Up to Windsor in the morning and I meet a guy who has been doing this thing of repurposing sets and taking out the trash for a long long time. He’s also Art Dept for a pretty damn big production company, so that’s an alignment as loads of the stuff he gathers can go back round into his own shows… He gave me some money for some books and there’ll be more money for some awkward candelabra that I’ve nearly jettisoned a few times by now. I’m happy they’ll have a new life and I need them gone now, I need to dissolve that unit ASAP and strip back to just the costumes and nothing else. The costumes are alive to me and in focus. Everything else is really just dead energy in my imagination. Too much of my money is going on it. It’s gonna become unworkable sooner rather than later, especially as the unit just put the monthly rent up unexpectedly by £100, which takes it from nearly too much to handle to definitely too much to handle. It’s a fine line.
Went to the lockup and grabbed a couple of wee bits and bobs I want to have to hand. Ratchet straps and blankets. Hard hats and high vis. Sat in a coffee shop for an hour and got wired on good coffee, and then spun over to Acton to help a friend with his stuff. He’s got a unit in Goldhawk Road that he wanted some things taken out of and moved. He’s letting me put the straps and hats etc in the gap we’ve made. Then I’ve got access to them West as well as North which takes a bit of travel out of the equation when I’m pitching for jobs.
Storage space, it really is all about storage space. The more you have the more you can do in this game. Even the straps etc. Either you live with them in your house, you find external solutions like I have, or you burn your budget buying them new every time you do a job. Unless you live in a great big house, having these bulky practical enabling things at home just encroaches on your living space. Tools. Materials. You need stuff to do stuff and you need to do stuff to make the money to buy the stuff and store the stuff so you can do the stuff and round and round we go and somewhere in all that you eat a sandwich.
Early next week I’ll rent a van and take it to Canterbury and grab some stuff to give to the guy I met today. At the same time I’ll finish emptying one unit, and then go home via Ipswich to grab some stuff for a friend while I’ve got a van, before taking the Canterbury stuff to Windsor and dropping them off with another stuff carousel person. I think it might be the beginning of something though, meeting him. If my next big removal job lands I think a lot of it might go directly to him and back into the industry immediately. Round and round we go.
AlBarclay 