Breakfast Bap Slap

Had an atypical day on set because it was our marketing art shoot day. An external company rolled in with their own staff to do a lot of the work, but they also brought in a lot of folks that we had in board so a lot of toes were being stepped on. They admittedly got my heckles up as I almost had my breakfast slapped from my hand because I wasn't on the catering list... Despite being the chap who booked said caterers. No matter though, the day went and it gave me a chance to catch up on a bunch of my back burner admin work. Back to it tomorrow, early starts and all...

Forgetful Gravy

A bowl of porridge alongside Greek yogurt, honey and blueberrys set Rebecca and me up for a good Sunday. We left Matt's flat and rejoined Rebecca's parents for a roast lunch. I actually can't recall the last time I had gravy so that was a nice treat. We drive home in the rain and spent the evening doing our own thing. Having spent the whole of the weekend doing social things both of us needed a chance to recharge our introverted sides.

I'm in for a non-shoot day tomorrow - not hugely sure what to expect but I get paid a little extra so I can't complain!

Happy Birthday Matt

As per most Saturdays now I woke up a little later with the feeling of brain fog and heavy limbs. A slow get up helped while Rebecca went out to see her Nan, after that it was time to head out and see Matt to wish him a Happy Birthday. In fact, we spent the whole day with him! Started with some day drinking at a nearby favourite pub then migrated indoors for games and more drinks. Highlight was listening to Sunscreen while helping out with the washing up, nice to hear a song about milestones as our friend crosses over another big year in his life - glad that we were invited to be a part of it too.

->

Early start -> emails and phone calls -> setting up ice cream van -> preparing end of block wrap gifts -> meet and greet with pizza van -> pack down and run rushes back to edit house -> immediately get gridlocked behind our facilities trucks ->. Drive to London -> sleep (finally)

Second Hand Stress

After feeling a mite jaded about our PR company parachuting in and taking all our glory, by golly did they lean in on us for assistance. I spent the day reiterating information to a new party who assumed we hadn't already done all the leg work. No bother though, it just validated the fact that I can be on the ball and ahead of the game sometimes. I mostly supported my PM, whom I've never really seen stressed until today. Just made sure he was ticking over ok and wasn't on the verge of imploding. We'll all be laughing this time next week but right now we're climbing a mountain riddled with nettles.

Petty Cops

You know how in many cop dramas there a scene where the detective duo are moments away from cracking a case, then a new division get brought in from upstate to say 'We'll take it from here's and then the original detectives get overprotective... That was me today. Our publicity team totally back-channelled me on my catering arrangements for next week. With the catering company I sourced and built up a greta relationship with no less. Maybe I'm just being bitter but it rubbed me the wrong way for petty reasons... Less work for me I guess!

Exhausted Eyeballs

A decent night's sleep doesn't always set you up for the day because I was feeling exhausted behind the eyes. My energy levels were fueled by seemingly all my colleagues buying sweet treats, cake, doughnuts and biscuits all poured in and it'd be rude not to eat some of the niceness they wanted to share. I got back a little later though and my reserves feel a little sapped. Maybe I'll just sleep it off and hope tomorrow I bounce into life.

Scripted Birthday

Monday, Monday, Monday. It sure felt like one while the rain pelted down across our Unit Base. Thankfully we were all indoors, tucked away with our sets and our coffee. My day was looking a little quiet so I hopped into the floor to spend some time again with the scriptys to learn their trade. Spent hours with them in fact, I only had to hop away later to help prepare some birthday preparations for one of our cast members. All the effort was worthwhile because they were legitimately touched that we remembered and did something fun with them on set. They said how this has turned out to be such a lovely little job and I quite agree.

Introverts Paradise

 If stepped outside today I would have deemed it a failure. Closest I came was when I went to put the bin out, I consider my front step fair game so my Sunday was still protected. Rebecca and I became coach potatoes in the morning, bearly shuffling from our side by side spots. I don't even think Rebecca got our of her pyjamas! We weekended well, doing social stuff yesterday and indulgenced in an introverts paradise today. 

Gave my Mum a quick call for her Birthday too - hope she had a lovely day in Bournemouth!

Barbie-Heimer

 Been a while since I've had such a good Saturday. I set an alarm so I woke up with plenty of time to go uptown to help Mark and Lucy shift a bike shed off their property. Their home is being re-rendered so it needed to park it somewhere else, and we needed to do it first thing in the morning because most of us had to scarper away to the cinema to catch an unlikely double bill. Yes, Oppenheimer and Barbie landed in cinemas this weekend and I had arranged with someone from work to go watch the pair of them. It's been a while since I've done a back-to-back screening, longer still since I did some 'event cinema'. Everyone and their mothers were out at the movies today for it and that created this really gorgeous audience environment for both movies - especially since every seat in the house was taken for both films. In between movies we headed to a pub for some food and to discuss what we saw with an adult beverage in hand. Friends and coworkers came and went throughout the day and we ended up with a tight little group as we went into Barbie, we lost track of time once we came out because we were all chatting and enjoying hanging out so much. Feel so jazzed about film now and so glad we made the effort to invite everyone out for a little weekend event.

Rum Sipper

 In a very out of character move I set my alarm incorrectly leaving myself with only a few minutes to get ready and head into the world. While that didn't grump me out, a lot of things throughout the day threatened to do so. I had to take care of a script meeting with plenty of grown ups, a job I wasn't mentally prepared for so I just kinda winged it - not my finest work but it did the trick. My seat on the truck was commendeered and my lunch was just ok. My day took a nice positive turn as Rebecca, Rachel and I all headed over to the board game gallery night. It was by far the busiest I'd seen it there, I felt so pleased for the owner who was also clearly chuffed with the turnout. We played a few new games, sipped some homemade rum and had a lot of nice chats - an ideal start to the weekend.

Depleted Social Battery

Early, early start for me this morning. I had to drive to the studio before heading to our location for 6:30. I was in a oddly good mood in spite of everything, maybe just a bit sleep deprived but I was oddly socialable and big-energy throughout the day. My social battery was depleted by the evening when I was due to meet up with Pearless, a pint thankfully fortified me for a spell and we had a nice time in a quiet pub. Some sleep will do me good about now though.

Whirring Brain

Survived through hump day off one extra cup of coffee... Which I hindsight wasn't the best idea because it sent my brain whirring. I ploughed through my job list though, so much so that I managed to spend a bit more time with the script team on the floor. We went through some different kind of scenes which was tricky for all parties so it was good to learn some of that. We wrapped at a semi social time too so Rebecca and I got to hang out and play some games together in the evening - solid lil' Wednesday that.

Fridge Fungus Part 2

 First up was a long old drive to our Producer's favorite cafe. I was there early on to collect lunches for today's tech recces and pass them onto the fun bus. I totally underestimated the drive back to base though so I didn't end up getting back til after midday. And what fun I had once I returned. The fridge on the truck was kicking our a foul stench once again, so I donned the marigolds and scooped out the fungus that started growing atop the compressor. I gathered quite the audience while doing this and we all had a good laugh, I wore a facemask mostly the keep the smell away but also for the lols. I really did get all the good jobs today.

Conveyor Belt

The conveyor belt of my duties ticked over at just the right pace, any quicker and I would have started sinking. I was helping set up meeting rooms on location and scanning in timesheets, all while reading the new scripts and cross referencing them against the latest schedule. Sounds crazy but I wished I made more coffees today, when you start a little later though all the timings suffer a knock on effect. Perhaps that's just my craving for simpler times. Or perhaps that's me just looking for any job that isn't cleaning out the back of the trucks fridge... There's something fetid back there and I I'm not quite ready to face that.

Duck Duck (No Goose)

Built a chummy friendship with the PM on my current job, so much so that he invited me to hang out with him at his home. His claim to fame is his 11 ducks that he raised from fertilized eggs from eBay. From humble beginnings, he built them a bonafide run and a little coop to go with it. I was lucky enough to go out and feed them some peas. 

Otherwise we were playing video games. I ticked off a bucket list item by finally beating Golden Axe on the Mega Drive, albeit by the virtue of the emulator's rewind function. I bought board game over too but we didn't get the chance to play any - there's always next time.

Hollywood Hotshots

 I spoke here yesterday about how I'm looking forward to enjoying my weekend to the fullest... Well I did, to some extent today but we also spent collectively almost two hours stuck in traffic. Rebecca and I motored our way to Taunton but spent an hour emerging out of Bristol. The M5 is a cruel mistress, one that swallowed our resolve and our time. Luckily it was very nice to see Matt Winlow once we landed in town, he's deep into the current series of Malory Towers and we exchanged a few fun 'on set' stories like Hollywood hotshots. A part of me is a little mopey I didn't get to do Malory again this year, but I am chuffed to be on such a nice long job at home.

Chasing the Birthday Boy

 Back on cake duty, I spent the morning wrangling card signitures and moving Birthday cake out of plain sight. The Birthday Boy spotted the card going round the crew which was hilariously embarrassing but he took it in good grace and was sufficiently humbled when the crew sung him happy birthday. Back at my day job I tied a neat bow on this week, even got some work done as I hurtle into Monday. But for now, I'll park my weekend work. Tis the weekend after all and I intend to enjoy it to its fullest.

Family Unit

My primary job was returning our dinged up hire car. Thankfully on a film set you're never too far from a car expert. We had our action vehicle chap who supplies vintage cars to us, he took a good look at everything and made sure I was roadworthy. One of my colleagues was a bit stressed today too, but she took 10 minutes off to hole up with the costume supervisor who is an expert hand massuse - she came back new woman! It's remarkable how many of the crew have people-helping skills, and they're always willing to deploy them to help the cause. Between call time and wrap time we are a huge family unit.

Tow Ho Ho

Gotta love a curve ball. I intended on trying to creep down to set at some point today but alas, I was virtually indisposed for the entire day with every odd job under the sun. Running breakfasts, driving kit, arranging couriers, making coffee, washing out fridges, finding missing radios, enquiring about Spanish facility trucks and running rushes. Our other Production Assistant got into a scrap on the road after someone drove into the back of her - thankfully no one was harmed but it looks like our cute little Production Ford Fiesta is getting swapped out. Fond memories of that car, sad to think of it being towed away.

Supervising a Field

Affixed an iPad, a clipboard and a stopwatch to my person - today was Script Supervising day. The team vouched for me and agreed to let me fly solo and supervise a splinter unit. I stood in a field alongside a skeleton crew of camera guys and shot some very easy establishers, I logged it all down to the best of my ability and tried to look like I knew what I was doing. I reckon it went alright too, the stuff we got looked stunning and I kept up with the rapid pace. 

Once I was back in the office it was business as usual: posting letters and buying snacks for the big wigs. I wonder which half of the day I enjoyed more?

Monday Marathon Vibes

Day went in a blink of an eye. Mostly I was doing driving related job going to and from with a van packed, or awaiting to be packed. I'd rather have a quiet Monday cracking on with my own work but this line of work is constantly shifting. But I did run a lot of favours today earning me even more goodwill from my team, I just wish it didn't come at the cost of feeling like I'm e already endured a full week before Monday was over and done with.

Return to M Shed

Took Rebecca's folks over to the M Shed, a venue we've passed by a dozen times but finally got our patronage on this drizzly Sunday. I left them in the history of transport section (trains and buses ain't really my thing) and hopped on up to the Bristol life section to re-immerse myself into the world of rebellion and protests Bristol was known for back in the day. 

Once home Rebecca and I got a few hours to switch off our brains before we welcomed the final guest into our house this weekend, our friend Pete who has the knack if learn new board games and quickly win on his first try. Today was no exception. I had to bud a quick farewell as my call time and travel time tomorrow is especially evil. I already can't wait to say goodbye to Monday.

On No, Overslept

Weekends offer the luxury of not having to set an alarm in the morning. This also means that you get shaken awake by a hungry girlfriend after oversleeping for waaaay too long. Which was doubley embarrassing because I had a social engagement to keep first thing today which left me 30 minutes to cook and eat porridge, shave and get dressed. I agreed to play boardgames with our 2nd AD and his family at a nearby board game cafe. Sweaty and bleary eyed I just about made it in time after jogging part of the way. My physical exertion turned into a mental one after I was handed a rulebook and told to teach a new game to the crowd - thank the stars I've read my fair share of game manuals because I made quick work of that. So after I caught my breath we had a good time - always nice to hang out with coworkers outside of the office. 

Rebecca's folks came visiting today too which meant a pizza appointment up the road and posh coffee made in our very own kitchen. The entire visit seemed a lot more chill than usual, probably because it was just a social call over a single night - to itiniary to stick too or deadlines to hit, just easy breezy chats and wine.

Stop 'N Go

Had a few false starts across the day, I was hoping to spend a bit of time in set again but eventualities kept pulling me back into the fold of Production. We got some fiddly day at the start of next week so I helped tee a few of them up and Fiver Friday was due it's long requested return. On top of that it was just an odd day with a lot of things shimmying around without much rhyme or reason. When all was said and done though I got home in decent time and even made it out to my nearby Friday board game night. Can't wait to sleep now though, I'll be out like a light.

Premature Printer

Rushed through my admittedly short job list once again so I could get back onto set. We had some giga scenes to navigate, all of which were simple but complex in their own ways. All I could do was watch and take notes as best I could. I returned to the Production Truck ready to print the Callsheet but a big old curve ball slowed us down a fair old bit, I stuck around to help out and felt drained afterwards. One more day before the weekend at least, just praying I don't get another oversleeping headache on Saturday - those all but confirm I was overdoing something.

Eyeline Expert in the Making

Batted away the curve balls before they spread like wildfire - that's my job role in a nutshell. My docket was looking a little clean this morning but the universe always loads me up out of the blue. Luckily I powered through them and even had time to spend the afternoon with the script team again. Moreso than ever before the penny started to drop as I understood more and more about the role and how to do it properly. To reward my efforts my package of board games that I ordered back in April finally turned up. I coached a rather poorly Rebecca through a game of Splendor Duel. Even though she was pepped up on painkillers and spent more time blowing her nose she managed to beat me no sweat. That's my curse, I love games but I'm just trash at them.

Summer Sniffles

I was drifting into a deep sleep last night when I realized I totally forgot to blog here last night! Thankfully today and tomorrow have kinda blurred into one for me anyway. I dishes out my homemade brownies to anyone who wanted a bite and won plenty of favour with the team. We suffered out in the rain today though, bogged down with temperamental action vehicles and a tricky day. I was politely roped into helping with the get out, I took my lil' van up the road and crammed it full of sodden directors chairs and take away cups - it was a little thing but it really helped the cause. Back home Rebecca confessed she feels a cold coming on... At times today I noticed the beginnings of cold-like symptoms. I'd give anything to sidestep the Summer Sniffles though.

Tapestry of History

Yesterday we quickly discovered that we lacked a saw that could go through thin metal. Today was mostly about rectifying that so we could trim down a blind to the correct width. I'm now the proud owner of a very scary looking hack saw and a function set of blinds - a double Sunday upgrade. I also found myself with two whole trays of brownies, mostly done for my work colleagues but also to act as a pudding for Mark and Lucy who hosted us for a cracking BBQ and board game shin dig. I didn't expect the evening to take us on a journey into the past, looking at the history of Bristol's Google Street View and comparing old charted maps... But I'm kinda glad it did! Very cool to learn a bit more about the past and discover where we fit in to the weird and wonderful tapestry of history.

Hibernation Hangover

Running theme with Saturdays is that I feel like total garbage during the morning. I think the lack of sleep finally catches up to me as my body goes into relax mode and I get shafted with a hibernation hangover of sorts. As such, I spent the day nursing my head with coffee and painkillers til I was well enough to actually start enjoying my weekend. We took a walk up the high street and popped into a new restaurant for a swift lunch - Rebecca treated me after a big raise she got so I was chuffed with a nice meal out. We started to trim our kitchen blinds down to size but hit a speedbump when the instructions asked us to trim down a metal tube... Guess we've got to buy a wood saw now so that's a B&Q trip tomorrow (a weekend wouldn't be complete without a visit to the nation's favourite hardware shop). 

Rebecca has never seen the Indiana Jones films before so I took her on a tour to 1981. Raiders of the Lost Ark is such a classical adventure movie that still conveys the pinnacle of movie magic. It's so good that it looks easy but you know that every element has been curated just to sweep up viewers into a great ride.