Memory Lane Monday: Life on Set, and Why I'm a Ninja

I keep saying to myself, "Jess, we need to get back on a more consistent blogging schedule." Myself usually responds with something like, "You know, you're right, we've been lazy as hell lately, let's start writing immedi- ooo look a new video game!"

I can't blame laziness entirely for my falling off the blogging wagon. I had a very busy weekend at work, and then I had to get up before the ass-crack of dawn last Monday to go work on an episode of Boardwalk Empire. It was a great day. I woke up at 3am, took a shower, got dressed, made coffee and left my apartment to go catch the courtesy production bus that would take me to holding and set in Staten Island. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it was a great day, either. Yes, waking up at 3am is crappy no matter how early you go to bed the night before, but normally a day on set lasts at least 10 hours, and is more likely to be a 14+ hour day. But this day was awesome. I spent almost 3 hours in hair, make-up, and wardrobe, and less than an hour on set before they wrapped us for the day and sent us home. This was an almost unheard of short day. It rocked. And dammit if I didn't look super cute!

3 hours baby! Three. Hours.

On Wednesday I helped out as a production assistant on a low-budget indie web-series called Ghost Light. Boyfriend was the Director of Photography and our friend Neil was directing. I was there to provide general assistance, but I mostly ended up babysitting the slow-as-molasses sound operator. In his defense, he was using professional-grade equipment that was borrowed from another friend of ours, and had never worked on a set before. Nonetheless, dude moved slower than frozen honey in a glass jar, and the stakes were pretty high for this production. They had 5 days to film 8 episodes in this great old theater in NJ called The Barn Theatre. That was it. No do-overs, no option for re-shoots. Nada. So saying that time was of the essence was a bit of an understatement and something Sound Dude clearly missed the memo on. He also had no sense of spacial reasoning, he hit Boyfriend in the head with the boom at least 9 times. He got tangled in his own cables and would stand in frame every time we set up a shot. No observational skills, you guys. None. So, it's a damn good thing that when I'm in the right place at the right time, I'm in the god damn right place at the god damn right time. But I'm getting ahead of myself...lemme esplain:

This was a very low-budget project. We had two lights. Expensive lights. Hot lights. These lights are hooked to telescopic stands so they can be raised and lowered as needed. These stands are fairly light-weight so they are easy to move, but when the lights are on them and they are raised to a height of eight feet, they become slightly top-heavy. You mix this with Sound Dude who has no spacial reasoning, and you get a disaster. Unless you have a P.A like me who turns into a ninja after her third cup of coffee!

I'm totally getting this on a t-shirt, you guys!

Sound Dude cut in the middle of a take because he needed batteries or something, so everyone paused what they were doing, holding their positions so we could be ready to continue as soon as the batteries situation was taken care of. I was standing in front of one of the aforementioned lights  on the edge of the stage, holding the boom cable so that it wasn't a tripping hazard for anyone (i.e Boyfriend, Neil, and Sound Dude.) Sound Dude, apparently oblivious to his proximity to the light stand puts down his equipment and knocks the light stand completely over. There was a collective gasp that rang out in the quiet theater, and like the mysterious bad-ass love-child of Spiderman and a Kunoichi, I reached diagonally back behind my body and caught the stand with my left hand (my non-dominant hand, thank you very much) and with just enough leverage to prevent the light itself from smashing onto the concrete house floor. Did I mention I did all of this while still holding the boom cable with my other hand? The ashen fearful looks on the producer and assistant director's faces quickly melted into relief once I put the light stand upright again, and applause from everyone else on set made me feel like a god damn hero.

In this picture, you can see the light I so badassadly caught. For perspective, the guys in this picture are all 6 feet or taller.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but two nights later at the wrap party, everyone was still talking about how awesome it was that I caught that light.

So, the long and short of last week is: I got to spend lots of time on set and I'm a mother fuckin ninja!