Month: September 2023

Day two of this wonderful madness. Up at fuck o’clock and Marlon was late so I got to have a moment of stop before the van came in to get me. Then off. We have numbered and labelled all the tech now, even though it keeps changing. At one point I literally found myself volunteering to step in as a first assistant director, as this is the thing we are most visibly lacking. The information dissemination. Obviously I can’t come in as first now, and it would be weird. But I’m trying to streamline information dissemination by sending a million WhatsApp messages all the time forever. Nobody really knows when the shot is moving on unless they happen to be standing next to the director. He’s an auteur, beautifully artistic, but very used to working on his own and in a rarefied atmosphere. “Now just … just let the music carry you. Get lost in the music, and an m we will film you!” “That’s not the way it works through me.”

I’m at my usual coalface, quietly stopping things exploding before they become visible. Sometimes it’s impossible to avoid, like when the tech van was sent to an address over a mile from the shoot and then treated like the driver had fucked up.

It’s all made a little harder because I’m being micromanaged by the same person who sent the wrong address so if I even snatch a moment for a coffee after being pretty much the only person with no lunch break and knowing deeply and completely that there’s no way in hell anything is going to explode in the next ten minutes, I still get a call telling me I should move some fucking boxes. The call doesn’t come because I imminently need to move the boxes. No no. The call comes because they’re quick enough to notice I’ve gone off site, but slow enough to fail to understand that they can trust me to do more than my job. “The talent was incoming”. I knew where the talent was. I had plenty of time and time to spare. I needed a moment. I’m made of meat as well, and need to feed and use stimulants.

Which is why this blog might feel rushed. I’m home now and actually feeling very much reconciled and like this is a solid team. This blog is always just the record of a day. I think that the biggest lie of all is the myth of consistency. We change our minds all the time. It is only when we entrench that we start to become Rishi. But we are led to believe that it is somehow shameful to change our minds. Nah. I shift my views with the tide and I hope I will until I die.

There’s an idea of consistency at the core of this. I like them all. They are all competent. We are a big team, working hard, making.

The hours are always long. I’m happy though, doing it. And if I’m moaning into my blog it’s partly because I have already taken sleepy medicine and then realised I’ve got to rush this fucker before I sink into this heavy and delightful cushion of dream that is already beckoning.

Oh man I’m exhausted and this is just day one. Thankfully it’s a lovely team and the ructions that had me concerned are already smoothing. I was a little frustrated last night that I didn’t stop a decision that was made to hire a piece of kit that was both very expensive and – to my sensibilities – more effort than it’s worth. You really need 3 people to operate a Ronin 2 and I’ve seen the shoot plan – we don’t need it. Certainly not for over £400 a day. The team seem to have all spoken to one another at last now and agreed on this and they’re gonna chalk it up to experience and go a bit more low-fi for the steadycam stuff. And save a mint in the process.

The usual jumps at the start. I found my judgement under scrutiny when one of my drivers showed up for work looking too casual. I totally get it. Dress comfy, drive comfy. Why be uptight about it? Again I think it was just teething problems, and tomorrow he thought he might show up in a suit for contrast. The shoot itself went very well, and I am happy with how my drivers acquitted themselves. I sourced the gaffer through a very dear film director mate and he’s so chilled and competent. My camera guy is all over it too and I’m sure he’s got some useful footage. He just had to calibrate himself for the team he’s on. Like an acting company, everybody has to find their shape on a film set – even a tiny one like this. We are always working to a deadline, and you can’t fuck up when venue hire and staff costs are so high. We got the shots we needed. I reckon we got some lovely shots, not that I ever got had time to monitor the monitor or see the rushes. At one point I was caught and hid under a table with the make-up for about ten minutes while a beautiful grand piano was deliciously noodled and simultaneously filmed on two swirling cameras. I was happy to be in the room. I can already feel that this will be a lovely thing to watch and I’m thrilled to be a cog in the machine even if it is a cog that will wakeworksleep for the next ten days or so, and carry all the heavy stuff. Lunch involved grabbing a triangle of sandwich off a table as I walked through, and took place probably about half 4 for ten seconds. Even when I left the building for 3 minutes to return a tablet to a driver I was rung up on WhatsApp. My one attempt at getting someone to get me a coffee coincided with a sudden unexpectedly quick van unload. Lots of things needed and very few people, all of whom have choices about how they behave.

Stress is voluntary. Seriously. You don’t have to do stress and you probably get the thing done better and certainly get it done kinder if you pull stress out of the equation entirely. It helps nothing. Ever. It even slows you down cos you stop breathing properly.

One lovely day. Many more to come.

I think this will be lovely but right now it’s Ronin this and Gimble that and is the lens the right lens and why is the director insisting on that lens when it’ll cost us over £300 a day because it weighs so much we can’t pull focus on the ronin we have? Tristan met me after work and put his finger on it. “Director is insisting on the crap lens to make sure everyone jumps when he asks them to jump.” Of course. Expensive ego trip. The DoP seemed to have a workaround, but this director is super chilled in person I’m told, but he’s Cali. So he exerts his thing via equipment instead of shouting. I can buy into that, to be honest. I’m just here to help it all get made. Let them have their battles. All I care about is that it is efficient and pleasant when we actually start.

Today has been inventory and getting to know the team. The focus puller is ALWAYS OCD. This guy is no exception but its like he wants to live in the production office, and he listens to a load of YouTube videos that contradict the lived experience of the DoP. I like him. I have skin in the game though as I booked the DoP so I want him to be brilliant and loved so it reflects back on me darling.

The DoP lost my happy imagination traction when he started being heavy handed. I love him lots but he was shouting instead of talking today. Sometimes there are actors on lovely jobs who somehow reckon they are “better than the job”. Honestly my dears, if you’re better than the job, don’t do the job. Stet. Unless you’re willing to be gracious. There’s always someone else who will be happy to have the job. Either do it fully and kindly or go sit in front of Netflix.

Behind me there’s a storm. It came in slowly with hard static. Now there’s hard rain. I really hope we aren’t under the gun for the outdoor shoots. Not tomorrow, I don’t think, but soon. We are about to cover a lot of ground.

Tristan drove me home cos he needed a self tape reader for two tapes. We did them both. Then I cooked for us both. God we ate well but I’ve had no down time whatsoever but for that twenty minutes in the car. And now I’ll sleep with what is currently a crazy loud storm noise outside the open window. I could close the window but I’m pretty sure that this storm will end up chased by more heat. I’d prefer to wake naturally than to boil into my early start. But I’m gonna drug myself with Actifed. Night fun friends! zzzzx

I’m back in London. It’s hot. It’s about to break, dammit. Dan came by in an open top car and dropped his driving licence. I’ll be picking up a van tomorrow. I’m going into the production office tomorrow. It’s my first day.

Ha. My “first” day.

I’ve been building this team for over a decade, but tomorrow is the first day I’m officially on the payroll. I’ll know half the team. As ever I’ve been balancing ability and personality with the recommendations I’ve made. Once on one of these jobs, CrapDuncan the location manager who literally thought I had made my life up said “You’ve just employed loads of your friends,” and it really disappointed me that he thought that. I mean he was a bumwinnet of a human being but it still hit home, as he wanted it to. I barely knew half the people I had employed, and didn’t know some others. He was totally wrong, just as he was totally useless. But it made me question it – I got one broke friend in because they were broke, and they were the only one to let me down. They showed up steaming hungover. Lesson learnt. The rest I got in based on my knowledge of what they bring, but loads of them I had only met once or twice and was rolling on instinct. My instinct was borne out. I had lots of conversations with people – the first conversation is always theoretical – and wrote them off based on their approach to the theory. For the hardest ones (6″5′ actual policeman willing to act) I went to Funemployed. I have had some very tricky things to source over the years. Funny to realise that just by living my life wide I’m good at a thing that others aren’t. I’m good at diverse team building on a large scale. I have an absurdly wide life and a very varied and full address book, even though I mostly haven’t contacted you for ages. I’m not the guy who phones through everyone once a month. But I get to meet a very wide variety of people.

I’ll start work tomorrow on this shoot and see loads of people I’ve known for ages. Competent professionals. Some will be driving, others will be behind the camera or lights. One of them will be doing the job I usually do. I won’t see her tomorrow as she’s suddenly got COVID and is staying in Aberdeen until we get there.

Yeah which is FLASHBACK CITY! Remember when we had to send a lateral flow test before we could go to work?

I did one day of work once when we had to register the fucking test before they let us in the building. Ahhh the sweet nostalgia. Horrible craptimes. We all have to do it… Tomorrow morning I’ll send a photo of a bit of plastic before they let me in. I’m going through my old photos as I threw all the tests I had away some time ago. This is SO 2021 dude but I’m game. It’s worth it for the fact we are making something that isn’t shit, with interesting people. I’ve been looking forward to getting started and yeah, loads of crew are doing the “oh I’m sick but you still have to pay me” lark. It’s abject. I thought we were past that sort of thing.

Yay. New job. Should’ve started a week ago. But yay anyway.

I came down to Sealanes, just below Lou’s flat. My last evening in Brighton this time and the cat was asleep. It’s absolutely terrible here but there are seats and they cooked me a sausage. Right now we are being subjected to No One (Will Love You Like I Do) by Flakes and yes it really is as bad as it sounds. It’s a constant diet of this stuff that I think you can describe as Atlantic Funk?

Here by the pebbly beach they have Volks Electric Railway carrying baffled citizens through the sun. They have this brand new outdoor freshwater pool competing with the sea. And they have this complex of custom built woodenish huts.

You find a seat and nobody talks to you. As soon as a glass is emptied or a plate is cleaned someone takes it away. But you mostly are expected to order everything by QR Code. This is one of the downsides of that lovely summer two years ago when we were all supposed to be terrified of each other. Now everyone is meant to be able to order and pay for things without human contact, and enough people worked out how to do it that this place runs pretty well. There IS still a window where you can go and ask nicely for the sausage please. But they don’t want you to do it that way. It’ll go eventually. If they could bus glasses with robots they would. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.

So why am I here? Bad music, digital ordering…? I’m here because my body got tired of lying on the stones and I wanted some of that tasty merguez. I’m here because, to put it in Lou’s words, ‘you love the people”. I’m here because the sunset looks gorgeous from here. I’m here because how many more days do we have like this before February? I’m here because it is funny waving like a child at all the people coming by on the electric railway and getting them to wave back.

I’m here because I might have a beer later and I am not gonna have more than one. We don’t need a repeat of yesterday evening.

Meanwhile van hire madness in London. I have to be in town tomorrow I don’t have to be in town tomorrow everyone needs to give me driving licence nobody needs to give me aaargh. I like being immediate and responsive as it is my happy place and where I am best located, but if everyone is like that then things only get done last minute if at all.

I’m about to start another little run of work. I’ll look back on this version of myself waving at the railway people and I’ll miss him.

Now shall I have a beer or a coke with this sausage?

Another day spent in my mind. I went to Saltdean.

Just down the road from the wonderful blind veteran’s home that Brighton has already sold to the gammons we have a historic listed Lido that, despite huge amounts of funding, they can’t make safe enough to open to the public despite this being the perfect week for it. That suited me, as there’s a car park next to it which would be absolutely chocka if it was open. As was I could easily leave Bergie there for free and head to the beach. The spectacular incompetence of Brighton Council doesn’t need to be highlighted, it is evident everywhere. Sadly it aligns with the spectacular incompetence of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Running things is hard, even if you give a fuck. If it’s just a sinecure it is double hard. And, for generations, politics has been so overtaken by overprivileged ambitious toadies that it is a hostile environment for anyone who actually cares about anything. Occasionally there’s an Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez. Mostly it’s just another haw haw. Particularly over here where the media is so quick to sniff kindness and brand it weakness that there are still people who actually genuinely think Corbyn was a nazi.

I left all that thinking behind. I let my brain stop. I lay half naked by the sea at Saltdean, sucking in damage, giving cancer a bit of an advantage after all the care I’ve given to liver failure. Heart disease is currently hanging out with car crash hoping they can jump in unexpectedly.

It was glorious. Now I’m back at Lou’s with the pussycat. I’m having a glass from the bottle of 2020 St Emilion which is the best the CoOp had to offer, and which I’ve been ekeing out over the last few days. I’m enjoying the fact I taped today for a vicar who loves fine wine. There but for the grace of God go I. It would be a fascinating examination of one of the threads of life I might have followed had I not been eaten by the actingmonster.

It’s nice taping against a track. But wow, it forced me to go at a pace I wasn’t ready for first thing in the morning. If you’re doing a track for a friend, send 2 options, one of which you are leaving what feels like too long. I had to tape it in a rush and fuck me the pace of it forced me to be sharp.

I might get this one.

Meanwhile I’ll have a pointless squabble on the phone followed by an early bed.

EDIT: The lido has been open all summer. Just closed for seasonal reasons as the Indian summer kicked in. I was drunk blogging again. Sorry kids.

I went and lay on the stones at the edge of the world. Louring sky but the memory of warmth still in the world.

People are still swimming in this water. Climatically it’s the best time, although these days no water in this country is safe from companies greed-dumping chemicals way over any safe limits. Likely the sea in Brighton is chemical muck. BUT Sovrinntey!! Anyway, that’s my excuse for not swimming in the sea. Bite me.

Being here with the big sky and the relative peace helps with the noise. London in the heat is not a good place. The production I’m involved in has hit ructions and things are being rescheduled. COVID, apparently. Of all reasons to take a day off work, it’s COVID again. I’m told I won’t have to drop some stuff off tomorrow because things have been delayed by fecking COVID. A little bit of me hears that in the same light that I might hear it if I was told that the shoot was delayed because of a bout of scrofula. Surely we are done spannering our works with that one? Much as it was delightful to bugger around on Zoom with Creation, to meet Lou, to look after that snake, to have access to a flat in Hampstead Heath, to have time and space and breath, guiltless. Surely we are over that shit despite the guilt free time off we all had.

Now I’m back in the bollocks. Every day I’m not working makes me feel guilty. I can frame some pretty eccentric things as work, of course. And I’ve got woowoo type “work” (unpaid) where I’m very very practiced. Things about eating negative energy and converting it to light. Demon munching. Sometimes that can be very tiring believe it or not, even if it IS just made up crap. Here by the sea I can do it harder and recover faster.

So. Seaside. Water. Expanse. Access to nature. Liminal space. A cat. All the things that help my woowoo. I’m here trying to field some pretty big stuff in London and in Georgia and it is totally right that the practical needs of a sickly cat and a pushed-out friend have thrown me to the edge of this country. Either I’m strongest at the edges or it’s all a load of made up crap. I’ll roll the dice thanks.

Plus it’s great here. I went for breakfast at Café Rust. Catsitting is a bit of a holiday really. This little part of Brighton is a very chilled village, without the monolithic pomposity of my little corner of Chelsea.

Brighton again. It took me a bit longer than I expected to get my stuff together in the morning. Living with Frank, I didn’t want to leave mess all over the place. A quick clear up. Then that familiar two hour drive. I’m here now. I can really feel the difference.

The window is open in the bedroom. This Indian Summer is still clinging on and I’m loving it. Just a counterpane for cover, and I’ll sleep beautifully. In London I’m on a main road and the noise is constant. I can tune the road out after a while of course, but here by the sea it is more peaceful and expansive, and the road is much less packed.

I’m here for the little cat of course, but it is always weird being here without Lou. Tessy is relieved to see me though. She was on her own last night. She just seems to prefer it knowing someone is there. I get that. There’s an empty bit of bed to my left. I’m not gonna see her until the end of the month.

Her energy is pervasive here though. It’s much earlier than I would normally be winding down, but the low light and soft furniture are both conducive to getting sleepy when the light goes, and Indian Summer or not it is still September. Every morning Bergman is covered in fallen leaves. The dark is closing in. The wheel is turning again. Before we even know it we will meet the cold again. Heaven help us all.

I’m gonna have a cup of chamomile tea, read for a while and pass out in the knowledge that the little cat will have me up with the dawn. I’m happy to be here. A few days of calm.

A bright start to the week. Well rested and awake before my alarm but still hooked just enough on pushing snooze that I had to rush my coffee into a takeaway cup. Into Bergman for a quick shot out to Harlesden where we were making this radio drama in an old fish packaging factory. It’s a brilliantly odd place with pastel walls and lots of rooms available for different soundscapes. The morning flew by and I was glad of my prep work as you don’t get lots of do-overs. I’m not sure how much I can say about the project, so even though I haven’t signed an NDA I’m going to say only a little and wait for it to air. It’s an interesting and quite eccentric true story of some arty London types intersecting with Moscow just as the iron curtain lifted. The man at the heart of the tale was with us this morning to hear the read-through – it’s a true story. My character sadly died some time ago. The protagonist signed a copy of his book for me and I only bloody went and left it in the studio when I finished. He seems to have led an interesting life, but so have we all, darling.

Radio drama is an interesting and fun medium to work in. We sent it up in Fitzrovia Radio Hour to great effect, as there’s something delightful in the intersection between doing the thing in the script for real and making a Foley that works. The tragic climax of one of our tales at Fitzrovia involved a fan being switched on, a card inserted into the fan, and someone vigorously squelching the inside of a melon with a plunger, dead pan, while the character used a giant lathe to kill themselves. “I should’ve known me place!” That was purposeful anarchy. This was, of course, much more measured.

Still, we walked into a room with a load of strangers and had to play with them immediately. We had to mock up a car driving to Moscow and an airport security gate. The hardest bit was the background noise for the party. First thing on a Monday morning and it had to be raucous. We sounded like a load of yahoos, but they’ll tweak the levels and make it work I expect. It was a pleasant group, surprisingly sausage-heavy for this day and age but I’m not gonna complain when I’m one of the sausages. I’m thrilled to have had the chance to work on something a little unusual with such a friendly lot. I’ll let you know when it airs, unless I forget.

Now I’m home, baking in the glorious late summer flatoven, running a bath before I decant to Brighton for a few days to look after the little cat. More little jobs like this thankyouplease. What a delight.

It might be possible too. I walked out of the studio to find my agent has landed me another nice tape for another part I can see myself playing. I immediately went to the barber for a trim and to take the beard off. Nice to be shorn in this heat, frankly.

An early bed is in order today. I woke up at about ten and drank a litre of water and still felt awful. Frank and I sorted some books and filled some bags with unwanted things. I had three cups of coffee and two cans of lucozade. Sitting on the kitchen table was a script and a pencil. Occasionally I looked at it guiltily before going through another pile of books.

The sorting is beginning to feel therapeutic even though it’s difficult. In this heat and hungover it was particularly hard to do. Still, progress happened. There’s too many books but a smaller amount of too many now. I still find throwing them away hard but practice makes perfect.

The dump is huge and has lots of categories. I took my time there. I really like to try to make sure things are sent back round in some way. I took a big old lamp there that originally came from The Sloane Club. They put it out on the street so it ended up by my bed. I put it in the place where you put things that work. I’m trying to reverse the stuffflow. The stuff … it has gathered around me. Now it must leave and continue to leave. I can streamline more and more, until I become sleek and tight and fit like a racehorse, able to respond at a moment’s notice.

Dump stuff dumped, I felt a little lighter. Time to attend to that script. Oh but the mackerel.

I bought two fresh mackerel on my way out of Brighton five days ago. That’s about as long as you can leave it. Fifteen minutes to whack it up in the oven. Longer to eat than cook. Fresh fish, it’s lavverley. Even five days old.

Work? Work.

Radio. You don’t need to learn it, but it is very helpful to beat it out, think about actions and intentions, work out where you’ll be chinking glass and so forth. I like an annotated script. You don’t get lots of do overs, so you want to be easy. In the hot flat my external sorting subtly changed to thoughtwork as I tried to structure a way through the character I’m playing tomorrow. I also watched a lovely interview with him – he’s a real guy, and absolutely loved textiles from the Caucasus. Listening to him talk about tattoos and dialects and the contents of his very clever head I warmed to him hugely. It’s always pleasant to play good people occasionally. I get to play a lot of dicks.

As darkness fell an old friend came over and gave me some stuff to hold for the shoot next week. It’s only coming in temporarily. By now my hangover is just a memory of sugar. We laughed lots, the warm evening closed in. Now I’m in bed and it isn’t even ten. I’m making sure I sleep long and well tonight. You’ve had two drunkblogs in a row. That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.