I don't understand war. I mean, I get it on a basic level - the whole necessary evil, dark side of human nature, some dude with a sissy name stole Menelaus's wife so I'm going to leave my wife alone for ten years type thing. I also agree that occasionally a war will bring out the best and most selfless characteristics of men (much like Enterprise's Captain Archer during the Temporal Cold War with the Xindi.) What I don't get, though, is how people function on such little sleep. I assume that during a ground war you don't punch in at 9am, out at 5pm and then hit happy hour with your bros (um, does anyone actually only work eight hours anymore anyway?), but instead have a much more fluid work shift. You know, more like, punch in and then kind of just count your OT until you blow up. Or get to go home. As I said, my knowledge of how it works is somewhat limited. Mainly because I don't care. All I know is that without my completely reasonable eighteen hours of sleep per day, I start to slow down.
So, we've completed our second of four overnight shoots in a row and things are starting to get a little groggy. I think it can best be described by the following: somehow, we not only got everything we needed from last night's shoot, but we actually got an extra scene shot. When we were done and our director and producers were thanking us for our hard work the general response was dead-eyed silence followed by, "Cool story, bro. Can we go home now?" That's not to say that there is any dip in morale whatsoever, but after long periods of carrying very expensive equipment through a maze of drunk yelling Tulsorkers (?), endlessly pausing takes to accommodate the freight train that has literally been passing through Tulsa for thirty-seven years non-stop (seriously, it just keeps going - I'm starting to think the train is twice the length of the United States, connected at both ends and on a giant loop track), and my gear's blood thirst for batteries, you can start to feel a bit run down. However, we shall march on, fortified by our love of the arts, belief in the merit of the project we're working on and, more importantly, our mutual hatred for all things George Clooney/August: Osage County.
Oh, and the Stephen King-esque doorway to a different dimension that is our crew house has upped the ante by introducing us to this lovely little (huge!) fellow:
Super Su found that in his shoe yesterday morning. I've also learned from this photo that apparently Super Su sleeps with his walkie and earpiece on.
AUDIO TIP OF THE DAY: Lessons in creative problem solving
One of the toughest things to do as a production sound mixer is to keep people from putting drinks on the audio table. Simple things like a sign that clearly states "AUDIO TABLE: NO DRINKS EVER OR I WILL DISEMBOWEL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS (or, more likely, have an unpaid PA do it for me)," generally won't work, because, let's be honest, we all work in the movies and none of us can read. What I like to do is politely alert people that drinks aren't allowed near my gear and then, because I'm so helpful, provide them with a physical representation of how even I don't put my water bottle on the table. Example:
Crews respect this kind of forward thinking. In fact, the Home, James crew was so impressed by my ability to lead by example that it took a whole eight minutes before this happened:
The worst part is that I'm pretty sure they used my sharpie to vandalize it.
In all seriousness, we're having a lot of fun and the shoot is going very well. Although, the competitive field for the coveted Golden Driller Award seems to be narrowing drastically. Oh, I haven't mentioned the Golden Driller Award? I will. Later.
Lastly, I've had a few creative criticisms of the blog lately. So, Trevor, you'll be happy to know that I've fired the teenage girl that I had ghost writing it for me. Jake, I will, from this point forward, severely limit my usage of "btdubs," and, yes. Jay, there will be an audio component to accompany the text at some point soon. Good? Good.
I'm happy. You're happy, too.
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