Happy Halloween 2022

A stencil for my pumpkin was lovingly printed off by Rebecca while at her parents house, though when it came to taping it on it was a little big. So I attempted to do something that I usually pester Mum to do for me: freehand draw a design onto my pumpkin. The results were dreadful though so I swallowed my pride, gave up my dreams if ever being an artist and went back to the stencil. 

I lost a bit of symmetry on the eyes, the stalk was a bit too thin on one of them so it sagged a smidge, but overall it was a fun look.

Rain kept the treat or treaters at bay so we tucked in to the chocolates I bought while watching Hocus Pocus 2, which was a 'satisfactory sequel'. It honoured the first film admirably and all the returning cast reprised their roles with impressive gusto. Not much to latch onto for newcomers and it was still a lot of screaming at stuff, but for a Disney + original, it surprisingly didn't feel like a cash-grab.

Hocus Pocus

At the tender age of 29, I sat down to watch Hocus Pocus with Rebecca - a film revered by one Mark Stopher and many of my other chums growing up. Is it just nostalgia talking or is this a Halloween gem I have long overlooked? 

Despite a fun set-up and overall A+ production design, the film honestly was just 90 minutes of screaming and running around. As a result, the one quality that shone through was the feeling that everyone was having a gay old time making this picture. Its energy is endearing to a point however, a bit like panto, it can get exhausting after a while.

Halloween Nostalgia

Just me and the cat today. A trip to the supermarket was the only real thing on my agenda and while trawling through the aisles I realized that this year we might legitimately get some trick or treaters. I threw a chocolate bars in my basket, if we don't get anyone knocking then I'm sure we can find a good home for treats like that. I also saw jelly and got nostalgia blasted back into my childhood. That was always the signature sweet thing during my Halloweens growing up so it'll be fun to make it again. 

I've been engaging with a lot of psychological horror games and films recently so I was craving something a little more campy. Enter The Return of the Living Dead, the kind of film I would have fallen in love with 10 years ago, and it turns out that part of me is immortal. Rollicking 80's zombie film, complete with special effects, synth music and brash characters. The sheer volume of on screen zombies at times stole the show and the energy of the piece was a ton of fun. 

Operation Draft Exlusion

My objective: minimize draft from our front door. Operation Draft Exlusion was a go. I yanked off the old brush bar at the bottom of our door and used it as a size reference to trim the new one down to. Once that was installed I put on the new internal letterbox (yes, that also has brushes in it for a double whammy of insulation). At some point I had to then unscrew the brush bar again to gently refit it, to my horror someone shoved a pizza flier through our letterbox as I jumped out of my skin. Once my heart rate stabalized I affixed some sticky mufflers to go around the arch of the door. 

The cost of energy has forced our hand here and I'll be damned if I'm not gonna try and be a little thrifty this Winter.

The Banshees of Inisherin

 
Met up with Mr Chris Pearless for a cup of coffee, hotdog and pint of Bristol beer. Been a little over two years since I saw him properly so there was plenty of catching up to do. We chatted games, plans and jobs. So far he's doing well and is planning on taking some big holiday soon on the other side of the world. I'm just trying to keep my house warm and my cat fed.

Evening time was cinema time and The Banshees of Inisherin was on the Watershed docket - a film about two Irish island-dwellers who have an unsolicited falling out. Right off the bat there was a faitly classical quality to the film, thanks in part to its gorgeous setting, but moreso through its reigned character count and dialoue - it could have almost worked just as well as a play. Past all trademark Martin McDonagh witty one-liners though there was genuine pathos to be found here as the film subtly explores men's mental health when paired with fickle egos. Combine typically Irish topics like music, booze and senseless violence and you've got a rich film to dive into.

Millennial Relief

With two noisy builders round for most of the day, I was on cat-sitting duty. The cat and I played horror games together, brewed coffee and hung out in the garden together (as it was the only place in the house where I could avoid overhearing the builders talk about House of the Dragon spoilers). Our dining room is in the final stages of completion now which is great. Plastering is done, in more rooms than we bargained for too which is fun. Once they're out for good we can start the decorating part.

Usually on Wednesday evenings I try to go to a local board game night, I combed my hair and dressed up nice but it looks like they may have stopped doing the event now. I felt a millennial relief wash over me, but I was also kinda bummed, perhaps it'll come back soon. But for now Rebecca will have to be my board game buddy.

Running Buddies

Totally forgot to mention that Rebecca and I went for a run together yesterday! I keep meaning to get back into the swing of that but recently I kept harming my ankles and work picked up again so I couldn't commit to it fully. Rebecca hadn't tried it in about 6 years so I took it at a very relaxed pace, she was pooped afterwards but I kept telling her it only gets easier - delayed gratification.

For the first time this year I was able to attend our weekly Bake Off viewings, I missed these mostly because Louis and Rachel bring such good weekly bakes. A custard slice was presented by Rachel which I actually couldn't believe how delicious it was - it was difficult not to lose all decorum and eat it hastily. Guess I have to start doing something too now.

Post Box Moustache

In my pyjamas Rebecca and I pooled our brains and came up with a plan to tackle the heat loss we suffer via the gaps in our front door. Tape measures, YouTube videos and a mug of coffee was all we needed to determine a letter box draft excluder (or post box moustache as I like to call it) plus a new brush bar will do the trick. Rebecca also bought some fuzzy lining to go inside the gaps which I'm keen to put up soon. If all goes to plan we're finally going to have a warm home this Christmas.

Otherwise I just enjoyed some time off today to be with Rebecca and our cat who has well and truely settled in now.

Meaty Cheat Code

Because we're trendy Bristol locals, Rebecca and I hit up some vintage clothing shops on Park Street. Rebecca's looking for something funky-fresh to wear to an upcoming party and I just enjoy a mooch. I did see some very affordable trench coats that suites me... Except the sleeves were half the length of my arm in every instance. We found one nice dress for Rebecca, broswed a few bookshops, got a very nice coffee from a newish cafe and headed home in time to avoid the rain. 

Cost of living forced our hands to roast a chicken tonight, the spoils of which will be enjoyed throughout the week. Stock for pho, pickings for Coronation Chicken and dregs for meaty lunches! A traditional, meaty cheat code for the tough times. Even the cat was treated to a bit.

WD-40

Purchased and used my first ever can I'd WD-40 today. In doing so I realized this was a masculine right of passage, I had become a man. A squeaky doorhinge hurt our ears everytime we used it so we put a stop that that with a bit of grease. Energized by a 15 second improvement, Rebecca and I tackled the garden to prepare it for the Winter. I re-oiled the garden furniture, cut back a lot of the apple tree and cut the grass. More DIY jobs are on the cards in the coming weeks but this was a good headstart, I can put the garden out of my mind until next year now.

The Accidental Long War

While working from home, today was technically my final day on Gangsta Granny. It's only now. 4 hours after the end of play I realize I forgot to put my out of office on. Not to worry though, we did such a thorough derig I doubt I'll be getting any slap dash messages - I just want peace and quiet for a few days instead with a cat on my lap.

Rebecca and I got a chance to get stuck into an accidentally beefy board game evening. We bought an expansion for one that we're enjoying currently and unknowingly played the optional 'long game' varient. Over two hours later it was down to only a few nail-biting points that separated our scores. I can think of far worse ways to have a Friday night in.

Dropping my Keys

My keyring got a lot lighter today after surrendering my car and office keys. This was my last day down in The Big Smoke, I rode my last train and tube into the office, did a few jobs and gave hugs to my team as I strode out of the office. Our Production team was so tight this time around, great personalities and professional - everything we did was clean and well planned, I was honoured to be part of such an elite squad. I've still technically got two more days working from Bristol but it was bittersweet saying goodbye to them all... But I was so ready to get out of London and back to Bristol. I petted our cat and admired the renovations going on in our house and now I'm tucked up in bed where I belong.

Oxford and Back

Wouldn't be a wrap week without a hefty day of drop offs. I did Twickenham to Brixton, to Hounslow to Oxford to Twickenham - 6 hours total. Bit miffed nothing of interest happened during the driving, it was just dull and unseasonably warm in the car. Though after doing all those miles I start to feel a little discombobulated, like my brain is exhausted from the concentration it takes to be on the road for so long.

Luckily the second half of the day was much better, I headed into the office, did a few hours work then hung out with Matt Winlow and my colleagues at the office. We planned a mini games night there with drinks and pizza, just what we all needed after this shoot.

Shuttles and Drop Offs

Caught an Uber into the office again as I had almost everything from our production truck piled up into Rebecca's parents hallway. Buses, trains and another Uber were on the cards too as everything is getting dropped off and returned this week so I was shuttling all sorts between our camera house and main office. It's all winding down now though, even my team are packing up to go home at 4pm today as there's not too much left to crack on with. I got an important, but not stressful day tomorrow with drops to Oxfordshire and back again, but one last drive in my hire car will be a hoot.

Charity Choir

With little else to do on a lazy Sunday morning we all went along with Mum to support her singing in her choir at a charity function. It was being hosted at an old nature discovery center that I used to go to all the time when I was younger - everything looked so much bigger then. Though the crowd was small, we cheered Mum on at a respectable volume, the gathering itself really was quite meager likely because of how anemic the offerings were for a fare-like event. We somehow ducked out of the £5 a head entry fee but I felt bad for everyone who coughed up the money to get inside.

Dad plates up an early Christmas dinner for lunch and in the spirit of the fake holiday we all played a board game together afterwards. Shame we had to leave shortly after, weekends are over and done with too quickly these days. Once I'm a man of leisure again after this week I'll make sure to enjoy my time off to the fullest.

Standby Button

Just like a TV, it turns out I also have a 'standby' button. It automatically flicked on first thing this morning as I felt my body go into shoot recovery mode. I mustered up enough strength to hoover the house and drive back to Newbury to spend the weekend with my folks. Rebecca, Louis and Rachel met me there a few hours later, it's been about two weeks since I last saw Rebecca so a lot of hugs were in order. Juts a few more days in London next week til I'm done and dusted with this current job, then I'll become a full time cat-sitter and DIY fiend.

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.

Bye Bye Breakfast

 Beat the traffic, got in early and immediately got snowpiled by urgent requests. Couriers, people on vehicle insurance, Producers amending the wording on the wrap gifts - every time I got up from my desk I physically bumped into someone else that needed my help. It's nice to feel needed, but I was so swampped with early work I missed the breakfast service hour. Hungrily I got on with my day, a late Friday working is always a bit naff because you keep hearing about everyone else's great weekend plans. I'm going to go sit in a car park tomorrow next to a generator and crack on with another days work... And hopefully get some breakfast this time!

Scrub the Copy

Part of our wrap gifts have a space for some flowery language, I spent most of my downtime over the past few days filling the space with fun, story related jokes and easter eggs. Once I sent it off to the higher ups I got the "we like it, but..." email. They want me to scrub off the fun copy and instead just shoehorn in all the names of the heads of departments, all while keeping it 'funny'. As much as I like a challenge, it's a little bit crushing in the moment. Guess that's my tomorrow now.

PCN

Hope everyone else had a grand day. Opened my inbox to learn I've been issued a PCN while driving around London - that's half my day rate for a very honest and harmless mistake. 

That put me in the grumps and the rest of the day didn't do much to brighten my mood. Instead a swirling vortex manifested inside my heart where I begun to doubt all the goodness in the world. Things felt stressy and uncomfortable, the weather took a turn and the day just went on and on. On the plus side we start much later tomorrow so I get a long night sleep - almost like the clocks are going back. I just want to wake up tomorrow with a rejuvenated sense of goodness.

Wrap Gift Budget

Back to the grindstone with a funny old day. My big boss was off sick today so we were flying a little blind. I continually got saddled with increasingly weird and wonderful jobs from the powers upstairs and I knuckled down on the wrap gifts. I've been given a budget, a brief and they said 'go' - I've got a good little thing planned so I hope it'll all come to fruition in good time. Wrap gifts always get the shaft until the penultimate day it feels like so I'm trying to keep my head above water.

'Monday Sunday'

My 'Monday Sunday' was a wellbeing superday. Are porridge with Rebecca and played games for most of the morning while still in my PJ's. Rebecca was working all the while, even while I was cursing at the TV screen when the games gave me grief (I was careful not to be too loud when she was in clinet calls). Then I did perhaps my favourite thing to do in idle afternoons: watch films. Swing Time with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was a dreamy delight and the samurai ridden Harakiri was a cerebral slow burn. Purging out my watchlist is ever gratifying. Better yet, both films are featured with Roger 's great film books, an elegant essay about each awaits me when I get the chance to head back home to Bristol.

Rebecca's back there now, leaving me home alone for a spell. Got work to keep me and my mind busy though - onwards and upwards towards another week on the road.

Croydon Pad

Been just over two years since Dan moved into his Croydon flat - only now did I get the chance to go visit him properly. It was a classic hangout day, complete with Nandos and a go on his VR headset which never gets old. Since the pandemic ended I'm trying to reach out more and more to old chums and see them in person and laugh with them in the real world rather than the virtual one.

Hunting for Haribo

Working Saturdays is always a bit low-stakes in my department. No vendors to call or be called by, instead I used today as a chance to play around on Photoshop a bit more to design the branding for our wrap gifts. Otherwise the day went slowly, so slowly in fact I went out hunting for Haribo as snacks for the truck. Very much looking forward to some time off now though, tomorrow and Monday will be true rest days so I can catch up on some sleep, these early starts rack up eventually.