WORK, TRAVEL, WORK, AND MORE TRAVEL

It's been just over two months since my last post and I have been pretty busy, what with my place being renovated extensively and a relatively steady flow of work.

I had mentioned that I was hoping for enough work before I left that I would have enough set aside to pay my bills for a month or so after I came home, so that I could go away and not worry about all that stuff.   Well, that's why I haven't written - I have been working a fair bit since.

I had more work than I could do, quite frankly.  In fact, I can't think of a time in my career that I have had so many calls for different shows.  I could not do them all as most offers ran on the same weeks... sometimes one wishes one could clone themselves!  Since my last post, I've worked on two television movies (the two I mentioned); I ended up not doing the movie for a producer friend as I had mentioned, as I was asked to work on a union TV series - Arctic Air and it involved a trip to the Northwest Territories. Having never been there and not ever intending to go there (after all, my goal in life is to get closer to the equator, not farther away!) I was excited at the prospect of seeing somewhere very different and not having to pay for it.   I have to say that, despite the biting cold wind that howled relentlessly across the Canadian Shield, it was beautiful in a way that cannot be denied.  Rugged, raw, big sky, crisp air, and Yellowknife is a town like no other.  Art wherever one looked, even the refuse containers.  I am so thankful I was able to have the experience.  The only thing that I was unhappy about was I didn't get to see the Northern Lights.  The first three nights I was there they were spectacular, apparently.  I wouldn't know because I was sleeping (they don't come out till 1:30 am) due to early calls each morning.  The last night I was all set to go out and see them, blanket and all, but the sky was overcast so they were not there.  I will regret forever not skipping sleep for a few hours.

I have to say that I LOVE AIRPLANES so getting to work with so many on this show was a real treat and getting to be RIGHT ON THE RUNWAY as airplanes, both ours and commercial ones, took off and landed was an amazing experience.   At one point, we had two of ours in the air and they flew really low and right over our heads as we filmed them.  What a RUSH!!

My first glimpse of The Canadian Shield, something I remember learning about in grade 4

Gorgeous view from one of the highest vantage points in Yellowknife; the Pilot's Monument

Perched at the very edge of the cliff at Pilot's Monument as we shoot a scene, the monitor placement meant one step back and it was over for me!

Bullocks, a pub in Yellowknife.  The interior of this pub is recreated on a stage in Aldergrove, BC for the shooting of Arctic Air

One of many painted dumpster bins around town. Unfortunately I did not have time to take pictures of them all as we had a gruelling schedule

A house I came across while walking from one shooting location to another 

Up close and personal to four water bombers.  Huge and impressive aircraft

Photo op with a fellow crew member

Buffalo Air, home of  The Ice Pilots.  What a great place.  I haven't ever watched the show but it is an iconic brand that Yellowknife is very proud of.  The DC-3's are amazing!!

Another photo op!

Me and 'Buffalo Jim' the owner of Buffalo Air

Mikey, Buffalo Jim's son

No sooner did I get back from the Northwest Territories than I received calls for no less than four different productions, two of them TV series.  Unfortunately I had to turn all of them down as they each had schedules that overlapped my trip to Grenada.  Some might say I should have cancelled the trip, and to be honest I wondered myself if that was what I should do.  But then I thought, this is why I work... to take trips like this. I have heard so many stories of people in this industry who take work over all else and thus never get away, never spend time with their families, never live.  I don't live to work, as much as I love what I do, I work to live.  The incidences of divorce in my line of work is high and attests to the folly of the 'work at all costs' mindset.  It is also the industry that has the highest number premature deaths of all ... ALL ... unions in North America.  The work is hard, not glamorous as everyone thinks, and the hours long.  My week is never less than 72 hours and most often is in the 80's. Some weeks I have worked 90+ hours.   That is hard on anyone's body.

I also just worked a day on Almost Human, a new TV show for Warner Brothers.  A colleague was ill and needed a day off.  Wow what a day (or should I say night).  We started at 13:30 and I was not off the clock till 07:30 the next morning and we were in a dank, cold, dark old filthy abandoned foundry warehouse.  It was brutal but it was a union show at a great rate so that cheque waiting for me when I get home from my trip will be nice!

Anyway, all that to say, I leave for my trip in 5 days and am able to go with a clear mind.  I don't have work lined up for when I return but I am not worried.  Something will happen, it usually does.

Tomorrow I will write about the plans for the second half of my trip ...  10 days on the island of Grenada.

LETS START AT THE VERY BEGINNING...

...A very good place to start. Or so sang Maria Von Trapp.

I have noticed that new people have come to this blog from other sites (mostly Zero to Cruising) expecting, I assume, to read a sailing blog. Instead they land on the latest blog and it's about working on a movie or some triviality that is currently occupying my time, and they don't venture any farther before signing out. (I know this because I have a tracker on the site that lets me know where my readers are from, which pages they went to, and how long they stayed on the site).

So let me tell you this... the best reading in this blog is to be had at the beginning; I started out on what was supposed to be a grand sailing adventure and it all went terribly wrong. I have been told by some readers that it's an incredible story and hugely entertaining, and other readers have told me it needs to be a book or a movie script. I am not sure about any of those claims but I DO know that the best reading to be had is in the first 60 or so posts. Like the one about hearing something growling outside my bedroom window in Tarpon Springs, Florida; driving Alligator Alley with a crotchety old man; working at a dog boarding and grooming place in the Florida Keys; taking a 80 foot houseboat around Key Largo with an alcoholic at the helm; house-sitting at a place that was on evacuation alert near a forest fire in the Okanagan; getting a job at the 2010 Olympic Games, to name just a few.

If you just landed here, I am pleading with you to start at the beginning. You don't have to read it all in one day, it isn't going anywhere. So go grab a coffee, a cup of tea or a glass of wine, find the page titled Ticket Purchased, and sit back and enjoy my misadventures. I promise, you will laugh at my foibles and shake your head at my chutzpah. And... if you stay with me... I do plan to try sailing again in the future. (Meanwhile, I plan to blog soon about working on a new show in town called Mr.Young). Let me know what you think of what you read... I always love getting comments. And maybe those of you who have been with me from the beginning can comment here and let the newbies know what you think of this blog.

Thanks for reading!!

WORKING ON MR.YOUNG

I spent Wednesday and Thursday at the studio in Burnaby for the production of Mr.Young. Everyone seems really great and I think this is going to be a fun show to work on.

I am breaking new ground for Vancouver Script Supervisors. The AD (assistant director) on the show has worked on sit-coms in LA and handed me two scripts and paperwork from one of the shows she recently did. What a huge help it is to me. I went through it and it answered a lot of my questions, and those it didn't - she did. Also, a script supervisor from LA answered my plea for help on a discussion board I belong to with her phone number and two words - 'call me'. So I did and she was immensely helpful. Thank-you Jane Slater! But what both of them said, which has helped me more than they know is, "This is your deal. You're the first script supervisor up here to work on a sit-com. You set it up however you want and just make sure that the editor can work with it. You're the boss - this is your world - just go for it." So that's exactly what I have done and I am thrilled with the results so far.

This won't mean anything to anyone except another script supervisor but I have to say it anyway because I am so excited... I have halved the paperwork involved. HALVED. There's no facing pages; just the lined script and the shooting log - which I have completely revamped for a multi-camera format; there's no detailed descriptions of what each camera is seeing - the editor doesn't need it as they get a line cut feed (basically that's a feed of what the cut should roughly look like generated by the technician in the control room who is switching the feed between the four cameras as we shoot per the directors instructions at the previous days technical rehearsals); there is only one line on the script page for four cameras and it goes straight through all dialogue and action with no squiggles needed because all four cameras see everything - there's one line for each take, and the line starts over at pick-up spots; there's still a DPR at the end of the day, but only two days out of four (as we only shoot two days). There's lots of notes to take on the other two days for changes in the script as we block and rehearse. I will go over the notes with the writer's assistant and the script will then be rewritten to reflect the changes. Rewrites happen a LOT and so I don't do a one line synopsis - I go off of the AD's. I don't do a pre-timing, I time at the table read-through on Tuesdays and when we reherse; I've created a form that has all timings for each scene so that the writers and director can see how it all compares and make changes accordingly. Basically it all means that the workload is drastically - DRASTICALLY - reduced for me. I heard the director say that sit-coms are the best kept secret in Hollywood and I am starting to believe it!!

Here's a look at our sound stage, still under construction. We did a test taping of one scene last night. It went great. We film before a live studio audience on Friday afternoons at 5. The audience arrives at 4. If you want to be part of our audience you can get the information here. We welcome large groups such as school drama classes, etc. Bus pick-up will be arranged.

1)My rolling podium where I will do all of my work from.
2)School Courtyard
3) Down the Soundstage

IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS

It's been raining for a few days on Tortola. Here's one of the the results.

(Filmed by Tortola resident, Bradley Burke)



It's suddenly pouring in my life as well.

I got a text from Kim, my DP (Director of Photography) friend who just took two shows with Reunion Films. He's really excited about doing these movies and his text was to tell me that they still don't have a script supervisor. He gives me the name of the PM (Production Manager), someone I worked for a few years ago, and so I send off an email to him with my resume. About an hour later Kim forwards an email to me that he sent to the PM recommending hiring me.

I get a call the next day from the PM and he sets up a meeting with the Director for this morning. I make a mistake when setting my alarm clock. I had unplugged it and so when I reset the time, I set it for an hour later than it actually was. So I got up at 5:30am thinking it was 6:30 to leave by 7:30 for a meeting in North Vancouver for 9:30. The traffic wasn't as bad as I anticipated so it only took an hour to get there. On the way I discovered my error (when the radio DJ announced the time as 'twenty to seven') and so I was two hours early. I went to McDonalds and had some breakfast and read the newspaper for an hour and a half and then showed up to the meeting early. I sat in the board room and read the script while I waited for the Director, who had not been informed of the meeting so was half an hour late.

We had a great chat and at the end he said 'Well, that's great." I was expecting a, "We'll let you know." but instead got a "Welcome to the crew." I was elated.

After a lovely afternoon with my daughter and her charges at the daycare, having lunch at a park after a 'field trip' on the SeaBus, I headed home.

I doze off in my chair while reading the book I forgot to take with me this morning, and the phone wakes me up. It is a producer from a show called Rise of the Apes and he wants to know my availability. In a bit of a sleep fog, I dimly recall seeing the name of this production somewhere recently. I reply that I just took a show today. He asks me what the dates are. I tell him. He says that they conflict and thanks me and that's that.

I mull over the name of the show. Rise of the Apes. Hmmmm. So I get on the computer and check the latest production list from IATSE, the union that does the big shows. Sure enough, there it is. It's a HUGE show. HUGE. As in, I-have-never-been-on-such-a HUGE show. I agonize as to what to do. This is a fabulous opportunity for me. I see on the list that there's a script supervisor already so this means second unit. I comment on it on my FaceBook page and instantly get comments back from friends in the industry. Basically they all tell me I am crazy if I don't call back right away and beg to be on the show.

So, after much agonizing, I call. I ask for a few more details and then agree to send in my resume. I will leave it up to God. If they call me back offer me the job, then I will take it. Maybe. I just don't know what to do! I really don't want to back out on a show I have said I will do, that's just not cool - and I really like this PM so don't want to burn a bridge with him. AND I have a wedding to not only go to on August 13th, but I am doing the bride's hair and makeup as well as my daughter's, one of the bridesmaids. If I get this, I won't even be able to go to the wedding. I can't stand the thoughts of that. So I will wait to see if they even call.

They just called. I'm going in for an interview tomorrow afternoon.

CARIBBEAN DREAMING

So I realized today that I tossed out my Nikon with the forty dollar battery still in it. Great. Just great. It fits my old Nikon so would have been nice to have as a third spare.

I have been spending the last week or so writing. Well, not exactly writing YET. More like preparing the framework for my script so that, when I do sit down to write, there won't come the usual point, about half way through, where I am stumped and don't know where to go from there OR to realize that I am half way through the amount of pages I need but only a quarter of the way through the story itself. It's been challenging to say the least. I am working through a screenwriting course with my story idea and it is forcing me to look at things like motif, subtext, hooks, payoffs, symbolism, metaphors, crisis and climax.... all sorts of stuff that I normally don't think about at all. I just sit down and start writing. Probably the reason why I have only two completed scripts and about 5 that I abandoned somewhere in the process. So hopefully, I can figure out all of this and apply it to my story so that I can just sit down and bang it out and end up with something that is marketable. Here's hoping.

I have gotten pretty discouraged this week over feeling 'stuck' here. I really want to be sailing the Caribbean. It's something I feel compelled to do and I know I won't settle until I've done it. I am not getting any younger (who is?) and my knee and back give me a lot of trouble one day and then are fine the next. I feel like I have maybe 6 or 7 years before they become so bad I won't be able to sail. But all for the lack of money, I can't get out there and do it. I have someone who is ready to take me on board and all I have to pay for is my flight and food, but I just don't have it. It's frustrating to have money be the reason for keeping you from doing what you really want to do. I guess it's the same for most people though. I was talking to a friend today who has friends with lots of money. She was saying how it strikes her, from time to time, how stuff that is a huge concern to her - they don't even think about. What is super frustrating is that - a couple of shows, and I'd be set to go for 6 months. But, despite predictions to the contrary, it seems that the work this year is marginally better than last. The strength of our dollar right now means even more so that producers will look to Toronto, if they're set on filming in Canada. Their superior tax credit will make up for the dollar.

So as I send off my resume to productions that are planning on shooting here, I dream of azure sea and warm Caribbean breezes.