The call

My history includes work  in retail sales, as a secretary, as a waitress, as an artist, as a writer and editor, plus probably a half dozen other things I cannot think of off hand.  In all of those jobs I would get told what days and times I was working, or what my hours were, Then I would show up at the assigned time, clock in and get to work.

Sometimes I would know my schedule weeks in advance, I would write the dates and times on a paper calendar in my date book and get ready to be there.  

Then I started to work in production.

The first time I got the call, I was charmed.  

"Hi this is Richard from work and I wanted to tell you your call time tomorrow is 8am,"  the voice on the other end of the line said.

"Right, thanks, I plan on being there," I responded. 

It was a new job, they did not know me and I figured that they might have gotten the idea I did not know I was booked.  I went in to work on that Friday and did not think more about it.

Saturday and Sunday were my days off, then Sunday afternoon the phone rang.

"Hi this is Richard from work and I wanted to tell you your call time tomorrow is 8 am,"  the voice on the other end of the line said.

  

Charmed, I allowed as I planned to be there. Again.

The most amazing thing is that every day I work on a show where I have not worked the previous day, I get that call.  On production, it is so essential that we all be there and do our job, If one cog in the works is missing, it can stop the whole "train."

So a production assistant or associate producer goes through the show staff list, calling every member of the crew, confirming they will be there.  

I find it charming and it is unique to the business, as far as I know.

Day in the life on a sitcom

My 7:30 am call time is never early enough to fiinish the work I must have done before I am ready to "roll record" at 8:00 am.  On some shows there is slop time, a grace rehearsal -going - on period where I can be finishing setup but the first AD on this show likes to see if we are ready pretty much first thing and will ask to roll on a voice over or something right when we are supposed to be ready.

So I showed up at a quarter to seven -- that is o'dark 6:45, meaning I left the house at 5:30.  I turned on the tone and bars and commenced to putting a minute of bars and tone (SMPTE standard) at the top of 50 tapes, 5 at a time.  45 minutes later I was ready to start booting the five computers, five hard drives and all the hardware I run.  That process took about a half hour.

So and hour and fifteen minutes after I arrived, a half hour after my call time, I was ready to roll record.

 Production proceeded, recording files and tapes with DVD backups stopped and started, and QA for the backup of the low resolution files.  The show editor showed up as we finished recording the last scene.  He wanted the files to start editing.

We gave the drive they were on to him, twenty minutes later I got a note that the one camera's files would not load.  We copied them to another drive, those loaded.

The pattern continued.  Frenzied recording, copying files to a drive, production assistants walking the quarter mile on the lot between post and production carrying hard drives with files on them between the production truck and post.

There were intermittent problems with files not loading.  Mid-morniong I  noted one of the cameras occasionally showed a black field or two, the video stream being interrupted in some way.  I wondered about it but it was SO occasional. I did not mention it other than asking if anyone else saw it.

Then it happened while I we were recording! Yikes!!! Lack of perfection is not acceptable in any way and people get fired for even minimal inattention. There is so much competition for production jobs that  people get not rehired for lots of reasons -- things like having the wrong attitude (anything besides cheery willingness to work).  Oddly enough even tech people in Hollywood tend to be fit, attractive and well educated and on the set there are few if any truly unattractive people.

As soon as we stopped we rewound the tape to the spot where I had seen black -- though there visually had been a black frame the video was fine. But the audio vanished for a second.  Were the files ok? Call to post. Yes the files are fine.

So I got told to watch that deck carefully and why had it not been mentioned before?!!!  The first half hour of lunch was researching whether all tracks of audio disappeared, confirming the video was good on the files for editing, and discussion about what might have caused the problem.

For the next few hours I focused on watching that deck's video stream.  It happened again once during a record, the same pattern shown on the tape.  Files were ok.

Files seemed to be OK for a while. Then at about 8 pm, one of the file capture computers just stopped wanting to go into record.  But we were up against it with the child actors, who CANNOT stay beyond the time allotted by child labor laws.

The clock ticked on, the tapes rolled, we got the scenes shot.  The kids left, and we got the files loaded in to the drives from tape and gave the post production folks their drives. And waited.  After an hour they told us to leave, so I clocked out -- and walked to post to wait. Unpaid.  Of course when I got there suddenly the files began to appear properly, and everything was there.

Gratified, I walked out to my car. And a note on the door.  Hmmm.  Picked up the card, which complimented my little car (only car I ever had that people leave notes saying "If you ever want to sell this car...") and told me they noticed I had a flat tire.

Drywall screws are like leaves on production lots, I probably had picked one up earlier in the week.

So -- Siri on my iPhone found me a local roadside assistance, I called them and they could be there in ten minutes.  The cost would be $55. No, they did not take credit cards after 10 pm.  I had $44. I was owed $10 back from my parking charge for the day, so that would make $54.  I called a friend on the lot and said "Can I borrow a dollar?"

By the time I got back the tire was off, the new (mini) spare was on in five minutes and it was time for the long, slow drive home.  I got back home at midnight.

Call time for tomorrow was 9, which meant I needed to leave the house at 7:40.

Sometimes, making TV shows seems a lot like making bell housings.

Feature film without distribution

Today met with a producer who produced a feature last year. Overenthusiastic, they hyped it as it was being finished in spring of 2012, said it would be distributed in summer of 2012, and then.....it vanished.

FYI guys the release schedules for films are calculated months if not years in advance.  Every weekend, every release date -- all are calculated closely.

The producer says they are in negotiations with Lionsgate and another studio.  

Actually, I think it is more likely that the film is unable to find a distributor. Young people read about indie producers creating a low budget film that clicks with audiences and figure they can make a film that will sell. They find some friends, shoot some footage, cut it together and put on a show.

What they do not realize is that here it is script, script script. And distribution has become more elusive than ever. Tentpoles are what studios make because they think that they can make a lot of money with them. 

Its sad. I wonder whether his film is any good? I will likely never get to see it.