Birthday whisky

This morning we drove down a path to a cliff. The grass is high after a wet summer. No cars have gone that way this year but for Hannah and Fiona this morning. They are ahead of us in a light Range Rover.

I’m driving a transit van today, full of camera equipment. It’s heavy.

“The path is fine,” says Paul. A bit bumpy but fine. Keep a steady speed, stay in second gear.” He sends us off.

“Thanks mate,” I say, and then to Dan I say ; “Bless him, telling us all how to drive.” The truth is, with this van on this road, he’s right – it is better for us to go in fast but first gear manages the weight. We ride low. The grass will overheat or even bottom us. I’ve already lost one van on this job, through no fault of my own. I’m doing this properly, even though the grass fucks with us.

I push my momentum as instructed and as feels practical. I’m in driver head. My concern is for the vehicle. I’m driving very much to the needs of the situation.

The range rover ahead of us is floundering from driving too slow, I think. I have no ideas who is in it. It’s just an unusually hesitant bellwether. I push on, hoping my understanding in a trickier vehicle will help them gain the confidence they need in their offroader to stop risking swamping and get to the end of the field. This is uneven ground but it isn’t bad compared to Sardinia / Uruguay / Saudi and plenty of the other places I’ve had to throw around a front wheel drive when it is only 4×4 possible for these guys. Ha! You just need to understand momentum and know when to stop. To the cliffs is an easy drive if you are vigilant. You might get bogged or overheated, but you lower the chances massively if you use momentum.

But…  suddenly the car ahead of us stops. I stop too, at the top of a downward slope so I can continue. There’s a good 40 foot between us – I’ve been trying to slow down so they can solve what I’m assuming must be a problem with their car which has been making them crawl.

Fiona gets out. She yomps up to us.

“She looks angry,” I say to Dan. “Nah mate, it’ll be logistics. She needs to give us a permit.” “Actually yeah, that’s likely it. It’s not like we’ve done anything.”

Fiona arrives at my window and she’s shouting and not breathing at all. The most incredible invective. Horrible. How does she do it and not fall over? This is my friend and my boss. Literally the nastiest anyone has ever spoken to me in my entire life. It was everything I had not to say “Go fuck yourself”. Absolutely gobsmacking unprovoked RAGE. Looking back on it I guess that’s the trust thing. I trust her, and I trust Hannah. We are friends. Friends can be cunts to each other.

How much damage have these Americans done that I can drive correctly and with experience over rough terrain and my friend can literally verbally assault me with everything they’ve got for no reason? Limmy told me years ago: ‘These Americans – you can’t let them hurt your friendships.”

“If that had been me I would have walked off the job,” says Dan. She is mum of two boys. So was my poor mum. She defaulted to a tone that sees results with them. But… it is only effective if it is your children who owe their freedom to you.

I’m trying to eat the poison. I’m the bottom of the hierarchy on purpose. I’m the whipping boy. That’s the hope. I’ve got no ambition to be mister whoopywooface. But just because I set myself up as the whipping boy does not mean that my friends are free to flail me like that. Nobody should ever speak to anyone like that.

I’m generally just trying to make things nice when I work.  It’s something I’m extremely good at. It’s all I give a fuck about. I’ve got old friends on the shoot: Hannah, Fiona and Dan. Very different types but I care about them all very deeply and we have all pissed each other off on this job, but thankfully we all love each other. The material we were shooting will hopefully be lovely, even if it is getting harder by the day with the lack of a first AD. You have to tell people what you’re doing ahead of time or they’ll lose faith. Thank God we have a fantastically kind gaffer. I sent the drone guy to him as he was trying to balance interior to exterior. I’ve never seen anyone so amenable. Alongside that, I experimented when wardrobe and art were with me and I had the only walkie. “You have to ask Hannah if you want an answer. If I ask she’ll just be vague and slightly belittling.” “No she won’t,” said Dahlia and Olivia, and so we all shared my walkie and observed how they both got answers and I got fobbed off.

Friends, eh? That’s why some people pretend to be better than real. But I know she’s going though stress. And it is mostly glorious.

It’s a lovely lovely set. Tonight we managed to get everyone together in one place with the excuse of a late call tomorrow and my birthday. My heavily refined “Unthreatening Alien” routine allows everyone to be their best selves on jobs like this. I’ll go right out there and say that my special skill is to bring companies together without anyone realising I’m doing it. I know when to clown and when to shoot energy, and I give no fucks about your hierarchy nonsense.

But don’t be a cunt for no reason. Please.