Gangsta Granny - That's a Wrap

 Arrived at work at 5:45am and didn't stop hustling til about 7:15pm. There's always plenty for me to do on final days but this time round I really was doing a bit of everything. Handing out our wine wrap gifts was top of my list. I bagged them all up and presented them to the crew who all sniggered at the custom labels I made, for a low budget gift I think we gave them a lot of soul that people appreciated. All the adrenaline left my veins about 2 minutes before I finished my drive home so I just pancakes on the sofa when I got back - I can already tell I'm going to sleep so well.

M&S Mecca

I spent so much time wrangling the crew wrap gifts I almost forgot to get my own team some little presents. Thankfully we somehow landed a day off before our final shoot day so I hit the shops in search for some treats. I had most of my team pegged for wine and chocolates, but one chap I'm working with revealed to me his love for peanut butter and chocolate and that he's becoming a father soon. He's also just shy of 7ft tall so I knew this was the perfect gift:

It's a product only available from M&S and thankfully I'm living out in the yummy mummy outskirts of London so they weren't hard to come by. An M&S Simply Food was nearby so I walked there but the branch was too small and didn't stock it. I figured an M&S Food Hall would do them, but to my confusion and chagrin, the Food Hall I caught a bus to get to was the same size as the Simply Food. I almost lost hope at this point, but the perfection of the present spurred me onto try one more shop at a retail park - I knew it was Big Daddy or bust here as it was the mammoth shop. I was getting mighty hungry at this point of the mid afternoon and I could barely believe my eyes when I finally saw the fabled peanut butter bar in the corner of a shelf, my hands trembled with disbelief and malnourishment - the journey was worth it.

As  a cherry on top there was a chap giving away free iced coffee there too. My hell quickly turned into heaven.

Hope everyone likes their bits anyway. I have to head in even earlier than usual tomorrow to reprint a portion of the callsheet - a coffee cart is coming to set and we accidentally misattributed it's funder. There zero humbleness in this business, what's the point of doing a nice thing if none knows you've done it is a prevailing but flawed thought.

Prancing Pret

 If you were in Central London and looking out your window at mid morning today you may have spotted me and asked yourself 'is he really going into that Pret again?!' I was in and out, in and out getting our cast breakfasts and coffee and more breakfast and peppermint teas. Two hours later we had fed everyone and it was time to head back to base to crack on with prepped the wrap gifts. There was a bit of arts and crafts involved which meant 4 hours of my day was spent getting glue all over my fingers. But like the cast breakfasts I could picture in my mind's eye how pleased people would be with the end product. I showed everyone in the know about the gifts and got glowing responses, just hope everyone likes them as much as my team.

Bouquets and Buses

Was up early buying ground coffee for my team as our supplies were low and an under caffeinated Production Team is a sluggish sight. After driving for 90 minutes into work I got to drive some crew to our location in Central London and back again, another hour in the car basically. No matter, the only other big job was going out to buy someone flowers as a thank you gift, only they never delivered them to the lucky recipient so that was a little useless too. Especially as it meant I riding the bus for over an hour to get them. I did get let off work early though as I'm needed first thing tomorrow to help buy breakfast for the cast. Where am I buying food from I hear you ask? The one, the only, Pret a Manger of course!

Skeleton Stationery

Last week of filming and already a day down. Everything is beginning to wind down now and we're shedding all the assests we don't need anymore. I drove a hire car back this afternoon and begun to trim the fat in our stationery cupboard - all the while wondering why on Earth I packed on so many Pritt Sticks. The wrap gifts also arrive tomorrow and I'm really hoping they turn out well. I was stressing about the design and the printing on them for ages, but once I see them with my own eyes I'll finally be able to put it out of my mind.

Swiss Army Man

With my one day off I caught up on some sleep and some movies - with just me in the house it seemed like the best way to spend the day anyhow.

Swiss Army Man is the first film directed by the Daniels, the chap's behind this year's stellar Everything Everywhere All At Once. It shares a lot of DNA too with absurdist humour blended with heartfelt 'human experiences' montages a la Eternal Sunshine. I think audiences weren't quite ready for this film when it first came out but now it'll find a place as more people explore the director's back catalog. While it still had a trancendant quality that totally worked for me but it is a bit rough around the edges, especially the ending which tonally collides with itself. That was undoubtedly the intended purpose but it effectively undermined it's own 'life is worth living' message by instead saying 'wasn't that all a bit weird?!' For a film as confident as this it just needed to stick to it's guns on the ending too.

Boy is Taika Watiti's second outing, showcasing the natural beauty of New Zealand and the people who live there. Really sweet film about a boy idolizing his fugitive father and the ebb and flow if their disfunctional relationship. Lot of laughs, lot of heart, lot of landscapes.

Secondhand Home Sick

Had another one of those days where I felt like the day went quickly and I was always busy, although I couldn't tell you exactly what I got done. I got the bulk of the wrap gifts ordered and sorted - my big job that has long overstayed its welcome. Otherwise I've just been listening to how great a day Rebecca has been having. She had some of our uni friends over for the weekend, had coffee out, went day drinking and hit a curry house for a lazy takeaway dinner. It was impossible not to be jealous while my teeth chattered in my mobile office. I reckon I might be a little homesick now but not much longer to go.