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!