folks believe causes cancer - aka "the ass rot"), but then decided not to bother.

He told our boss that he wants to be a camera assistant. Fat fucking chance.
That's possibly the highest stress crew position. Camera department is unforgiving of mistakes - if you make one screw up such as being out of focus on a shot (movie cameras don't have auto focus. The first assistant camera has to watch the rehearsal, measure the actors distance from the camera, and if the actor moves or the camera moves during the scene, manually change the focus while the camera is rolling), or loading the film wrong, you cost the production a LOT of money and you get fired.

What do you do when you're too dumb to be a crew member? And how do you tell someone that?

On the bright side, Cupcake got a commercial late Sunday night - he's on it today through Wednesday, but the best boy is so pissed off at his last minute cancellation (generally, once you're booked for a day it's really, really uncool to cancel unless you're deathly ill) that he'll probably not hire him back.

The weather report on the news predicts 102 degrees F tomorrow in Sherman Oaks.


* After a take, the AD's will yell one of two things. "Moving On" or "Going Again".
"Moving On" means "we've gotten this take and we're going to move on to our next bit so get in here because the lighting's going to change."
"Going Again" means they're going to do another take so you can continue to read your paper or drink your coffee.

** This is vital information.
"Rolling" means that we're rolling sound and everyone should really shut the fuck up. "Cut" means it's okay to continue the conversation. The AD's yell it on set, and then it's relayed to the folks outside the set via the PA's.
Forgetting to call "rolling" and "cut" means that I have no idea we're shooting and might screw up the sound by talking or working during a take.

Weekends

always seem too short. By the time I do my laundry, clean up the house and get my stuff ready for Monday, it's over.

I feel like I haven't had any time to have fun - but being cameraless this past week has worked my nerves more than I can say, so I went to Best Buy (I know, I'm lame. I'm supposed to go to some website no one's ever heard of and haggle them down in Kurdish, but I want the instant gratification of paying my money and getting something right away) on Saturday morning.

Although the camera I really wanted was the pimped out Sony Cyber-Shot, since I don't have a pimped out salary I got the Fuji FinePix 345, which was on sale.

My major qualm with my old Canon Power Shot 200 (don't laugh. I bought it a long time ago, and it took an unbelievable amount of abuse before it finally died) was that it didn't take close up pictures worth a damn - the new Fuji has a pretty decent macro lens on it, which I'm happy about.




One my ongoing work problems is my feet. Standing for 12 hours a day every day make them hurt like hell. By the end of the week, the pain has crept upward - my feet, lower legs and knees ache and it takes all weekend to recover.

I've tried every kind of shoe, insert, sock.. I've tried acupuncture and magic magnets. I've tried custom orthotics (my insurance pays for them) and changing my shoes three times a day. I've tried sitting down every chance I get. Nothing helps. I'm okay on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday the pain starts, and by Friday night just trying to walk without limping is difficult.

The only thing that seems to help at all is swimming. If I can just make the time to swim a few laps my feet feel better right away. Something about the scissor kick, I guess. Unfortunately, it's hard to make myself go swim after being at work for 12+ hours, so I swam yesterday, and I'm going to go again today as soon as I wait the obligatory hour after eating.

I think we're wrapping out of the house Thursday, so I don't know if I'll be on shooting crew or get bumped down to the wrap crew. I hope the wrap crew. I'll work 6 hours, get paid for 8, and will have time to swim. If we really 'hit it hard' (i.e. work as fast as we can) we might even be able to get out of there before it gets too hot.

RIP J.L. Fisher

I never knew the JL Fisher company was named for an individual.

Fisher equipment has been industry standard for as long as I can remember.