The Week In Review

Another good week on the job. The only minor complaint is about the early starts. 6am tomorrow which means up at 4, out of the house at 4:30. Got a lot of sleep this weekend so at least Monday shouldn't be so bad.

We're just about halfway through shooting. Just about time to start worrying about the next job. Everyone is predicting a little slowdown after this round of films. We'll see.

The panel turned out to be not so bad. Got treated like kind of a celebrity for a few hours. Got lots of cool shwag and fantasized about being there with my first film, which was cool. The discussion was fairly interesting if not very in depth. I'm not sure I did a great job describing the job, but it didn't really seem to matter as people were much more interested in talking to the other three panelist, and AC, a production designer and the union rep. The truth is that I'm an grunt. My job isn't really that sexy to the outside world. Thats OK, I like it

Friday

another week is coming to an end. The weekend might be interesting. The very cool Boston Independent Film festival is in town and I'm going to be participating in a panel discussion about breaking into the film business around here. Thats going be hard. Besides the public speaking thing, I feel if I'm really honest, it will just bum everybody out. More on this later.

Day at the Beach

We started early yesterday, but we ended early as well. If I told you how early, I'd have to kill you.
what happens in rigging, stays in rigging. That's the rule.

The male lead of this film is kind of a jerk. My boss Roger and I were waiting to use the expresso maker. The two leads of the film were chatting about god knows what in front of the machine. This is not unusual. It seems the people who are not pressed for time(non-technicians) are the ones who spend the most time chatting and thus blocking access to crafty for people in a hurry, which Roger and I were not. But you get the point. After waiting for more than a few minutes while they ignored us and chatted, Roger decided to use the expresso maker. There was an empty cup in the machine, so Roger used it. After a few minutes the star is in a rage...

"Who stole my fuckin coffee?"

The star sees Roger enjoying his cappucino and angrily accuses.

"You fucker, you stole my coffee"

Roger calmly explains that we had been waiting for a bit to use the machine and when we did there was just an empty cup there meaning that the machine was probably not turned on when the star wanted to use it. The star looks kinda confused.

"That fuckin coffee machine sucks!"

Then he stomps off. Wow! I think that young man has anger issues.

Electric Dreams

where you been?

It has been a while, hasn't it. I was torn for a while as to whether I had anything to write about or not. The mega-movie certainly was an adventure unlike any I've ever encountered in this business. The moderate, big budget romantic comedy has turned out to be the best job I've ever had. Its not all shits and giggles, but it is a job that works on a lot of levels.

1) We care about Coffee. We never miss a coffee break. We talk about coffee. We strive for the best coffee available. So much so that we've been banned from several fine coffeehouses that were deemed " too expensive" by production. Seriously man, some days we've spent more on coffee break than lunch. Yesterday afternoon we had ice cream instead of coffee. Most of us grabbed a coffee from craft service when we got back to set.

2) I feel pretty confident that I'm going to get home alive and with all my fingers and toes every day. That was an issue on the mega-movie. I wonder if they've settled down at all. Except for the fact that I suck at basic household wiring, and I'm due for a big shock at some point. This gig is pretty smooth sailing.

3) Books, books, books. The story or whatever involves a publisher. There were thousands of unwanted books at the end of the shoot. I helped myself to a hundred or so. Love the perks of this business. I think at a brief point I became addicted to the books on that set. I wanted to read every ridiculous book they had.

4) The beauty. We are filming primarily on the North Shore. We are taking some of the most beautiful little seaport towns and turning them into Alaska(seriously). The views are breathtaking.

I really like being an electrician in the movies. I just gotta get a lot better at a couple of things. But I definitely feel better at the end of the day. unfortunately, my day is just starting and I gotta go.

Hi Nancy!