Movies

The production meeting was great. I love these things. This is when things haven't turned to complete chaos yet, and everyone is still working in a collaborative fashion. My boss, the 1st AD runs the meeting with OUR boss, the director, sitting beside him. Around the table are all of the heads of each dept. We then go through the script scene by scene and discuss the logistics of how we will shoot the more intricate or difficult stuff. IE Stunts, special effects, etc. It helps me a great deal to be at these things, primarily because my main responsibility is to get the actors ready in time to shoot. So for example, what I am listening for are things like: character has a bruise in this scene on her shoulder and leg. What that tells me is that she is going to take longer than average in make-up, so I have to make sure that I remind my boss on the day that she will take a bit longer, and if he has remembered, I then have to make sure I remind the actor that they will take longer and therefore try to put a bit more pressure on them to get "in the chair" on time. A lot of times when actors come in in the morning, they are very slow moving. They need to eat their breakfast, which I order for them and my trainee or I physically bring them. Now, that takes 10 minutes. I bring them their food, and if they decide to sit and eat like normal human beings this can take 20 minutes. Well, normally for a male I am given 30 minutes TOTAL time to get them ready, that is make up, hair AND wardrobe. And guess what? Since they decided to sit down and eat, now that 1/2 hour is gone, and my boss is on the walkie talkie asking me how long until we have so-and-so, and I have to tell him that they won't be ready for 30 minutes. And then I am in biiiiig ka-ka. This doesn't happen to me anymore, not for a loooong time, because I have experienced all the screwups I have created for myself, but that is how I learned what not to do, and how much to push the actors, IF I can, etc. Some actors are fantastic though, and are virtually totally low maintenance. Like Mary Louise Parker (who I loved!). She would show up, drop her purse in her trailer, tell me she wanted her usual breakfast and head into the hair and makeup trailer. I would then bring her her coffee and food while she was in the hair chair. A lot of actors that have done theatre are like this, I rarely have to push them at all. And when I say push, I don't mean "pushy", it is just a term we use to describe gentle nudging and reminders of how much time we have or don't have left to get them ready. Depending on how friendly I am with the actors, I can actually get into some actual good natured pushing and shoving out their trailer door. Now, what trips me up are things that would trip anyone up, and are totally out of my control. Like on the last pilot I did, the actress suddenly decided "in the chair" ( the lingo for when they are physically sitting in the make up or hair chair) that she wanted to have her hair straightened for a scene. (she had naturally curly hair). I was wondering what was taking so long, so I finally went in there to discover (very discreetly) what was happening. So I relayed this to my boss. Who was not happy about it, but never-the-less there was nothing any of us could do but wait. Anyway, so subsequent scenes became a nightmare because some of the scenes we had ALREADY shot had her curly hair! So then continuity and hair had to work closely together and we had to constantly schedule more time that we didn't have to straighten, or curl her hair as needed. So in the production meeting, I listen for stuff like that ahead of time so that we can be informed and factor that into the time to get everyone ready. The director is great, though, and knows that there are a lot of women and that we will need more time to get them ready. He even made a joke about how they may be fussy about their wardrobe, which happens a lot with me standing there with my hand on the button of my walkie ready to tell them when they are ready and thinking, "Didn't you have a wardrobe fitting??". Drives me CRAZY! Movies are rarely made, if ever, without these kind of things, some are worse than others. But for the most part we all remember those nightmare shoots with laughter, and a kind of "combat" mentality... remember THAT time?

Off to do some birthday shopping for 2 of Ellie's friends, and my family. I am supposed to be doing aerobics right now. I just can't seem to get those running shoes on.

Have a great day!