I thought yesterday would be peak tired. But no! Wow.
Up with dawn. Uber to production. Marlon is late again. So I get all boxes ready for loading and categorised. Load is smooth. Page wants the bedsheet. She doesn’t need it but she wants it. We get to venue two hours before anyone who knows what we need, so we unload the lot into Underworld at Camden.
The place we put it is the wrong place. I have to move it to another place, which also turns out to be the wrong place. Why the hell wasn’t I on location scout? It’s cost-cutting to the point of madness. The director is keeping some rented sliders that he will literally never use. He is pretty much entirely shooting on impulse and they take TIME to set up and balance. Mister “oh and now I’m going over here” will move on before they are set up. Could have had a person instead of them.
My concern today has been hugely for a young actress who is frequently being filmed with no sound for background shots. It’s her first gig and she’s literally a teenager. None of us realised that she’d had her suitcase filled with bricks yesterday and she had to carry it a long way. She’s a trooper. She’s one of us. But… she kept quiet until it gave her blisters. Yes, if you give an actor a suitcase, put some weight in it or they might carry it like it is nothing. But there’s weight and there’s weight.
Yesterday I said we need a first AD. We do. Today I felt maybe we want a combined first and second AD. A first, someone to call the shots… that would be great and helpful. It would save all the “are they filming” WhatsApp messages. “Ok silence on set, camera rolling and …” (the ghost of sound past shouts ‘SPEED’) “ACTION!” … something happens… then “Thank you that’s a cut…” “Ok set back we are going again, great job” etc etc. That’s helpful. It’s actually close to vital for logistics and morale. But added to that, for that poor young woman, the human who just takes the time and HAS the time because it is their job, to say: “Hey what you’re doing is great here just so you know. The director needs this from the next shot so how do you think that might be achieved? Ok interesting but maybe if you do it like x…?” “That was brilliant from your perspective but actually it would look nicer if you walked down this line here, as the light in the camera really picks up on that track, but what you’re doing really tells – remember you can swap hands mid shot with the suitcase, people do that in real life when something is heavy.” The poor thing was being given unplayable notes. Someone needs to translate that shit. This girl is bruised, disillusioned and knackered, simply because there’s nobody whose job it is to translate. First job, untrained, easy mistake to make. I know it. I did it. It’s why I trained. Lucky. I trained just before I broke my body and my voice by being obedient to people who don’t know what they are asking. Wendy Alnutt, Wyn Jones, Ken and Patsy and Peter taught me so well at Guildhall – in a golden age – how I had to take care of my longevity in this career. And I’m still here. Directors like ours today… he’s brilliant… but he will break your body by mistake because he forgets to think about you as a real person. It’s all the art the shot the feeling. Do it again again again again again.
You learn to be able to say “Mate, this suitcase is too heavy. I’m gonna get blisters.” But it takes time and confidence to be able to do that. So people have to say it for you first. And I wish I had noticed and done so.
End of the day we are in the rain, again with very bad comms, freezing cold, she’s still walking in the rain with that suitcase. The bricks aren’t in it anymore. “She couldn’t wash her hair in the shower last night for her fingers. They’re so strained they don’t work,” says her mum, conversationally, having noticed that I’m belatedly trying for some pastoral care, and just happy to find someone here who is talking to her daughter like she’s a human being who has needs.
But… I dumped this all haphazardly with Lou and Frank. I must sleep now. More madness incoming. All will be well. At the HEART of this job is an incredible graceful human being. Their kindness and fortitude will hopefully be the dominant force going forward, even if they are, inevitably, the last to arrive and the first to leave. My observation of them has been fleeting and distant, but has left me extremely impressed. I’ve met many very famous humans and rarely do they balance heart and earth so completely. And that makes everything brilliant really. These concerns are just detail. I’m involved in something beautiful.
AlBarclay 