72 hours in the Film Business... a cautionary tale.
Tracey’s Day
Volume XVII:
Olympian Heights of Stupidity
7.30am - Director arrives from out of town, hates hotel. Has to be moved
8.00 am – Change director hotel reservations
8.30 – craft service falls thru. No snacks, no show
10.05 – need to leave for tech scout at 10.30
10.07 – call new hotel for credit auth fax
10.10 - need to leave for scout
10.12 – hotel fax comes
10.15 – seriously, need to leave for scout. Gonna be late
10.17 – no time to do credit auth, have to do when get back
10.20 am – finally leave for scout.
10.25 – stop for gas. Beyond lateness now
11.00 – Arrive at scout. Everyone else late too
11.00-3pm – follow Producer around at scout, pretending I know what’s going on
3.30 pm – find new craft service person, yay. Snack crisis averted
4.00 p – PA’s leave to get cube truck, as camera has to be picked up before 5.30
4..15p – Accountant calls from camera house. Production company owes 7,000 dollars in
back bills. No camera gear for us til it’s paid
4.20 – Call accountant at production company. Claims to have no idea what camera
house is talking about
4.22 – Art Department calls, has massive hot dog cart that needs to be picked up before
5.30
4.30 – Camera House Accountant forwards unpaid invoice
4.35 – Oh, THAT $7,000. Here’s a credit card to put it on.
4.45 – Credit card declined.
4.50 – EP calls bank, gets cc cleared
5pm – Finalize deals with camera department. “You’re so helpful,” they say. I assure
them that I LOVE the camera department. It’s the WARDROBE department I hate. A
percipient statement, as it turns out
6.pm – PA locks keys in the 15 pass van
6.02 – With it running!?!?!?!
6.10 – Call AAA.
10pm – place call #2342 to Producer. Not responding
11pm – pack it in. go to sleep.
11.15 – phone rings. Sound guy claims didn’t get map.
11.20 – pack it in. go to sleep
11.30 – phone rings. Security guy wants to double check call times.
11.45 – third time’s the charm. Go to sleep.
12.45 am – phone rings. Driver from Hotel car service says wardrobe girl’s flight has
landed. Sadly no sight of wardrobe girl.
12.50 am – Driver calls again, says hotel has called him and wardrobe girl has already
checked in.
12.51 – Call hotel to confirm check in. Turns out to not be correct.
1am – Call driver, beg him to stay until I can find out where wardrobe girl is.
1.10 – 1.30 – On phone with Delta, trying to find out if Wardrobe girl is on any flight,
anywhere. Delta says she has canceled her flight and taken a voucher. Wardrobe
department: completely MIA.
1.30 – Hotel Driver gives up after two hour wait.
1.40 – Producer calls, just to see how things are going. Apparently has not received any of
the 4,000 panicked messages I have left her this evening.
2.00 am – pack it in. go to sleep
2.15 am – wardrobe girl calls, is bitch beyond belief. Wants to know where her car
service is.
2.16 am – Add wardrobe girl to “hold grudge against for life” list. Funny how that list
isn’t getting any shorter
2.17 am – Remember earlier conversation with camera guy. Who knew I had the gift of
prophecy?
2.20am – fifth time’s the charm. Go to sleep
4.15 am – alarm goes off. Who am I kidding? Reset for 5.15 am, sacrifice hairstyle.
4.16 am - And showering
5.15 am – Morning so soon?
5.20 am – early pa calls looking for call times
5.50 am – early pa shows up, smells of liquor from 3 feet away
6 am – second pa calls in sick
6.10 am – third pa calls to tell me he has left his phone home. Calling from someone
else’s phone, obviously
6.30 am – get hopelessly disoriented on one way streets downtown. Lack of sleep
possibly a factor
6.40 - fourth pa 20 mins late
6.55 – fifth pa, 35 mins late
7.05 am – fifth pa sits down to eat breakfast, despite major lateness. Anytime you feel
like working, buddy….
9.30 a,m – Client shows up with her chiuaua mix
10.00 – Female star talent shows up one hour late, with her yorkie in tow
10.15 – Female star’s ‘Manager’ (ie best friend from High school) shows up, clutching
tiny maltese puppy
11 am – number of little rat dogs now running around in restaurant we are using for talent holding: five. Number of
health codes we are breaking: uncounted
11.30 am - Male star talent shows up, four hours late. Mercifully dogless.
12.00 pm – Client leaves her rat dog with me to babysit – says she will “settle down and
sleep”. Fat chance
12.55 pm – Dog has been fussing constantly for an hour. Perhaps a walk will help
12.57 pm – Get ten feet out of door, dog goes into seizure,falls to the ground choking
and foaming at the mouth. Grab dog off of ground and rush into restaurant, frantically
calling for help on the radio. Dog pees all over me.
12.59 pm – Client comes running into restaurant, just as I get dog semi revived. Casually
mentions that dog is epileptic. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you that!” Neither can I...
1.15 – send pa in search of replacement pants
1.30 pm – Lunch
1.31 pm – Morning talent released, all come to me looking to get paid. Guess lunch will
have to wait.
2.15 pm – Caterer comes looking for payment, since lunch is over. Still havent’t eaten.
2.20 pm – Finally fix self plate
2.22.pm – Walk outside to tell Producer something before I sit down and eat. Get asked to
watch her dog while she gets her food. Dog eyes plate hungrily.
2.35 – Helen comes back with locations scout. Scout Bumps into me, knocking my
plate into the street. Clearly not destined to eat lunch.
2.40 – get fresh plate.
2.41 - Food not all that good actually
2.45 – Still no sign of replacement pants.
2..50 – Producer asks me to watch her dog while she goes to do something. Not the best idea
under the circumstances
3.00 – Talent that left before lunch still needed. Oops.
3.10 – covered in dog drool now. Nice addition to the pee
3.20 – Helen returns, takes dog. Considerably relieved.
3.30 – WHERE ARE MY NEW PANTS?
3.35 – Jessica in Art Department tells me I look like I’ve lost weight. Love, Love, Love
the art department.
3.50. – new pants arrive, fit perfectly. Praise God. Actually nicer than the pants I was
wearing.
4.00 – Production shocked – shocked! that it might rain. At 4 pm. In the summer. In the
south. JUST LIKE IT DOES EVERY OTHER DAY.
5.00 – Helen leaves to supervise the casting for the other job she’s producing this week.
5.15 – Client comes in wanting to know where we can find playback gear, which they did
not want to pay for originally so we didn’t order it. At 5 pm on a Saturday?
5.30 – 6.pm – Frantically call all over town for playback gear. No can do
6 pm – order dinner for crew – 8 large pizzas
7pm – look at large, mutinous crew. Double pizza order
8pm – Go to Female star Talent and tell her her driver will pick her up at 7 am for her
return flight. She informs me she doesn’t want to go back tomrrow, will return on
Monday instead.
8.30 – Call travel agent at home on Saturday night to change this bimbo’s flight. This is
going to be a pleasant conversation
10.30 – Camera wraps, 2.5 hours behind schedule. Start cleaning up the mess
11.45pm – pick up last scrap of trash in street. Roll out!
12 am – Meet Helen and Marc for drink at local pub. Just one.
12.10am – Well, maybe two.
12.15am – Gosh that Phelps kid is fast
12.30 – head home. Sleeeeeep
7am – up and at em!
7.30 – Call hotel and cancel female talent’s hotel –to-airport shuttle
8.15 – Pa who is supposed to be picking up first airport run at 9 am is not here to pick up
the van yet. Disconcerting
8.30 am – Said PA calls, looking for directions to my house. Clearly not making the 9am
pickup
8.40 am – Call hotel, arrange for hotel-airport shuttle for 9am dude
9am – PA finally shows up, casually mentions he stopped partying about 90 minutes ago.
Why, Why, Why would you mention that? To your boss? When you are half an hour late
for work?
9.30 am – Get call from Hotel. Female Talent’s yorkie howled and barked all night. Now
charging us a pet fee, $200
9.45 - Also, there were two dogs. In a non-pet hotel.
10am – Get call from Producer, Client has realized she left her dog carrier with us, needs it
to make her noon flight.
10.15 – Call PA, tell him to come here and get the dog carrier
10.40 am – PA leaves for hotel with carrier. Client not making that noon flight, that ‘s for
sure
11 am – Client left for airport before he got there. PA now has to follow her to airport
12pm – PA calls, is at airport with client. Great, except that means he’ll miss the 12.15
hotel to airport pickup we have scheduled.
12.05 – Call hotel shuttle people. Again.
12.15 – start cringing whenever phone rings
1pm – Stop bailing. Ship going down anyway….
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