Thursday, May 22, 2008

So You Want To Work In Film: Part Duh?

People are fucking retarded. And make no mistake, people who work in film are just as retarded as the guy in your office that you think is retarded, but people in film get paid more and we don't have to wear a tie...or shave. Basically, we are paid really well and we are just as retarded only we don't have to look like a corporate shill.

Understand that there are people here in Los Angeles/Hollywood making a shit load of money and they could just as easily need to be reminded to breathe. It's important to give a little backstory in order to get the true stupidity of it all.

So, last week I was working on a movie that I won't mention but at the time I knew it would be ending so I booked another job for, well tomorrow. So anyway, the guy I'm working for talked to me about the job not last tuesday, but the tuesday before that. So, that's almost two weeks and if it were my company, I might have some info gathered about the show and exactly what might be needed for the day. And I use "day" losely. So today, Thursday, I scheduled for a friend of mine who is a practitioner/master of Chinese medicine and massage therapy to come over to the house and give my wife and I some much needed rubbing. That worked out just right. But as soon as I got off the table and my wife got on, my phone started ringing.

I was hired on this thing to be a driver. Do the set up of the "people", wait for production to shoot the stupid thing, and drive the crap back to where it came from. Pretty simple right? Think again. The truck that I was supposed to drive ended up being rented to 'Bones' and the truck to replace that one was full of shit that needed to be removed. Better still, the owner/mastermind waited too long to tell me about the truck and where to pick it up, and as a result the dump was closed. So what would you do? You think the truck is going to be needed early in the morning, probably something like 4am, so what do you do? You dump the shit in your backyard, that's what you do. You make a tidy pile of dirt and concrete and hope you have the truck later so you can get rid of it. Just about the time you finish getting the truck clean and ready for the next day, two things happen. The first is the phone call that call time (the time when everyone needs to be at the set for the commercial/movie/tv show/etc) is...not 4am like you had been told days ago and even almost two weeks ago when you took the job...no...4:30 PM. It's a night shoot.

So you busted yer ass today, to get the truck and get the fucker cleaned and you don't have to be there for another 24 hours. Nice. I'm a little bummed cause I got an awesome massage today, then had that euphoria kicked in the balls by some asshole who didn't bother to ask the most obvious question there is to ask. When is the call time? Night shoot? Day shoot? Did I put my underpants on my head? I hate people so much. So, now I will be working tomorrow night on some commercial for the Olympics at the Rose Bowl. The best part, the part I left out, I was going racing on Saturday. Car is ready, oil changed, wheels aligned, crap removed. Oh well. Willow Springs will still be there and fact is, I probably would have broken something on the car that I can't afford to fix right now. Not saying I would have crashed, just that something would have broken and probably cost $1000 to fix.

So there you have it. Are you mildly retarded? Special? Absent minded? Slightly creative? You can work in film. You don't even need a tie! Talent is optional but highly recommended.

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