The Work Day From Hell

Who hasn’t had “one of those days” at work?  Usually they don’t involve embarrassing yourself in front of somebody famous, but that’s one of the risks in this risky business.  I can’t recall when I’ve last achieved this kind of hideous stupidity. The closest I’ve come was when Sally Field asked me if she could borrow my heat gun to dry her hair, which was in curlers.  She was obviously (to anyone looking on who had a functioning brain) joking, but I handed it over to her muttering this advice: “Watch out, it’s set at 700 degrees.”

Two days ago was the work day from hell for me.  It began with a list of many small paint tasks which put me on a course far outside the orbit of the immediate shooting crew.  I was on the outskirts of a water treatment plant aging various signs we had placed or replaced, and I was listening in to the shooting crew, who were inside the confines of the treatment plant’s main building, which was guarded by a phalanx of PA’s instructed to stop anyone from entering and interrupting the rehearsals or shooting.

Normally I would have been inside there with the rest of them, ready to step in and take the glare off something with dulling spray, or, most importantly, to reset the dry erase writing that Harrison Ford was jotting down on a white board and continuing onto the adjacent wall as part of an important scene’s action.  That was supposed to be my main job that day: erasing Ford’s writing between takes so he could write on a blank wall for the next take.

And I was very excited and happy about this job, because it was an important job, part of continuity, and it was an authentic standby painter’s task.  I had special dry erase board wipes on hand, solvents to clean the wall, and even wall paint supplied by the water treatment manager from their own stash so it would exactly match.  I had this little mini-kit all ready and standing by next to the inner sanctum, along with spare dry erase markers for Harrison if his needed replacing.

But then the signage tasks were assigned by my art director and they had to be completed at once, and sometime during the farthest sign away from the set, across a huge parking lot and up a hill, I got the call to come in to set.  I answered that I’d be in right away, and half-walked, half-ran with my other kit bag (that weighs twenty or possibly fifty pounds), which imbued me with a humping, limping lope more suited to a lumbering primate than a working woman in a hurry, and reached the door listening to the calls to me go out with increasing intensity and eventually irritation even when I answered them.

I realized eventually that nobody could hear me.  Nobody.  I once again had a faulty microphone on my headset (By the way, don’t ever order something called “The Director’s Special” radio headset from a certain online electronics store—it is total crap and will FAIL after less than two weeks of use).

I finally limp-lumbered up to the PA’s guarding the doors to the building, but they were new on the show that week, and wouldn’t betray their masters’ orders and let me in because they didn’t know I was on the crew since I looked like a crazy, out of breath, paint-covered homeless person, and not a professional film person.

I limped around the rear of the building, heading for the back door, which was only another half mile further, tearing off my headset and talking into the radio to say I was coming, but even though they might have heard me, there was no answer.  They had moved on to the take where Harrison Ford is writing on the wall—without me.  Okay, that was really bad, to be the standby painter and not be standing by.  But the situation was still salvageable.  I thought.

I waited until Ford had finished his first bout of writing and they called “CUT!,” and then I slipped inside to find an almost impenetrable mass of people moving lights, cables, cameras, dollies, and set dressing.  As usual, everyone was in a hurry, near panic in their desperation to get their particular job done before the camera was set up to go again—just like me.  I spotted Harrison in the center of it all and joined him as he was walking back to the dry erase board.

“Do you need the writing erased?”  I asked.  Harrison looked at me and seemed pleased that someone had shown up to do this.

“Why yes, I do.  I’ve been doing it.”

“Well, let me do it for you.” I offered.

We were at the white board, now, and I saw that the wall on which he was writing when he went off the dry erase board was actually a cupboard window, and it had an involved equation written on it.  I took one of my special dry erase marker erase wipes and efficiently swept it away into nothingness.

“I didn’t write that,” Ford said.  We looked at each other for a moment, he quizzical, while my face probably burst into embarrassed fluorescent red.

Oooh noooooo.  I suddenly understood that I had just erased the original writing of the film’s scientist and technical advisor. Harrision was probably using it to copy from so his own writing of the equation would be accurate.  With a light-headed feeling of relief I realized the equation I had just wiped away was still on the dry erase board, but in Harrison’s writing.  Luckily I hadn’t erased that in my unholy zeal to do my little job.

“Hey, they don’t see it, anyway.”  Harrison said into the awkward silence.  I took that as my cue to retreat and stay out of the process.  Another take later and they switched camera angles so it really wasn’t seen.

But the damage had been done.  I had blown my stupid little job in a spectacular and hopeless way.

Maybe I’ll get a chance to redeem myself in the future on this show, but it’s looking bleak at the moment.  Later that day I was asked to apply dulling spray to a car and pulled out a bum can that spewed out white spittle bits instead of a fine mist of clear dulling material.  Where was my spare (and working) can of dulling spray?  Back at the sign I had been aging earlier, about a half mile away.

Yeah, the work day from hell.  I’m so glad today is my day off.

(Harrison) Ford: Dependable, Reliable, A Classic

(Harrison) Ford: Dependable, Reliable, Always a Classy Vehicle

 

It’s a strange thing to admit, but I almost never notice the acting during any of my films, even when I’m standing there a few feet away from the action, day after day, next to people like Angelina Jolie and Ed Burns as they emote and tell (and re-tell through many takes) their stories.  Why is that?  Well, I somehow feel embarrassed to be staring at them as they work, unless I’m looking for something I am responsible for, like an overly hot chrome surface or a freshly-completed repair in a wall between two very important talking heads.  Also, as a professional, you don’t want to be standing in their eyeline, or catching their eye at all.

But this odd blankness about the acting being done in front of us is not mine alone.  Most people in most departments seem to be as oblivious to the nuances of the performances as I am.  There is certainly some form of ambivalence toward actors from those on the crew.  They get paid so much more and are so much more honored for the work they do that it is hard not to feel resentment toward them, especially when they only put in a fraction of the hours on the set that you do.  But then, they’re FAMOUS, they’re STARS, so some kind of awe and respect necessarily follows them and surrounds them (unless you’re working with Christian Bale).

But every so often I find myself drawn to an actor’s performance even in the midst of my own crazy stress and a short-deadline pile of work I am doing at the moment.  The first time it happened was on the film Surrender, an ‘80’s comedy featuring Sally Field, Steve Guttenberg, and Michael Caine.  For coverage and for “safety”, there were many, many takes of one scene and its jokes.  The writer, Jerry Belson, was a great comedic professional, known for his work on “The Odd Couple” television series and many others.  He knew all about timing, tying the bow, and the perfect set-up for the perfect pay-off.

But after the sixth or seventh time the joke was said by Sally or Steve, it just wasn’t that funny anymore.  Even if the timing was perfect every time, the line was spoken right on cue, or whatever was required was done with professionalism and enthusiasm.  This is only reasonable—you’ve just heard the exact same joke told for the seventh time.  It shouldn’t be that funny anymore.

But when Michael Caine spoke his lines, he could say the same exact thing twenty times in a row and all of us in the room or watching on the monitors had to stifle our laughter, because every time it was just as funny as the first time we heard the joke.  It took a few years for me to realize that this is extremely rare in an actor.  He is so good at what he does that it made you stand up and take notice (and want to laugh) no matter what.

This show I’m working on now had been like most others for me in the sense that I could admire Brendan Fraser’s ability to immediately emote in the range of whatever his character was required to do, but it really didn’t capture my attention, and it was the same for the other actors in the scenes during the first two weeks.  I had lots to do most of the time, and couldn’t allow any diversions.

Then Harrison Ford got here.  I was trying to finish slamming on paint for a completely new section of a house’s exterior door that the carpenters had quickly cut and put up when it was suddenly decided it had to be seen in the next shot.  I had fifteen minutes to paint it and dry it.   I was completely absorbed in my probably impossible-to-finish-in-time job when, through the front door side window I caught sight of Harrison talking to Brendan in the on-going scene being filmed.  Ford was waving his fork for emphasis while they ate apple pie. I knew the scene from having read it, but suddenly the urgency in it came clearly into focus, and I felt a clammy, visceral worry over whether Harrison’s character would decide to help Brendan and his wife or not.  The suspense was palpable—  Then Harrison raised up his forkful of apple pie and brandished it at Brendan like a sword just at the moment the AD yelled “—And CUT!”  He did his little ad lib joke perfectly in time to follow the cut.  The playfulness following the suspense was astonishing and skillful; I was shocked back into reality.  I realized that I had just been completely captivated by Ford during the last part of the scene.

And in almost every scene at some point, Ford manages to grab my attention even when I’m doing something else.  A subconscious part of me picks up on the cues in his voice and hears it as absolutely real.  That perception says to me, “Hey!  Listen to this!  It’s important!”  Even if it isn’t really important at all in reality, outside of the film’s world.  Just as when I worked on that show with Michael Caine, I was forced to notice and recognize the something “extra” in Ford’s ability to act in a scene.

It’s not a big name star thing—I don’t notice it when watching most other big name stars at work—it seems to be a high level of skill at manipulating lines, scenes, energy, whatever.  It’s mysterious and compelling, and it’s one more surprising reason I love doing what I do.

And I did finish the house exterior in time, with not a second to spare before Harrison and the director walked through the door that had just been covered with wet paint a few minutes earlier.  Thank you, mega-watt heat gun, for your intense performance.  You saved my own scene.

 

First Contact: The Alien Absurdist

My first week on the job is coming to an early end because we get Good Friday off, and I’ve already booked most of that day with appointments for all the business I couldn’t take care of because of the long hours.  This blog is a good way to figure out why I like this job so much, and the movie business in particular, because it forces me to put into words the previously wordless, but deep, nearly subconscious pleasure I take in certain aspects of this life.

So it has come to my awareness that over the years I have developed a great fondness for absurdity.  Something in me takes over when I see an absurd scenario and I become an alien observer, looking at the action with the mind-set of someone outside of it all and seeing it without any preconceptions.  Looking through this lens, I find a strange, Kafka-esque humor in everything I see.

For example, we are doing a B camera set-up for a shot of a toy car convertible with a doll “driving” it across a living room floor.  In my “alien observer” mode I see this absurdist scene: Several people are sitting in chairs of a living room that exists only inside a darkened warehouse.  One person is fiddling intently with a pair of (empty) shoes, another is poring over a Blackberry and arguing, apparently with herself, and a man is crouched on the floor with a control box of some kind, laughing at two men who are sitting on a low-riding cart with huge, solid metal wheels that is moving slowly back and forth along a small track like the demented engine car for an invisible tiny train.

The conversations are just as strange.  “Fiona (the doll’s name) looks like she’s nodding off.  Make her sit up straight.”  A hand comes in and pushes the doll more upright, but she slides back down. “Dammit, she’s high, isn’t she?”  Someone else scolds: “She shouldn’t be driving in that condition.”  From the back of the living room I hear the sing- song muttering of one of the camera men: “Out of focus, out of eye line, out of foooocus…”  Is anyone listening to him?  I can’t tell.

And right now I’m not completely detached from the scene, because I’ve got to crawl into the area of the wood floor in front of Fiona’s convertible with some weird concoction to blend in the scratch marks.  On my way out, I’m told to “grab that piece of blue tape over there.”  Then someone else sings out in the tune of the song: “Just walk away, Renee!” and cackles at their own joke.

Like I haven’t heard that one before.

But it’s hard to leave the set of such lovely insanity, so I hover in the background awaiting my next call for help, once again an alien observer in the dark behind the camera.

Going In, So Watch Out

Going In, So watch Out 

I love it!  The second day on the job as standby painter for this show, and all those old feelings I’d forgotten are coming back.  The camaraderie among the painters before the show, and now the multi-departmental sense of everybody doing something different but all working together, somehow, all aware of each other is like a summer breeze through the psyche.  And there’s this lightning in the air as the time winds out and we begin to roll that charges perception of every little thing around me.

I have my standby allies on the set from movies prior: my carpenter pal who is always close at hand with a ladder to whisk it in and whisk it away, my electrician buddies on the set who know to bring in a stinger for my heat gun whenever I have to paint something then and there.  And numerous friends among the PA’s, the wardrobe, and the camera departments all give this job the familiar feeling of kindred folk who share interests at some strange, active cocktail party, minus the cocktails.

I catch up on what everyone’s been doing for the past few months, whose dreams are coming along, and how far they’ve come, when they’re working on being full-time musicians, writers, or whatever’s.  Some people are up from LA for the third or fourth time, acclimating to the Oregon groove, making sure they remember everyone’s name.  Others are strangers here, from LA or other environs.  With the mix of people, everything is starting to happen at once, now.

So, not much time to blab in this blog—I’m fixing lots of little and bigger gashes from actors’ wheelchair action this time around and it’s going to be a constant on these particular sets.  There are also ceiling pieces that move between one set and another, and dirty handprints show up on them that have to be painted out.  There’s enough to do that I don’t feel like a loafer, but not so much that I can impress anyone with my industriousness.  At least not yet.

I can always hope for the big problem that I can leap in and solve in an instant with some obscure substance that I just happen to have on hand because I’ve thought ahead to every possible worst-case scenario.  But that hasn’t happened yet, and I know I should be careful of what I wish for.

There are a lot of new people on set, who don’t know the locals or the LA returnees—our director and AD’s are new to the mix, and everyone is trying to get a handle on them, trying to prove they can jump when asked to and hoping we don’t get an ill-tempered first AD who doesn’t have faith in us.  AD:  That is not a job I want, ever.  So much responsibility and you have to be the bad guy, all the time.

There’s always a proving ground during the first week or so of a film.  I haven’t yet introduced myself to the DP or the director, which is a bit different for me—but they have been otherwise occupied, and I’ll probably do it today, the next time I have to “go in” with some task.

When I say “go in”, that means to go into the set where the camera is set up, and get inside the inner circle of director, DP, camera crew, first and second AD’s, actors, make-up and hair, possibly wardrobe, electricians, grips, on set dresser, and producers who like to be close in on the action.  This is probably the most intimidating part of the job when someone works on set, doing what I do, or stills, or set dressing or greens.  You have to go in there like you know what you’re doing, and you are just as important as they are.

Which you may be, for a brief moment when the show cannot go on because somebody put a hole in the wall behind Brendan Fraser’s head and it has to be patched immediately.

But after your brief moment of utter importance it is also a required skill to be able to get out of there as quickly and quietly as possible, slipping silently away as if you never existed.

What a life.  I love it!