14 May 2021 ice cream Friday

[KathyB]

As opposed to my miserable failure last week, this week I was able to get an ice cream sundae through the McDonald's drive-thru, and it was delicious. I went to a different McDonald's, and now I know which McDonalds to go to. I should have gotten a large Coke with my order.

The weather can't decide whether it wants to rain or not.

[scenicdesign71]

Today is my penultimate Friday on this job, at least for this season (though maybe also for this show overall, as my crew chief has decided not to return for another season, and her replacement may bring in their own crew).  I start work tonight at 7:30pm and end, probably, right around sunrise.

Originally we were scheduled to wrap this season next Thursday (though, based on the size of the season finale and the shooting schedules of previous episodes, I never really could see how that was going to happen), which would have made today my final Friday.  But a couple days ago they rescheduled this coming week: adding a day off in the middle of the week, making next Friday a workday -- AND adding a day the following Monday.  So the episode, and season, has indeed grown by one (net) shooting day.  Hopefully it won't stretch longer than that: we are all very tired and ready for the season to be over.

Also I can't imagine the producers want to spend any more money than necessary: though not a small production, we're certainly no Gilded Age (HBO, period, massive) either.  But I have to say, after reading most of our episode scripts, and from all the filming I've now seen on these sets (there's an app that allows key crew members, with a passcode, to use any iPhone or iPad within WiFi range as a camera monitor to see the actual shots as they're being composed and filmed; as my own one-person on-set scenic crew, I get to be one of those people), I'm excited to see the finished episodes when they begin airing in July.

After the first few rainy, chilly days early last week, the weather has thankfully been cooperating since then: dry and warmish -- or at least not super cold, with only rare dips into the high 40s in the wee hours.  In theory, it's supposed to stay dry and continue getting warmer through next week -- fingers crossed.

[scenicdesign71]

Well, the other night -- "Fraturday," as a colleague called it -- turned out, at its conclusion, to be rather action-packed and even sort of fun in a frantically energized "wtf??" sort of way.

Without going into detail, I'll just say that we all ended the night, in the parking lot of a down-at-heel inner-suburban YMCA, in an absolutely bonkers rush to get our last scene for the day/week set up and shot in the final hour before sunrise.  And that the resulting melée brought a weirdly comforting feeling: it reminded me unmistakably of the kind of guerrilla-theatre insanity in which I'm all too well-versed and perhaps (however deeply it pains me to admit this) consequently feel most at home.

I do also sympathize with anyone who may not have been accustomed to that kind of mad scramble, and who might have absolutely no desire ever to become so; for whom such wing-and-a-prayer time crunches seem not "fun" or "energized," much less "comforting" -- but instead merely dismaying.

But if nothing else, it was revelatory for me to experience it at such a higher level of production than I'm used to: apparently these things really do happen even in the big leagues.

Also: like theatre people, film/TV crews are natural problem-solvers: capable of pulling together, under chaotic conditions, with remarkable nimbleness and laser focus -- and, when the chips are really down, a notable absence of ego, rancor or hysteria.  Even at this late stage in the season, it may have been a bonding experience for an exhausted crew... Hopefully a little of that residual energy will help us through the upcoming final five shooting days.