Breaking up is(n't) hard to do.

Mr. Movie Star and I officially called it quits today.

I gave up part of my weekend to help with a rig (an 'eight and skate' hardly feels like a day of work at all anymore), and happened to be on the same lot lot as the movie he's doing, so I swung by to see him, since we've not actually been in the same room at the same time in weeks.

As breakups go, this one was pretty painless. I'd seen it coming for a while now.. the phone calls have been petering off, the coversations getting shorter - out of sight, out of mind.

He says he's not dating anyone else, but just feels like neither one of us have the time to be dating anyone.

This is just what happens, and no, I'm not angry at him. I'm kind of bummed - but not angry.

This is par for the course in the film industry, with it's 12+ hour days and routine 6 day weeks.

Those hours ruin a lot of relationships. Crew members who haven't been divorced at least once are rare, and multiple divorces are common - and that's marriages. I sort of feel like trying to date at all is hopeless, due to the entertainment industry catch-22: if you date someone who's not in the film industry (a 'civilian'), they freak out about the hours and dump you, and if you date someone who is in the industry, you split up because you never see each other.

Okay, I lied. I'm sad and pissed off.

The fact is that I really liked Mr. Movie Star, and had hoped that this would last for a long time.. Now I'm back to being afraid of dying alone because my fucking job eats my life.

Back at Fox.

Since Grey's didn't need an extra guy today, I was back on Bones for a second unit shoot.

The horror stories about that show have been spreading - All the boys on Grey's want to know who the new gaffer is, who among the crew's going to stay, etc.. One day back I'm happy to say that I'm able to provide the gossip.

In addition to the electric department jumping* to Fast and Furious 3, the sound department has quit, one of the AD's has quit and half the grips have quit.

One of the other AD's came up to me today and furtively asked me if I'd pass his resume over to Grey's.

The dimmer board operator told me that last week they had 3 9-page days in a row**. That's got to have something to do with people leaving. It's busy right now and it's really easy to jump. Were it slow, people would probably be sucking it up - but I don't know for sure. At some point, taking unemployment starts to sound better than months and months of 80+ hour weeks.

Another rumor going around is that the entire crew of House quit (for very similar reasons, I'm sure), but I couldn't find out for sure as we were busy today and I couldn't get away to go and look on their stage.

Today's second unit stuff was the new gaffer's first day (the old gaffer's last day is tomorrow), which was a good thing - second unit's always more mellow, and it gave him a nice quiet day to learn the set and to figure out how long it's going to take for the juicers to move things.***

We still got peeled, though. We only had four people to work that gigantic set. Luckily the new gaffer's very nice and patient - my one complaint is that he doesn't use his walkie, and his voice is the exact same pitch and tone of the general hubbub of a working set, so it's damn near impossible to hear him.

Not my problem, though. I'm back on Grey's Anatomy tomorrow.


* Quitting one show before it ends to go onto another show is called 'jumping'.

**Movies shoot about 3 pages a day, TV shows shoot from 5 to 7 pages a day; a page being about a minute of screen time (with notable exceptions such as the infamous "Atlanta Burns" from Gone with the wind. 1/8th of a page, WAY more than that on the screen). A 9 page day is just sadistic, and more than one day in a row of 9 page days is so far beyond horrible that I don't think a word's been invented to describe it accurately.

***While this sounds trivial, it's really, really important for a gaffer to know that it takes 15 minutes to set up a BFL on the catwalk, or that in order to move a 10K on a rolling stand across the room, we have to have furniture moved - which entails getting the set dressers, who usually hide and have to be tracked down. This way, when he's on first unit - which is WAY more pressure, he'll be less likely to start screaming into the walkie that things are taking way too fucking long.

Someone I don't miss at all.

Prospect Studios must have had too many complaints about "The Evil Guard".

Back in the days of The Shield (several seasons ago), which shot at Prospect, this one particular entry-gate guard was always nasty, sour, angry, and seemed to look for ways to delay people at the gate. I remember having to get to the lot at least 20 minutes early every day because of this woman. One day, when I forgot my I.D. card at home, she kept me at the gate for over 30 minutes while she tried to "find a call in pass because how do I know you really work on this lot" (this after seeing my face every day for weeks), while shooting me dirty looks and every once in a while muttering something derogatory about people who forgot their cards and messed up her day. Then, as I finally drove past (muttering something about being late to work), snarled "That's what you get!" at me.

If she's still at Prospect, she's not working the east gate anymore.

The entry-gate guards these days are sugary sweet to the point that I'm afraid I'm going to fall into a sugar coma just by talking to them.

I don't have a Prospect Studios I.D. anymore (it's long since expired, and it's not for Grey's Anatomy, so it wouldn't do me any good even if it were still current), so the younger guard (it's always the same two) comes out to the car and says "Good Morning", then takes my drivers license with a heartfelt "Thank you"; while the older guard - who stays in the shack and smiles - prints out my vehicle pass and personal pass.

The happy younger guard then hands me my personal pass and drivers license, sticks the vehicle pass to the inside of my windshield, and warbles a "Have a great day, ma'am!" as the gate lifts and I drive into the parking lot.

It's certainly a nice change.

I don't miss her at all.

Tuesday at the VA

The real gaffer was back today - he's been out on 'personal business'.

One of the other juicers who was also out on 'personal business' who's back today is an old friend from a TV show called "The Division" that we both worked on years ago. He's a scream, and I was glad to see him again - plus I got tons of good gossip on the old gang.

We were shooting at the V.A. hospital in Northridge - it's pretty new since that whole area got flattened by the earthquake in '94. We were shooting in the atrium, so the sun shone down through the three story glass windows and heated up the set like a microwave (well, it is Northridge, and it is August).

This show's craft service guy puts out the same type of snack tray every day - it's crackers, cheese (which I can't eat), deli meats, dips, and - my personal weakness - hearts of palm. I LOVE hearts of palm and it takes every ounce of self-discipline I have to only take a couple of them. I really want to eat them all, and the damned deli tray only has about six of them (a light snack for me. I've been known to eat two cans of the damn things in one sitting), so taking three is massively uncool. One of the other juicers likes them too, so maybe I'll just bring my own tomorrow so we can both pig out.

Who am I kidding - I'd eat the whole can in front of him and giggle.

Call time: 8:42 (?) am
Wrap time: 11:45 pm

Watch out for the bee in my bonnet.

Although I do try to keep the politics out of the blog, this one I can't let go.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/22/news/economy/northwest_implications/

As a union member, let me just say that power wise, strikes are all we have - the point of joining a union is that you have the power of the masses behind you, and the group speaks louder than an individual.

United we stand, divided we get it in the ass with no lube.

What's happened to us? Union members didn't used to be afraid. We stood together - even when some of us got killed, because we knew that we had to.

Yeah, yeah, I know...corruption, organized crime, etc...

I still truly, deeply, with all my heart and soul believe in the labor movement.

If you cross a picket line, or accept contract work from a company who's being picketed by a union - I hope you get a full-body skin rash that itches like hell and doesn't respond to any medical treatment.

No, I'm not crazy. I'm laughing at a conversation you can't hear.

Today, just after lunch, I almost spewed an entire cup of coffee all over one of the medical consultants, who couldn't figure out why I was laughing like a maniac at nothing, but was, in fact, the following conversation - misunderstanding courtesy of the headsets we all wear:

Juicer #1: "Just so everyone knows, there are a bunch of FEV's* in the set cart's top drawer if you want them."

Gaffer: "What if I want something different and exciting?"

Juicer #1: "Well, if you're looking for a good time, call [gives the production office phone number]"

Gaffer: "Don't you ever give out my mother's number over the walkie again."

Juicer #2: "That was your mother? [pause] Damn."

*FEV's are a type of globe for a light. We blew one, didn't have any in the set cart and had to run to the truck while the entire company sat and waited on us. Very bad.

"Grey's Anatomy"

Got a last minute call Thursday night from a friend of mine to replace him on "Grey's Anatomy".

"Grey's" is shooting at the Disney owned Prospect Stages in Hollywood - a MUCH shorter drive for me than Fox.

Turns out I knew a lot of the crew: two of the grips from Danika, a camera operator from The Division, and the AD who looks just like Ed Norton.

The stages were air conditioned to sub arctic levels, which was nice, but I forgot to bring a jacket, and then, when I had to run home during lunch to get my I 9 photocopies I forgot to grab one so I spent the entire rest of the day sitting next to the 10k to keep warm.

Disney is a bureaucratic nightmare to work for. The 'start paperwork' package is the size of a short novel, and full of things like: Disney also makes you sign a paper stating that you're not related to anyone at a rival studio. I have the same last name as an upper level exec at a rival studio, and although we're not related, it always causes problems for the best boy.


Lunch (an hour 'walkaway', which means that you have to buy your own) must have given someone gas, because all afternoon the stage had pockets of really nasty gas smell. It was so bad that at one point I had to run off set because my eyes were watering.

No one owned up to it, though.

The Ass in Class.. Action, that is.

Whee!
I love litigation, especially when I stand to benefit from it.

Coming home from the gym today, I found a fun letter in my mailbox - a notice of a class action lawsuit:

"In simple terms, the class action lawsuit alleges, among other things, that many persons who worked in the Motion Picture and/or Broadcasting Industries and/or who worked for and/or received payroll checkes from the entities listed above (a) did not recieve timely payments following their last day worked in accordance with Labor Code Sections... or (c) did not recieve overtime premuim under certain curcumstances. Based on these claims, the lassuit seeks penalties under various sections of the California Labor Code."

Blah, blah blah..

To make a long story short, the payroll companies are being sued for not paying up on time.

Good thing, too.

One of the tricks certian production companies used to pull was having the payroll company cut the checks, but not paying them the money for the payroll, so they couldn't send the check out. This resulted in the infuriating experience of calling the payroll company and having them say, "Well, we have the checks, but we can't send them out because Propaganda (the production company most notorious for doing this) hasn't sent us a check yet."

I could fill up three or four posts with Tricks We Used To Pull In Order To Get Paid.

This means that I have to gather W-2's (from 1996 - present), which is going to suck. I think the satanic CPA still has them all at her office.

www.motionpicturesettlement.com

It looks like members who submit proof of being paid (by entertainment industry payroll companies) an aggregate 50 thousand or more over the past 9 years will get a check for not more than $550, depending on the number of claims submitted. There is also something about check stub violations but it requires proof of actual damages.

That's crazy.

The Cell Phone Saga: Part 2

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

Customers are limited to two insurance replacements per calendar year.

Have I mentioned that Asurion are evil jackasses?

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

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

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

This is what I get for trying to be clever.

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

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

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

Unreal.

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

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

Whatshisname's Big Music Video

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

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

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

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



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



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

* BFL = Big Fucking Light

D'oh! Again.

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

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

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

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

An Open Letter to Michael Bay

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

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

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

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

Please. I'm begging you.

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


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

Never believe anything anyone says to you..

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

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

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

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

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

"That director's an idiot."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call time: 7 pm
Wrap time: 4 am

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

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

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

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

So - highlights of the past few days have been:

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

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

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

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

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

Teamwork is for Sissies

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

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

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

Call time: 10:30 am
Wrap time: midnight