Logistical Nightmare

Fell into a false sense of security again today, the moment I thought it'd be an easier day the God's decided to test me and the rest of my department. Some logistical planning all fell through very suddenly and somehow it all landed on my desk. Plus in classic film and TV fashion it  all needed sorting ASAP. Though I dreamt up a plan and chased a few leads my plan turned out to be very expensive (it was last minute after all). So I called up Mark Stopher for some sage advice and he pointed me in the direction of a chap who could help. Turned out that phonecall to Mark saved our show almost a grand's worth of cash! More to finalize tomorrow but I think I've dealt with the worst of it.

For dinner I rustled up my elusive signature dish: pasta puttenesca. Though its a firm favourite of mine, I'm forever cursed to cook it for an audience of one as my cottage buddy was out most of this evening. He enjoyed the leftovers though so at least I got to share it in spirit.

A Busy Whirlwind

Birdsong filled my ears as I awoke in the Devon countryside. I made a pot of coffee and had a leisurely breakfast while thinking about what good weather we were due today. I remember thinking 'today is going to be a good day'. Instead, it was manic busy for the next 11 hours. There was always something more for me to do as the goalposts kept shifting for me. If I wasn't rushing to try and sort something out, I was rushing to change plans on arrangements that fell through. 

Thankfully, it was busy for all of us and we all acknowledged just how horrific today was. To treat ourselves we headed to the only open fish and chip shop in the village and headed ti the coast to watch the sunset. A surprisingly calm way to finish a whirlwind of a day.

Making a Rod for my Back

A sudden flurry of fiddly jobs kept me from hitting the road sooner. I said goodbye to Rebecca about 5 times before popping back into the house to send 'just one more' email. Once everyone was sorted and happy, I took my new chunky car and drove all the way to Devon, it took me much longer than anticipated due to roadworks but thatjust gave me more time to drink in the countryside. Once I turned up at my cottage I immediately bumped into the locations department from my last job and they invited me down to the beach to hang out. I couldn't stay for long as I need phone signal to book a taxi for someone but the coastline is certainly lovely.

 After cooking dinner for myself and my cottage buddy I thought I could quickly crack on with the job I'd been putting off for a while: dividing up the cast scripts per episode. I had a seemingly genius plan on how to do it without a set of dividers, but it was a real time sink. 3 hours went by in a blink and I was only 80% done. Hope it pays off.

Dreaming of Tomatoes

The vast majority of my packing for Devon exists in a hypothetical state (I'll do it tomorrow). What I couldn't neglect in good conscious was the big initial food shop I'd have to do prior to arriving in my self catered cottage. The groceries are all covered in addition to my wages which is lovely, but the real bonus is actually being able to eat tomotes on a regular basis once again. My weekly menu consists of spag bol and putanesca mostly, I'll be sharing meals with a ex-uni mate and current co-worker too so I hope they like tomatoes and anchovies as much as I do! I keep double checking how far the drive is as if it'll magically change from 2 hours 30... It'll be a long one whatever happens, just have to pray the WiFi is decent while we're out there.

Planting Potatoes

I always forget just how nice weekends are. Rebecca and I headed up to the garden center today for a charming window box, got some snapdragons and violas which are now planted and in situ. They caught Louis and Rachel off guard when they came to drop our seeding potatoes off, they commented on just how nice it looked, glad to know it's already doing its job. 

 Dreading the thought of the clocks going forward tonight though, an entire nation is just about to jet lag themselves while we all lose an hour of our precious Sunday. I still dream about a future where daylight saving is abolished, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to tell grandchildren: that everyone collectively decided to wind their clocks back and forward twice a year - they'd never believe you!

Stationary Camel

The final days of prep is always a real bun fight. So many moving parts to finalize and pack down, most of my day was spent printing (once again) and packing up several boxes full of stationary and lugging them down three flights of stairs. We did it all though! Everything is all ready for Monday so we can really hit the ground running. Even my new hire car has turned up. It's certainly a bigger drive than I'm accustomed to, a mini SUV in fact. Hope I don't get spoilt driving it, but it'll no doubt be useful on the bumpy, windy roads around Devon and Cornwall.

Board Games on Board

Printing draws to a close at long last, now comes the process of stacking up everything into boxes and wondering if it'll all fit in my car for the drive back home... I mean if there's a will there's a way after all! Now that's we've done the vast majority of the legwork, my mind turns to the bits to look forward to on the shoot. Since we're all staying in adorable, self catered cottages in the middle of nowhere my brain is thinking what meals to cook and what board games to bring. My new hire car turns up tomorrow, once I find out how big it is I can make a judgement call on just how many fun bits to bring.

Starting to get excited about it now!

Insurance Email

Reckon I printed, hole punched and filed 5,000 pieces of paper today... In fact, I know I did. Sad part is I'm only halfway there, plenty more to do tomorrow! Slowly but surely the prep work is all starting to finish, we're just dotting every I and crossing every T, praying that we've done enough. We know it won't be (it never is) but if anything does go wrong at least we can say 'you didn't read the email properly!'

Printer Hog

Took my new laptop for a spin in the office and it was immaculate. Honestly, I was probably a fool for not upgrading sooner. I can actually open documents and hop onto video calls without a 3 minute run-up time, my new colleagues will never know how lucky they are. 

My ongoing duties from last week are slowly getting wrapped up now, instead I've been given the incredibly long job of printing, holepunching and filing all the core cast's scripts, and boy... there's a lot of them. We started off on the office printer, but I quickly lost popularity whenever someone else wanted to print anything else, I became the shameful printer hog. Plus, the amount of paper we're going through... feel bad for the environment.

Farewell Mingus

I was biting my tongue for most of today, in between the work calls and various little jobs I had to do my mind kept returning to one thing... my new laptop. I picked it up lunchtime and waiting until I got home this evening to finally boot it up and give it a go and wow... what a difference compared to my old one! Lighting quick everything basically, that what you get after you wait 9 years (1/3rd of my life) to pick up a new laptop.

What ultimately comes when I upgrade to a new piece of tech though is a miniature obituary for my old laptop. Purchased with my first ever paycheck from Eddie Catz back in 2012, my Dell Inspiron was future proof in many ways. I immediately dubbed him 'Mingus', for no other reason other than it sounded like a cool name and Louis had been listening to a lot of Charles Mingus at that time. Mingus carried me through university, I wrote every essay, every script and my entire dissertation on him. In his later years, even after his battery began to fail, I used him to write my YouTube videos and job application forms. So much of my life he's been by my side but now it's time to put him to rest. No doubt I'll keep hold of him (Still got plenty of data to transfer). Mingus has done me nothing less than proud, and saying goodbye to him feels like losing an arm. It's bittersweet moving onto a new laptop for sure, but now that I've tasted the forbidden fruit of an SSD I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.

My Octopus Teacher

 Further unwound by doing a bit of baking after breakfast. My new colleagues are very big on buying office treats for us all. Because I'm frugal I often 'forget' to buy bit like that, so instead I thought I'd bring in some homemade brownies. Stuck to my winning recipe but totally messed up which flour I put in. Rebecca has been attempting some gluten free baking recently and unbeknownst to me I poured in a load of self-raising Gluten Free flour by mistake. The final product didn't suffer too badly thankfully, it puffed up and deflated in the oven a bit so they're all quite dense... Not necessarily a bad thing in a brownie!

Rebecca and I spent our final few hours together this weekend just sitting on the sofa. We watched a documentary called My Octopus Teacher which was basically an episode of Blue Planet plus a reflective narrator. It was a little on the nose at times, but its sincerity provided a surprisingly refreashing tone that kept everything light and focused. Cute little documentary for sure, not life changing like many are toting it as, but its a nice palette clenaser if you feel like all you've watched is snarky, self aware movies for far too long.

I Care A Lot

Ah, waking up in my own bed feels nice. Making breakfast with Rebecca is nice too. Gaming with Mark and Dan is nice too... I did everything I wanted to on my pure day off and just felt the benefit of chilling out to the max. Rebecca and I even got to sit down and watch a film, I Care A Lot which I had mixed feelings about.

There's an old maxim about writing empathetic characters in films that suggests if you show your character saving a cat you'll win over the heats of your audience. I Care A Lot starts with a character doing the moral opposite of this and then suffers a bit of an identity crisis as it never quite settles on if it wants you to root or despise the main character. It was also overly long, the third act crawled at a snails pace featuring several underwhelming mini heisting style sequences. The subject matter is great though and it certainly hooked me going in, it was just a shame it couldn't sustain it's own momentum over the long haul. 

Neat Little Bows

Finished up the week by pitting neat little bows on many of my little jobs. Always more to do, but I'm feeling chuffed with all the work I did and ready to come into next week feeling strong. I dashed back, ate a pizza and drove back home to Bristol to spend some time with Rebecca and my house. A true feeling of comfort hit me as I walked through the front door. If I had a hat, I'd be hanging it up and start touching door frames while softly smiling. I deserve I lie in tomorrow for sure though.

Immobile Meetings

Sat at the proverbial big boy table today as I joined in with a handful of meetings. Though it was naturally nice to be invited, I'm so low down the food chain I actually didn't have anything to contribute to them, I just smiled, nodded and silently thought about all the work I could be doing instead... Maybe I'm discussing all meetings since the dawn of office work? No bother though, I still got plenty done today and I think my team is starting to notice what I'm about now. They've thrown me in at the deep end and I think I've proven to them that I know how to swim.

Grocery Ferryman

Its beginning to dawn on my team at the office that where we're filming next month is in a rather remote part of the UK. Phone reception is naff, there's no supermarkets outside of a 30 minute drive and outside of one fish and chip shop, there's nowhere to get a meal out. Gradually we reckon the crew's patience with all this will come into question, here's hoping my job role doesn't quick become 'Grocery Ferryman'.

Bang, and the Day is Gone

Blinked and I missed the day. One moment I was riding the train to work, next thing I know its been 11 hours and I'm on the train back home. Guess that's what happens when you're busy. I got a little more into the swing of things today, got my head around most of the new bits and pieces and just cracked on. Mostly did taxi arrangements and writing accommodation booklets for the various cottages our crew will be staying at. I got a sneak peek at mine today too, its got a wood burner and everything! Can't wait for the prep weeks to end so we can dive straight into shooting again.

Comfy in London

Pleased to discover that public transport around London is very safe, hardly anyone on train carriages put my mind at ease while travelling towards my new job. First impressions are pretty good too! I got given a whole bunch of little tasks to do, which drip fed on top of themselves a little faster than I could complete them, but I had to absorb an awful lot first thing so I'm giving myself a free pass for now. I know what I got to do heading in tomorrow now so hopefully I can trim down my to do list.

Pre First Day Jitters

Felt like I spent most of today saying a long goodbye to Rebecca. Though we spent a large chunk of the last few days together, it was all building up to the evening when I'd say farewell for a long while. My next job starts in London, I took the drive down this evening and while I'm feeling a little anxious (first day nerves), I'm excited to hit the ground running and see what the next job can throw at me.

Second Insurance

Almost forgot I'm insured on Rebecca's car. To get down to London tomorrow evening Rebecca has offered me a loan of her car, I used today's trip to do the weekly shop as the perfect excuse to give it another test drive. Bless it, it's got such a diddy engine but its more than enough to get me down to the capital. I'm still very much in the 'relax to the max' phase of my long weekend, secretly I don't really want to start my next job quite so soon, but I just have to recharge now while I can. Mark, Dan and I joined up online once again for some games, it's been a long time with those guys so it was really pleasent to hang out with them. We started playing a new game so the chat was more about tactics than real life, but it still put my mind at ease.

Bonkers for Board Games

Rebecca very kindly took a day off work today in order to spend a bit more time with me before I toddle off onto my next job. Though there were rain showers, we somehow dodged them all to takea walk up North Street and to my old cafe for a coffee anda cake - takeaway of course but it was still great to see my old colleagues for a fleeting moment as we grabbed our drinks to go. Afterwards we were both seized by a sudden urge to play board games. We worked our way through several of our 2 player games and had a total blast doing so. Splendor, Deep Sea Adventure, Forbidden Island and Rummikub were all dusted off and enjoyed they way they were meant to be. Made me all the more eager for lockdown to end so we can enjoy these games with friends once again. 

They Took my Wheels

I couldn't believe how light my keychain was after taking off my car keys. I took both my van and my diddy car back to the hire place and bid them a solemn farewell, at least the neighbours will have more parking spaces but I do feel a little more grounded. I'm getting a hire car on the next one, but right now I can just relax and not have to worry about forgetting to lock my cars on the next road over. 

Did another duo of films on my day off, Martin Scorsese's Casino was textbook entry in his gangster catalogue. Criminals go from glam to hiding out from the feds, relationships shift from intoxicated lovers into bitter quarrels and it all ends in tears. While it wasn't his strongest film it was still entertaining, insights into the backscenes of the casinos was consistently fun. Plus Joe Pesci just does what he does best here.

Babyteeth was the chaser film. In the opening half hour I thought the film could be hard work. The characters were neurotic and the tone felt like it was flip-flopping a lot. But as it went on you begin to understand exactly why all the characters are acting out and why their lives are in a state of flux. I sympathised with everyone towards the end of it and ended up enjoying it a fair bit - its a grower for sure and I'd recommend it if you need to fill an evening with something substantial.

The Last Bus - Final Stop

I rode The Last Bus to its final stop today. We packed up the warehouse, shut up the storage containers and turned the lights off. Its a running joke now that on all Wildseed projects Mark and I are on until 'The Bitter End', Mark certainly uttered that phrase plenty while lugging around heavy and filthy car parking mats into a storage unit. But its all done now, just got to return my trusty hire car tomorrow and all my ties have been severed. It's been a taxing but incredible couple of months. I've pushed myself well beyond what I ever dreamed I was capable of, my self confidence is at an all time high and I generally feel much more at ease living in my skin.

Eating in the Eye of a Hurricane

 My penultimate day on The Last Bus was spent mostly in the company of Mark. Typically he's doing much more important Production Management stuff like juggling budgets and making hefty decisions, today he helped me load vans and package jackets. In the midst of the whirlwind of finishing everything up we managed to carve 30 minutes in the day to have lunch. Mark bought us both a wrap froman infamous and well-adored street food spot of ours and we ate it in the roof of the new Wildseed office which overlooks thwvwhole of central Bristol. Felt like eating in the eye of a hurricane. As Mark wiped spicy hummus off his fingers he muttered 'I can feel my life force returning to me'. I felt the same way. It was exactly what we both needed.

Setting Sun on The Last Bus

After the filming comes days of de-rigging, good thing I've got my little van to help me. I was back with costume department moving all their bits out of a hotel room and back into a vast costume warehouse. Then I was back out our second site which is looking more and more bare as the days go by. Plenty of other people were all packing down around me though which was quite nice, leisurely farewells were enjoyed by all. In particular I got to spend some good time with our Floor Runner as we packaged up all the radios together. We goton really well so it was a little sad to see him go. Things quietened down afterwards as the warm afternoon brought a calm to people's hearts, I felt oddly at peace knowing that my work was very nearly done on this one. The weather was looking up and my thoughts turned to Summer...

That's a Wrap - The Last Bus

I hung around a gaggle of people all silently watching monitors and listening out for the 1st AD's call outs. Every single one of us there were waiting for the infamous phrase to echo out. 'That's a Wrap' he politely declared as a roar of applause and elbow bumping came from the once tame crowd. It's over. 7 months of hard work have all been building to this exact moment. Now that its here I hardly knew what to do with myself other than stare in giddy joy at all the people around me merry making after working on something bigger than themselves. The ultimate bittersweet moment. The closing sentiment of Nostalgia by The Chameleons rung out once again in my mind: 'Tomorrow Remember Yesterday'. Mark and I most certainly will.

I brought a few farewell gifts for my team and the AD team who so kindly took me under their wing during my Runner days. My work on the project isn't done though, I'm back in first thing tomorrow to de rig costume bits, but the buzz of wrapping will keep me going well unto next week.

Rush, Calm, Rush

Bit of rushing around this morning, but eventually I got to drive out to a small filming location of ours for our mini drone unit. It was this beautiful beach in Wales - virtually had the whole place to ourselves too. Resulted in a very calm days work before heading back to Bristol where the rushing begun once more. Had to print out an ungodly amount of A5 documents, so much so we ran out of A5 paper. Me being a quick thinker I realized I could make that size by trimming out abundance of A4 with a guillotine. Took ages, but we'reall ready now for our final filming day!

Tricking the Bodyclock

A few days ago I was told I'd be needing to set my alarm very, very early this Saturday morning to get ready for a shoot day. In preparation, I went to bed early last night and woke up early too in order to shunt over my internal bodyclock. I got the memo a bit earlier today that the super early filming day was no longer going ahead as planned so now after a busy day of running around my body clock is dying for some sleep. I'm going to conceded now and rest long and hard.

The Thin Red Line

Though I didn't make popcorn, I otherwise followed through on my 'chilling watching films' day off. Got through two films today, the first one being a beast. The Thin Red Line was perhaps the most famous film I'd never seen, mostly due to its epic length. I was told that while it's a war film, Terrence Malick often preferred to film the tall grass in favour of the men hiding inside the tall grass. I gritted my teeth ready to maybe hate this film but I actually found myself rolling with its pace and sense of place. The contrast between mother nature and the dogs of war offered not only flowery imagery but also some food for thought. Battle sequences were also engaging, though only because of their scale, not because I was invested in any individual characters. The film teeters frequently into overindulgence territory, the dialogue in particular is occasionally over-embellished but you can tell its heart is in the right place so it gets a free pass from me. A good, occasionally great war film that is admittedly a bit too long but provides enough to mentally chew on to sustain a watch.

Silent Running was the second film of the day. The premise is dynamite: A group of astronauts guarding Earth's last remaining forests within space-travelling biodomes are told to purge them. One team member goes rouge in an attempt to save the wildlife. This all happens in the first 20 minutes which is great, but then the film just kinda meanders around, not really knowing what to do to fill its runtime. Great robots though! Huey and Dewy are up there with C3PO and R2D2 in terms of best practical effect sci-fi companions. Though it didn't manage to hold my interest long term, the production design has a distinct 70's charm that I couldn't get enough of. The soundtrack also needed more theremins, but that's just my opinion...    

Far Out Farmlands

Actually got to do a stint of desk work today! Just felt right to be behind my home desk working away and helping arrange things behind the scenes and catching up on stuff. With all the driving stuff sorted, surely there's no way I'd need to go do some driving... I got a call to go do a lengthy round trip near lunchtime. It was an important job in fariness, but the trip took me out into parts of the countryside that smelt like the worst parts of farmland and then around the bend across multiple road closures. Then I returned to my desk and all was right in the world. 

I actually have a sneaky mid-week day off tomorrow - all so I don't break the legal threshold for how many days I work a week. I'm going to really seize it too, I've got some films lined up I've been desperate to get an opportunity to watch so I'm going to make a big batch of popcorn and get cosy tomorrow.

Getting The Call

Did a lot more driving around today than I originally had intended. I brought my laptop down to our second site with the intention of riffling through my receipts and petty cash reconciliation. In reality I got to sit down for 20 minutes, then I was in the road again for the next few hours going back and forth and dropping off boxes. Good thing is that we got through everything today! I was planning on having to do plenty more of that this week but now I think I can work from home undisturbed which will make a nice change of pace.

I took Rebecca out for a spin in the van too, mostly so I could A, show her how my driving has progressed, B, show her wherethe Art Department hangs out and C, so she could help me in with the final leg of boxes to move. (Mostly C in all honesty, but she got some kicks our of travelling with me). As I put the keys in the ignition to drive home I got the call I was waiting for to let me know I got my next gig! Rolling straight into a big one right after this job finishes. I'm excited and a little nervous at the same time, will likely mean a lot of time away from home and Rebecca, but hopefully it'll be just as good a job as my current one.

Cruising Burgundy

Got myself yet another rental van, this time its a burgundy beast which is hands down the nicest large vehicle I've ever driven. Felt good cruising around Bristol, picking up costume boxes and dropping them off across town. That'll be my day tomorrow too, plus a fair amount of waiting around for various couriers and collection people from our second studio. So while there was a lot of running around, it was actually a really nice day. Had an interview for what could be my next gig too, it was probably one of the best interviews I've ever done. I'm basing it purely off vibes, but the conversation was very friendly and flowed without awkward pauses (even on webcam). Fingers crossed I hear something positive back from them soon.