It's good to be closer to home.

I knew night work wore me out, but this last week it wore me out more than usual - hence the lack of posting.

I worked Tuesday night and Wednesday night downtown LA, spent Thursday recovering and on Friday, started work on a show that's shooting days. Plus, the two day load-in is only a few minutes away from my house. Plus, it's my favorite gaffer in the world and a best boy that I like a lot (I liked the gaffer and best boy on the night shoot, too - I've gotten to a point in my life that I don't want to work with folks that I don't like, but that's probably an entire post on it's own).

Highlights:

Tuesday - shooting in a downtown bar (lucky for us, it was a newly remodeled and suddenly trendy bar that was nice and clean. Normally bar downtown = 50 years of gross crusty stuff on the floors, most of which sticks to cable surprisingly well), and the entire night's work was inside the bar. Aside from one of the trucks (parked right outside the door) breaking a fuel line and filling the entire bar with diesel fumes (boy, did that give me a headache), the night was uneventful - other than I have to give an 'attaboy' to the extras. Normally, background actors are notorious for impeding crews by not moving when asked, but this was a good group. I never had to say "Coming through" more than once, and a few of them actually jumped to get out of the way.

Call time: 10:30 am. Wrap time: 3:30 am.

Wednesday - the dreaded 'shit alley'. Crews call this shit alley because it's the communal toilet for the local homeless population. Production had the alley steam cleaned (they literally hose the alley down with high pressure boiling water), but for some reason the steam cleaners never hose off the walls - where a surprising amount of shit sticks. There are always smears about two feet off the ground all along the walls, and for some reason the gaffer (any gaffer, they all do it) invariably wants lights placed right next to the freshest smears.

A fun touch was the guy standing outside our truck and barking like a dog all night - except when he was meowing. I remember thinking that it was a good that he was bilingual. Increased employment opportunities, you know.

Call time: 5 pm. Wrap time: who knows; they cut the crew down as soon as we were done with the big shot (the one where we had all the lights in the alley and cable run for a city block), so I got set home at 3 am - a nice surprise. Yes, I missed out on a few hours of overtime, but sometimes I don't mind.

Thursday, I was totally wiped out, and after a nap my goal was to stay awake all day (helped by two doctors appointments - one at 10 am and one at 2 pm), so I could sleep at night, which I needed to do because my call time for Friday was 7 am at the lamp dock.

Friday was the first day of our load-in for another pilot. The town's really busy, so we were having trouble getting equipment at all, and some of the stuff we got was really old. With tungsten units, age isn't really an issue, but older HMI's don't work as well, and we generally try to avoid them. Of course, when it gets busy we have to take what we can get.

Monday will be day two of our load-in, and shooting starts Tuesday.

And on an unrelated note, the janitors at NBC and Universal Citiwalk are involved in a labor dispute and have started a blog about it.

It's cleverly titled "Picking up after the Peacock".

Si, Se puede!

Enjoy reading this while I'm standing in a shit-splattered downtown alley all night

Working all night fries me, so I can't think right now.

Although I normally ignore meme's, here's a one courtesy of Shane Nickerson.

It'll have to hold you until tomorrow (or the day after).

4 things about Los Angeles

Four Jobs I've Had In My Life in LA:

Set Lighting Technician

Bartender at a celeb-infested night club

Platform model for a hair product company (this entails standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people at a hair show while being given a terrible haircut and being expected to smile)

I don't know if this counts, but once I applied to be a tour guide at Universal Studios. They turned me down because I was too cynical.

Four Movies About LA I Could Watch Over And Over:

LA Confidential
Chinatown
LA Story
Pulp Fiction

Four Places I've Lived All Over L.A. (With Food Memories From Each):

Culver City: Childhood memories of standing in line at Tito's Taco's. I could never get my tacos fast enough. I loved those tacos so much as a child, and now they make me sick.

San Fernando Valley: There was (and presumably still is) a really fancy hillside restaurant called "The Odyssey". It was the first time I ever went to a fancy place, and it was always an occasion, although I don't really remember the food.

Silverlake-ish: The food booths at the Sunset Junction Street Fair every August - bands, crafts, everyone I knew was there, and despite the fact that it was boiling hot, TONS of great food.

Pre-gentrification Hollywood: Those ratty (and so very wonderful) Thai places along Hollywood Boulevard. They were all great and dirt cheap.

Four LA-Themed Shows I Love(d) To Watch:

Entourage
Police Woman
Arrested Development
Animaniacs

Four Places I Would Vacation At In LA:

A garden cottage at the Chateau Marmont hotel
Deep Creek Hot Springs
Catalina
Malibu

Four Of My Favorite Foods Found In LA:

The secret sushi place I'll never tell any of you about.
Pink's Hot Dogs
Anything at Real Food Daily
Steaks and martinis at Mastros

Four Places In LA I Would Rather Be Right Now:

Burke Williams
The swimming pool at the Peninsula Hotel
Drinking tea in the garden at the Chateau Marmont (and posting this via the free wireless there)
The beach in front of David Geffen's house

It's all in the eyes.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm mildly doll-phobic (is it possible to have a mild phobia?).

I seem to remember not even liking dolls when I was of the age to be playing with them.

I found a box of dolls in my closet that I've had since childhood (they were wrapped in an issue of the Los Angeles Times circa 1979), and when I called my older sister to find out what they were and where they'd come from, she said she didn't remember but thought they were probably valuable.

Since my sister has the worst financial sense in the world (but if I just threw them out she'd turn out to be right and they'd be worth a fortune), I decided to get them appraised.

As I stood there in the doll shop (grossest toy? Stuffed rabbits covered with real rabbit fur. Eeeeewww), looking around and waiting for the appraiser to finish the longest phone call in the world, I felt my skin start to crawl.

It's the eyes. Those horrible little eyes that seem to get stuck halfway open in some sort of demonic wink ("Ha ha! Just you wait! We'll kill you in your sleep!").

Gah. I'm creeping myself out just typing about it.

Anyways, my dolls were gas station giveaways from the 1970's (buy a tank of gas, get a doll), and, according to the appraiser, aren't worth anything.

"Aren't worth anything as in try to get a buck for them on eBay, or aren't worth anything as in give them to my friend's kid to destroy?" I asked.

"Give them to your friend's kid. I doubt they'll ever be worth anything."

After the kid breaks them I'll have the immense satisfaction of knowing that those creepy little heads are going to end up in a landfill.

Ha!

On a lighter note, at a get-together last night I discovered a pretty decent sulfite-free red wine (most sulfite-free reds taste like ass, but it's the sulfites that give me the terrible red wine headache). It's called "Our Daily Red" and since I love red wine but hate the headache, I'm going to buy a case of it.

I knew should have plied her with liquor first.

Yesterday, The Blonde and I were shooting some short pieces at one of the Oscar (tm) giveaway parties. These invitation-only parties take place in hotels (they take over an entire floor and set up in the suites - each company gets it's own suite) and give products away to folks who can promote them (actors, actresses, nominees, producers, important people).

It's mostly cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, and shoes (although there were a lot of baby clothes, which they kept trying to give me - even though I'm pretty certain my cat would not appreciate being dressed in a pink hoodie), but in one suite a company was giving away sex toys.

Cool, modern-looking, beautifully designed sex toys given out by an affable German Guy (also very, very cute although I remember thinking that he was probably gay) and a smiling, happy press rep.

We arranged to shoot in their suite and interview them about their products - I thought I could get The Blonde to do a couple of PG-rated jokes, and we'd have a few funny wraparounds*.

We got German Guy to agree, and as soon as the camera started to roll, he launched into a sales pitch about the products, where everything's made (Germany, of course), what each one was and why they're superior to other sex toys, etc... standard sales-pitch stuff, and not sexual in nature at all. He was really hyping the quality of the products and the durability.

As soon as he started his spiel, The Blonde froze.

I mean completely froze - the only reason I knew she wasn't dead was because she would blink every few seconds, while an increasingly desperate German Guy tried pick up the slack by being informative, cheerful and non-threatening.

From behind the camera, I smiled and flapped my hands in what I thought was a gesture conveying happiness and fun in an attempt to get her to do something - anything - other than stand there, stock still and dead silent with a horrified look on her face, clutching a very expensive dildo.

After I'd given up and called cut, German Guy told me he thought he came off as rushed.

What I wanted to say was "Well, you only seemed rushed because you were standing next to someone who was catatonic, so I don't know if I'd worry about it."

What I actually said was "Oh, no! You were terrific! I wish everyone we'd interviewed today was half as much fun!"

Later, she told me that the whole suite just creeped her out, although it seemed to me that they'd really tried to make the vibe in their room non-creepy - the company's logo was bright orange, the sales reps were smiling and happy, and they were even giving away really good German chocolate for those who didn't want the proffered bags of free sex toys.

I suppose this would be a good place to mention that a decade of hearing 'boy talk' in the truck has left me incredibly blasé about sexual topics in general, although most of the time I'd rather not hear the graphic description of what one of my co-workers would really like to do to that stripper.


* A wraparound is the name for the little shots that air right before and after the commercials.

When all else fails, confuse the hell out of them.

In parts of Los Angeles, a movie shooting will draw a bigger crowd than in other parts.

In the heavily 'shot' parts of town, passers-by are more likely to shout obscenities than they are to placidly stand there, watching and waiting for something to happen.

Some of us, of course, make a beeline for the trucks to see if anyone we know is working and if they're picking up crew.

Yesterday, as I was walking down Melrose Ave (near the Pacific Design Center), I noticed a crowd gathering - as I got closer, I saw that it was folks watching a movie set.

This behavior on the part of West Hollywood passers-by is not normal - Melrose is a heavily shot area, and since I didn't hear shouts of "Fuck you, assholes!" and "Go to hell!", I figured that:

a) something horrible had just happened, or

b) someone really, really famous was standing there.

Sure enough - there, on the corner, waiting for them to roll was Big Action Star.

"Well, that explains the crowd", I said to myself* as I started to walk towards the lighting department's stakebed.

I was stopped by security.

"Big Action Star isn't signing autographs, Miss."

"Good for him - I'm just trying to get to the truck so I can give the best boy a card."

He had to think about what I'd just said for a moment.

"Why? Is it his birthday?"

Awesome.

They're not picking up crew, though.

Damn.


*I'm talking to myself with alarming frequency these days. All I need now is a beehive hairdo and 50 cats.

A big welcome..

To any new readers coming from People Magazine (don't get excited, it's just the industry-only Oscar-week daily), and Forbes Online.

The blog's a bit boring right now, as work is slow, but feel free to peruse the archives and tell me how full of shit I am.

I live for that.

Not what I wanted to hear, but it could have been worse.

The visit to the podiatrist was enlightening.

I got the reader-predicted advice to stretch more (apparently my Achilles tendons are 'incredibly tight' and it's the source of many of my problems), fitted for new orthotics, a lecture about not letting the tread on my work shoes wear down so much, and an injection of cortisone into a cyst (that hurt like hell and I had to bite my lip to keep from yelling - I didn't want the elderly woman in the next room to think I was a wimp).

The bad news is that I'm going to have to have the bunion surgery.

Not right now, thankfully. There's a predicted SAG strike next year, so I'll do the surgery then, since the doctor told me I'll be out of work for at least 8 weeks.

If I've got to be out of work for 8 weeks, it may as well be in the middle of what may very well be a protracted work stoppage.

Of course this was going to happen.

It never fails. Whenever I have something to do that can't (or shouldn't) be rescheduled, someone will call me for work.

This happens so consistently that I'm hesitant to schedule anything in advance anymore - doctor's visits, vacations, car maintenance, tax appointments, dates.

Naturally, since I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow that I don't want to reschedule, I got called for work by a best boy that I've had to turn down the past couple of times he's tried to book me.

Although I hate turning down work, I'm sufficiently desperate to get my feet looked at that I bit the bullet and turned homeboy down again.

Dammit.

Did I mention that if one turns down work too often people will assume that one is never available and stop calling?

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

This podiatrist better be worth it.

Friday Photo

I'm always going on about color temperature and swearing I'll explain it later, so here's a photo which illustrates everything:




Note how blue the outside looks. This is because tungsten sources (the interior lights) are much warmer (more orange) than daylight.

You don't usually see this color difference in movies because we match the lights inside and outside so everything looks even.


On a completely unrelated note: I saw Transamerica with a friend last night.

If Felicity Huffman doesn't win the Oscar (tm) for Best Actress, I will personally give a wedgie to the first Acadamy (tm) member I catch.

Call me a hypochondriac, will you?

Ever since I've had medical insurance (starting when I got in the union), I've been complaining about my feet. Insoles, acupuncture, ice packs, horribly expensive shoes - nothing seems to help.
Whenever I've mentioned it to my doctor, he's given me a referral to a podiatrist to get new insoles, or told me to sit down more often.

Today, I got him to really look at my feet and it turns out that I've got bunions - bad ones - on both feet (I can't figure out how that happened - I don't wear tight shoes), plus plantar fasciitis, and some nerve damage from my shoes putting pressure on the tops of my feet (my arches are so high that the top of the foot's curved, so I'm going to have to change the type of shoe I wear. Dammit. I just paid out the fucking nose for new work shoes and now I may not be able to wear them).

The triumph I feel at finally being vindicated is tempered by the fact that I may have to have foot surgery.

I'm seeing the podiatrist on Tuesday - 9 am in Santa Monica, which means I'll have to leave my house at 7 am to make the rush-hour cross town trip.

Let's hope my fucked up feet can be corrected without surgery (which, if I have to have, I guarantee will happen right as it gets busy. Murphy's Law again, you know).

When is a joke not really a joke?

While watching a Simpsons DVD today (I should have been re-doing the grout in the tub, but I just had to see the episode where the movie shoots in Springfield), I saw something that was intended as a joke, but in fact really exists:

There is actually such a thing as a movie screw.

No, it's not when you sign your deal memo* - it's a 3/4 inch drywall screw.

Go ahead - try to find one at Home Depot. Screw that (pun intended) - try to find one online. Try to find one anywhere.

Although they're the standard screw in the film industry (well, one of them at least) - just about everything is built with them as they're the perfect size for just about anything - the only way that I know of to get a box of 3/4 inch drywall screws is to ask the grips to order one for you.

They have some secret source for the damned things.

A significant percentage of the stuff in my house is held together with salvaged 3/4 inch drywall screws: bookcases, the couch (don't ask), the desk, the spice rack.

Want to figure out which one I am on set?

I'm the one harvesting the discarded movie screws from the stage floor.




* A deal memo is what we sign when we start a job. It spells out the terms of the contract (no double time until after 14 hours, crappy rate/good rate, whether or not we get 'kit rental' - which is pay for use of our personal gear), and you have to sign it or you don't get paid.

Scenes of a Vanishing Southern California

Not so many years ago, Camarillo was a mostly agricultural seaside town northwest of Los Angeles. I never really went up there as I had no reason - it was mostly strawberry fields and hillside orchards (all private property, so unfortunately no picnics allowed).

Sunday, our location was one of those hillside orchards, and as I pulled off the freeway into what I thought was still a mostly agrarian community, I got a nasty shock.

Within the past few years, vast tracts of once-farmland have been subdivided and turned into housing developments with names like "Avocado Acres" and "Terra Bella Estates". It's happening everywhere, so I don't know why I didn't expect it this time. I guess I figured that food production was a pretty high priority.

Silly me.

With the gentrification marching onward (thus making urban areas increasingly unaffordable) and housing prices continuing to skyrocket, farmland becomes less and less financially viable - so Southern California is quickly turning into a region of wall-to-wall tract housing and strip malls.

Views like these are, sadly, now very rare:










I understand the need to build more housing.

It just makes me kind of sad to see Southern California chewing up our agricultural heritage and spitting out acres and acres of identical Mediterranean-style stucco houses.

Leave this to me, I'm a professional truck monkey

Loading a truck is a bit like playing Tetris (tm). Everything has to go in a certain way, even if we've got a 'real' truck with shelves down the sides.

The reason for this is obvious - we have to be able to work off of said truck, and if stuff's just thrown in a pile (also called 'shovel-loaded'), it's impossible to find anything quickly, and stuff gets broken in transit.

On this shoot, our 'truck' is a cargo van driven by the DP, which is carrying our stuff, a small generator, two heaters (the big ones that are the size of a small end table), a bunch of propane tanks, camera cases and grip equipment.

Needless to say, we don't have a lot of equipment, but we're all possessed of the same burning desire not to have to unload the entire van every day just to find one stand that's buried.

Unfortunately, yesterday that's exactly what we had to do, as the van was shovel-loaded really badly.

We still had to unload everything yesterday (as we used all our lights), but at least this time we got some 'alone time' to sit and think about how to load all of the stuff.

There's a thought process that happens when you have to work off of a truck every day. You really do learn how to load stuff in a sensible manner, and once we were able to sit down and hash it out "Well, let's put the stands there, and the rags here, that way we can lay the ladders down on top of it all", it went in fairly neatly at wrap, despite the lack of shelving or 'tie off' points.

I'm sure it'll come out quickly tomorrow morning.

I'm tired, and am off to bed.

Venice Beach

Taken at the graffiti Pit, where I was working today on a still shoot (I don't do very many of those) for a clothing line that I've never heard of.

Today was a good day to be at the beach - it was a gorgeous day, and winter at the beach is always way less crowded than summer.





It was warm, too, until the clouds rolled in right after lunch.

Venice Beach is always an adventure. A drunk guy threatened our art director (she just rolled her eyes at him), and a street vendor saw my walkie while I was walking to the coffee place, mistook me for an undercover police officer and followed me for a whole block while yelling "Narc! Narc!" at the top of his lungs. Production hadn't gotten the proper permits for the graffiti pit, so until it got sorted out, the site rep literally chased us off the beach.

We also had no PA's, so we had to take turns sitting with our staged equipment to make sure that it didn't get stolen.

Still, it was a very fun day. This is a four day shoot (the last day is Sunday) that's paying cash.

I LOVE cash.

I'm totally wiped out (couldn't sleep last night), so I'm off to bed.

We're in the Valley tomorrow, and we have an 8 am call.

Yeah, that was worth it.

When I'm not working, I'm always hesitant to spend money - I never know when I'll work again, and I've spent too much when work was tight before and had to make the humiliating call to my parents for emergency funds.

So, yesterday, when I was in Best Buy looking at wireless internet cards for the new laptop (The Blonde dropped the old one, so she pitched in for a used IBM on eBay), I almost bought the cheap one.

However, the lure of the instant rebate made me spend the extra 20 bucks for the extra long range, high powered wireless card.

The result? I'm getting a wireless signal in my living room. I do not have a wireless network in my house - I think I'm picking it up from one of the office buildings nearby.

It can't be someone's home DSL - it's way too fast, and despite the 'very low' signal strength, I'm surfing away just fine, thanks.

Sweeeeeet.

We'll see how long it lasts.

I'm rigging for a TV show tonight. I get to spend the entire night changing fluorescent tubes in a warehouse in the valley.

I'm going to try to take a nap.

Pre work update: The signal is coming from the Los Angeles Unified School District. When using it, I can't access Yahoo, messaging services, MySpace, or anything deemed unsuitable for schoolchildren.

Fine with me. I can use the computer in the back for that. Right now I'm playing internet radio over the smokin' fast signal.

Hey, it's almost 7 pm. The kiddies aren't there. I promise I won't eat up the free bandwidth during school hours.