Shoot Start Scramble

I was reunited with some old colleagues as I walked in this morning. It was a quick meet and greet though as work quickly picked up steam. Thankfully I pushed through a lot of my little jobs so I could start focusing on the bigger picture: The shoot starting. Filming begins in Monday so it's a little bit of a scramble to get everything sorted in time. Luckily, this isn't my first rodeo and I've already been planning this for quite a while now. Everything is dependent on the post arriving in good time and my petty cash getting reconciled. In between I'm trying to offer a hand to my team but I'm so often getting pulled around like a stretch Armstrong. I'm just about making it work.

The Big Read-through

Groan, 4:30am rolls around quicker than I expected. Still I jolted out of bed and onto a train up to the big smoke - our big read-through was today and I did my damnedest arranging tables, pouring waters and lugging pastries around the place. I rubbed shoulders with the stars and listened to them re-enact the entire of the first few episodes. I shook hands with a few of them and made my face known to all the right people so it was smiles all round. In fact, that's a jolly good way of putting this day. I was so stressed out about it last night but once we emerged from it me and my coordinator were flooded with praise. Even my producer shot me a personal thank you message for all my hard work. Though it was like planning a mini wedding, it was worth it for all the happy faces.

Sunday Inbox

With our big read-through tomorrow I tried my best to decompress a little bit before the big day. I had a bit of writing to get done for Louis' so I stowed myself away in the dining room and pecked away at some lines at a leisurely pace. This was tragically cut short after my producer got in touch to ask if I could rearrange the floorplan for tomorrow's read-through. So I got to reshuffle 100 people, only using my gut to move a few of them around. It wasn't perfect, but in fairness they didn't expect too much on Sunday lunchtime from me. My woes pail in comparison to our travel and accommodation coordinator who spent the entire weekend sending out emails and making train & taxi arrangements for all 100 attendees. The last email I saw from them came out at half 6 this evening... I feel so bad for them. 

My train up to London is at the ripe old time of 5:47am tomorrow. I've packed my bags already so I don't have to worry about anything frivolous, but I can't help shake the feeling that something is going to go wrong tomorrow. I honestly think I'm just stressing needlessly as I know I have a fab team to help me out, I just don't want to drop the ball in front of the big wigs.

Writing Bash

Knocked on Louis' door mid morning to settle into a writers room for his game. Spent an hour or so chatting about the direction for some of his character quests, going back and forth about the narrative route and the big emotional payoffs - I absolutely love that stuff so it was a lot of fun spitballing ideas with him. Then we hit the grindstone and bashed out a lot of new dialogue, mostly for errands and more niche moments. I think my typing speed let me down a bit though, I couldn't keep up with how fast Louis was churning out dialogue. I'll probably spend a bit of time tomorrow finishing up the extra bits, more than anything Louis wants his game to feel feature rich and when it comes to writing I reckon no one is going to feel short changed.

Pastries at Sunrise

I was buying pastries before sunrise - hungry mouths to feed for those in attendance of the final day of recces. While everyone was out of the office I reshuffed a meeting room and prepped the Production meeting for 40 attendees, plus food ,drinks and coffees. I can't hog all the glory through as even Rebecca helped me out by offering up her laptop for our Zoom call - this meant I could crack on with my own workload while the grown ups chatted about the important things. Once the meeting adjourned I was back to my desk quickly prepping for our Read-through on Monday, stated late again to get it all done and dusted and hopefully people will sense the hard work me and my team put in.

Or rather, they won't notice. The Curse of Production is only getting noticed when things go wrong, otherwise we're just invisible.

Swirling, Swirling

There I stood, watching an old lady steam milk for my 34 coffee order... I stood there for 45 minutes praying them to speed up, non verbally of course, but I like to think my internal monologue was screeching so hard it could be audible. So the fabled coffee runs ended on a low note, but that's ok because it sounds like I'm in the clear, now I can get back to stressing about my real job. The whole week has very quickly past me by and I'm scrambling to keep up. Umbrellas, cafetieres, stationery and water bottles - all to buy and ready up for our truck next week.

Time and Money Poor

I feel like it's a very human thing to head into work and plot out the day, concluding that if nothing gets in your way you can complete everything you need to do. Well my ship veered off course almost as soon as it got started as our Line Producer left her phone at home so I had to dash back and get it for her. Bit of lost time, we can recover... Ah yes, the big coffee order. That somehow swallowed up 4 hours of my day, one hour of prep, 2 in travel and 1 in execution. Getting back to the office I at long last tucked into some work yet my heart was racing. I had that dreadful anxiety that the day was slipping through my fingers and I had very little to show for it. I'm time AND money poor at the moment as most of my team have maxed out my work debit card. Sigh, all I can do it keep paddling my boat. I'll get there eventually.

Baps and Coffee

A late night followed by an early start. It was up to me to go grab three dozen breakfast baps to lay out across the table for our crew as they readied themselves for our first day of tech recces. A very smooth morning as far as we were concerned, I think they know I'm good at dealing with all things food and drink... Speaking of, my other big job of the day was heading out to a service station to meet up with the gang and bring them a mammoth coffee order. Bless the single barista who I passed the list of orders to, they didn't really know what to say to 32 coffees. They delivered though and pushed them all out in record time, barely missed a beat and got a lot of brownie points for helping organize.

Midnight Oil

Burnt the midnight oil almost literally at work. Only left the office at 11:30pm on account of having to print out the recce packs with a printer that started acting up. At least we all got takeout out of it and it turned into a weird bonding exercise for the team - though perhaps we were mostly disillusional with tiredness. I actually left a bit before everyone else, lord knows when they are getting out. 

Church of Potato Confit

Though we didn't do anything for Valentine's day, I did announce to Rebecca that I booked a table at our favorite weekend breakfast spot. So we donned our Sunday best and went to the church of the vegetarian fry up (with added halloumi). I booked a table for their opening hour which was the right call because for the whole time we were there we had the place to ourselves. Such a rare joy when that happens.

Mark is finally all done and dusted with his London job that consumed his life so Dan and I celebrated with some games. Been a long time coming but we saddled up and played Overwatch as if it were 2016 all over again. I perhaps played one round too many as I felt myself rushing around to keep our final social engagement: Louis and Rachel who were popping round for dinner. Since bake off and Smash Bros has winded down there's been little excuse to hang out as much, but we always enjoy each other's company so over Rebecca's apple crumble we talked our how our brains work while we read and how similar to our parents we are emerging to be.

Women Talking

 With an entire free Saturday staring us in the face, Rebecca and I decided to head to the Watershed to catch a new film. Women Talking recently released, so we fought through the rain and staked out claim on the last good seats in the house. While the subject matter of the film is entirely commendable and the set up was intriguing, all goodwill gradually drained from me as the dialogue was like wading through treacle. In an attempt for characters to sound deep and profound about religion they just go off in soliloquy, making fuzzy statements that often go on uncommented on by other characters. The narration too was so emphatic it ended up not saying anything at all. The pacing and writing reminded me more of theatre, which I very often don't mind, but here it just made everything feel a little disingenuous. It culminated in a film that means very well (and again, fair play to it for attempting to deal with a sensitive topic), but it was an often exacerbating watch. I wish I enjoyed it more.

The Fixer

 I think I'm earning a reputation with my team as a bit of a fixer. I get the curveball often but more recently I've been asked a few more bizzare requests. Midway through one job I was suddenly asked if I could source a big old safe to have in the studio for Monday. Kinda bewildered by the request, I dived into Google, made a phonecall and 15 minutes later I had one reserved. I'd never done that before but it was hilariously rewarding to smash out a request like that... Maybe I am a fixer?

Once the day was over I immediately shot back out again - the board game art gallery nights are back on now. Once I got there it was just me and the owner, and for the rest of the evening it stayed that way. But that was OK! We got round to playing some games that were a little out there that they were keen to try and I got to sample a couple of new ones to me. Was nice that I was remembered too! It's been around 9 months since I was last there but it was like old times heading back in tonight.

Movie Myths

You know how yesterday I was worried our producers wanted to get custom printed directors chairs... Guess what I had to research today. After some extensive googling, I actually don't think they exist as a product for film and TV. All the personalizable chairs I found were for influencer bedrooms and kitchy gifts - a cliche from the movies that doesn't really happen in the real world I followed a recommendation from a friend who gave me a suggestion on a vendor that might do them - just have to wait til tomorrow to learn if they are the real deal or not. Shame, because otherwise I smashed today. I think I'm in such a good place with all of my team (including our director) I could genuinely do finger guns at people and they would smile back. Hearts and minds...

Heck Yes

While driving in I got the call. Our Line Producer left her glasses at work, could I go and get them? Heck yes I can. Drop off the glasses, an hour later our PM is hungry - can I got get him a cooked breakfast? Heck yes I can. Drop them off a bacon and sausage baguette, a little later I take it upon myself to look at camping, director style chairs and sources some that were cheap as chips. Can I buy them? Heck yes I could... But we need sign off from the producer as they may want to get fancy ones with people's names on the backs (you know, the ones like you see in the movies). I've never seen them used unironically but I guess we'll see what the consensus is soon. Lot of little jobs like this keep me occupied and keep the team happy. Since there are stresses aplenty at the moment it's good to keep the mood warm.

Baps for Hire

I really am the food guy. I emailed a local greasy spoon about helping us out with some catering options for next week's recces and got an alarmingly helpful and personable response. Their contact details were passed on by a colleague and that saved me a lot of cold calling - this is none of our first rodeos so the shared pool of knowledge we have is immensely useful. To return the favour I headed out to check out the apartment belonging to our director before they check in. I didn't realize the place had a balcony view overlooking the centre of Bristol! I made a small excuse to check the scenery and I was blown away by it. I never thought in a million years I'd be looking down on the very spot I used to eat my lunch on many moons ago, how far I've come...

Cheers from my Peers

Oof, I was put through the prep wringer. My curveball request was very a super specific memory card for our DOP who needed to shoot a camera test. I researched it, found a local camera house and collected what the manufacturer assured me was the right card. Guess what... It wasn't. Cue a mad rush across town back to the shop before it closed, all the while getting phonecalls from people all asking for various things and tech support. Worst part was our DOP managed to work around the issue while I was driving - good for us, but I was running around like a madman for almost no reason. 

So the day was ropey. But this evening was Overwatch Monday - the weekly games night with Louis and company. Historically we do appallingly badly matches, but tonight we were in an unstoppable winning high, the likes of which I've never seen. Morale was through the roof and everyone was having a grand old time. Just at the end of our final game I landed an incredibly hype play the elicited cheers from my peers. From being the office punching bag to knocking it out of the park in the virtual world - a reversal that saved the day.

Costanza Coffee

 Did 'The Walk' with Rebecca's parents - the traditional Sunday morning stroll up and down Bristol's harbourside. For me it acted as the perfect excuse to get another coffee from Little Victories, the long black I got from there last week was so good I simply had to go back for seconds... Even if it meant going to a different cafe than the rest of my group and effectively George Costanza'ing myself in the process. 

After waving Rebecca Folks goodbye it was back to the sofa for for well-deserved R&R. I sat at my computer ready to dive into some games but it struck me that I actually didn't have anything I wanted to play. I have things releasing on the not-so-distant horizon, but in this very moment I find myself at odds with what I could be enjoying. This is a predicament I have found myself in more and more the older I get now, perhaps I just need some time away from games before getting back into them.

Portishead

With Rebecca's folks visiting we thought we take them slightly out of Bristol to see the sights. Enter Portishead, a town none of us had ever been to so it was a whole new world for us all. There was a muddy beach, a marina and a Wetherspoons - all you could ever want from a Somerset settlement. I think they had a good time, it was mostly a pleasant coastal walk while the rain just barely held off. What I know for certain that they enjoyed was the traditional dinner at Acapella, a favourite pizza place. Everyone always leaves with a smile on their face once we leave there and tonight was no exception.

King of Cake

Only one big job remained before my week could end: arrange a Birthday cake for our Line Producer. That would have been easier had our site's wifi not totally bricked itself. The IT technician taught me how to fix it so I became the internet guru on demand. When. I wasn't troubleshooting laptops I really was arranging cakes. I have a regular place for exactly this and once again they were able to help me deliver a greatly appreciated Birthday surprise.

Back Row to the Starts

 Rebecca didn't even stir when I woke up at 5:45, all so I could go and collect pastries for our big meeting today. Plenty of hoo-ha was made in the run up to everything, but it all went off without a hitch. I was on standby to make tea and to act as tech support, this meant I got back-row tickets to the entire meeting to see how our creative team pitches to executives - extremely well as it turns out. Listening to them talk about the project in detail got me jazzed to be working on this one all over again. But the real beat part of the day was scrounging leftovers from the catering team - everyone else also agrees that was the day's highlight.

Perfect Planner

It was non-stop meeting prep for me, punctuated by the occasional run to Pret of course. Did a massive shop of biscuits and orange juice and pre-ordered over a dozen fresh pastries for me to collect first thing tomorrow morning. Everything must be perfect for the big wigs and I'm trying to ensure that no coffee cup mismatches... Which reminds me. I need to try and buy more matching coffee cups tomorrow morning. We had a dress rehearsal for this meeting last week which went swimmingly well, we're eager to keep a good thing going. Plus we get to pick at all the leftover food, and there WILL be leftovers.

Knuckling Down

 Gears are noticibly shifting upwards at work as all the departments are scrambling to get all their prep done. We have a slew of big meetings and recces coming up that all require the combined efforts of the whole of my team - it's a sprint towards the marathon and we are all praying we will get over to the other side. My to do list for tomorrow is pretty massive, all in preparation for another meeting with the head honchos on Thursday, we set the bar high last week so we just have to keep up the good work. I'm starting to value my home time a heck of a lot more as a result, there I can veg out and spend real time with the people I love. Plenty of people get married to their work, but I hope I'm achieving a good balance.

The Fablemans

Rebecca woke up early with me so she could unwrap her Birthday presents with some company. I got her a book plus a clamping reading light she can mount onto the headboard of our bed (really it was a gift for me so I can sleep while she reads). I had to dash off for a frustrating day at the office, but that made coming back home all the sweeter. We headed out for a Birthday Pho and a movie at the Watershed - all of Rebecca's favourite things in one day!

We saw The Fablemans which is a hilariously unmarketable movie about the life of Steven Spielberg. It's opening shot starts with all the sentimental schmaltz you come to expect but then it very quickly decides it's tone is going to be one of forced reality, where people try to lie to themselves as long as possible before having to face the music. There's some fun and charming home movie making but the film wisely never nods and winks to the camera about Spielberg's future - there's no big sharks which someone points to and says 'wow that's scary'. It was enjoyable but I'm in no rush to rewatch it thanks to some odd pacing and slightly overlong run time. It's thankfully not a John Lewis Christmas ad about Spielberg's life though, and once you appreciate the direction it takes you'll be enchanted by it.

Wheeler Dealers

First time for everything: today Rebecca and I went to a car dealerships so she could test drive a prospective vehicle. I expected us to turn up and start chatting to an old school dealer before they got interrupted by the hot-shot salesman who doesn't wear a necktie. I wanted to witness some inter-dealer conflict and pick who I wanted to go to the prom with. Instead, all the salesmen wore cardigans and we're more interested in talking about GDPR legislation. Rebecca got a kick out of the test drive though, it was just nice to be in a car without worrying about the price of petrol.

The Sunday blues hit me fairly hard tonight. The prospect of returning to work doesn't daunt me really but once you've had a taste of freedom you just want to binge it.

Bristol on a Saturday Night

For all intents and purposes, today was a day of rest. Rebecca and I finished up our weekly chores in record time before decompressing on the sofa, I felt my strength returning all the while and now I feel fit and able! Fit and able to go out drinking that is! Rebecca's Birthday is just a few days away but tonight was the friends celebration at a nearby pub. With a few pints in me we chatted about Darren Brown's hypnotic prowess and the horrors of mice in a home. I forgot just how thriving Bristol city centre can get on a Saturday night - it almost looked like freashers week with the amount of people lingering around kebab shops. Everyone had a swell evening though, Rebecca in particular who was only upset the evening couldn't go on indefinitely.

Wall Boards

My colleagues often snigger at the toolkit I bring into work. Everyone is chuckling til they need a favour though and today I got to show how cosy I was with DIY jobs by putting up a wall mounted whiteboard. I drilled some custom holes into the board then went to town on walls that technically belong to the counsil. About halfway through the day though I started feeling dog tired, my energy levels were tanking fast. Maybe my body is still recovering from the flu earlier this week, but either way I am embracing sleep like never before. I gotta keep my energy levels up so I'm fit and ready to give my parents a 'Sorry you have Covid' phonecall - lots of illness floating around and I'm so over all of it.

Meeting the Big Wigs

I was walking through the rain with a cake box full of takeaway pastries before the sun started rising. A big meeting with plenty of execs was happening today and we all wanted to put our best foot forward, good grub is a shortcut to the hearts of many and a slap up lunch put everyone in a great mood. I poured coffee and made smalltalk with the big wigs, all of whom were very friendly. It all went off without a hitch, our team were really stressing about today but now it's all over we can hardly remember what were were worried about.

Firery Tea

I took in all the ingredients I needed to make some bonafide lemon and ginger tea. My other colleague who is also suffering with the same flu as me came into work today so we chinked mugs on some homebrewed tea and felt the fire of the ginger work it's magic. There's a big meeting involving a lot of execs tomorrow afternoon which we're scrambling around to finish preparing for. My first order of business is collecting over a dozen fresh pastries for them so we can put our best foot forward. I've also been designated as the barista for the meeting - that's my team's way of saying 'we're bringing out the big guns'.