Asda Commercial
Off I went to continue on with the asda commercials.
During the job, the runners were divided into teams and coordinated by team leaders and the second assist director by way of talk back radios. During the second week of filming I was made a team leader and put under more stress than I wanted to deal with. I already didn't like the job much - we mainly had to tackle members of the public before they got away if they'd been caught in shot, and then make them sign a form.
That and threading baubles (which the 2nd AD referred to as Bourbons, much to our amusement). Kurt, a guy I became friends with, was one of my team, and little Sarah who I did BBC work experience with also came onto the job on the second week. Also there was Jason, who I worked with on the Keiser Chiefs job and Lottie from the BBC. Jason got made a team leader too, and I brought Sarah into my team to look after her.
I also got landed with Marcus, a nice enough lad but he acted like he was in charge of everyone when he was one of our peers, so naturally everyone took the piss behind his back.
Kurt and i both ended up carrying rolls of parcel tape each, for reasons unknown (if I acquire materials or equipment during jobs, I add it to my tool belt) and decided to dub ourselves team parcel tape.
Now the 2nd AD, James, who was our immediate superior on the job, was all about the teamwork. Hell, he even ran it like a military operation. So when I answered his call for 'Sean's team' with the phrase 'Team [i]parcel tape[/i] recieveing' he was delighted, and threw another member in my squad, Russell. My former team leader. I must've become a favorite of James' after this, and for this reason alone because other than that I can't think when I distinguished myself, for I was tired and annoyed and unenthused about the job and after a 13 hour day I was pretty surly.
None the less, the next day we got called in early, and after a night sleeping at Ben's in a cold, uncomfortable room, and having no breakfast, I was pretty bitter. REALLY bitter actually, and so was Russell. After starting the day with all work and no breakfast, we slotted off for a cup of tea and some cereal, and found it, shamelessly shirking off work.
After this we felt much better, and went back to loaf around for 15 minutes till we got called officially for breakfast. After a good old fry up, I strolled down the stairs of the catering bus and stopped at the bottom, cockily stretching and rubbing my belly in satisfaction.
The producer, Justine sighted in on me, and called me over.
Uh oh, I thought. What have I done this time. Well, I knew, but how much did she know?
'Uh oh' I said 'what have I done this time'
'Nothing' she said, 'come over here'
So I did. And I was most suprised. She asked me if I was Sean, and told me that James was very pleased with me and they were going to assign me to the camera crew instead of doing the monkey work with the other runners. But they'd promised Russell this job, and I said so, but asked what James had been saying about me and she said he thinks I'm great and on the ball and likes my style.
So that put my spirits up for the rest of the day, and off I went to decorate the ice castle (which is where they have their big party). I coordinated (very badly) the laying of a BIG ASS red carpet descending the steps, and even got to nail it down with a hammer, which after threading baubles all day made me feel manly again.
We did loads of other stuff, and finished with the limo convoy finale which had to be coordinated to the rafters, and then we finally finished shooting and the remaining runners rallied up in the cafe to debrief and hopefully get paid.
Now, I had an issue about payment. the previous day we'd worked 13 hours. Definite overtime there.
But I'd heard nothing of getting over time pay.
And I knew that a couple of people had stayed behind that night to help wrap presents or some such and they got paid an extra 30 quid for it. Where was my bloody over time, thats what I wanted to know, and so did a few others.
So when I saw justine I took her off to the corner for a word about it
'Well' she said 'some of the other days were shorter and it balances out with the longer days...' she trailed off as I fixed her with my glare, not convinced in the slightest.
'I'll see what we can do' she added.
Sometime later, after James had debreiefed us, she came back announcing that we'd all worked really hard and they were very pleased and you've all got an extra 20 quid in your pay packets.
Smug Sean insued, but made an effort not to show off about it. This isn't about you, I told myself. We all deserve this money.
I also volunteered to help clean up the show the next day. I got to freeload as much stuff as I wanted, what with asda using so much stock to deck out their christmas party. All this opened product, perfectly good but unsellable. I came away with 2 packs of plates, 2 packs of cutlery, an iron, ironing board, 3 crates of beer, a bottle of gin, bottle of red, 5 lamps, etc. etc.
Oh and I got paid 120 quid. Twice what I was paid for the rest of the days and half the hours.
And now I had plenty of kit to deck out my new flat, which I had been searching for and found during the week.
During the job, the runners were divided into teams and coordinated by team leaders and the second assist director by way of talk back radios. During the second week of filming I was made a team leader and put under more stress than I wanted to deal with. I already didn't like the job much - we mainly had to tackle members of the public before they got away if they'd been caught in shot, and then make them sign a form.
That and threading baubles (which the 2nd AD referred to as Bourbons, much to our amusement). Kurt, a guy I became friends with, was one of my team, and little Sarah who I did BBC work experience with also came onto the job on the second week. Also there was Jason, who I worked with on the Keiser Chiefs job and Lottie from the BBC. Jason got made a team leader too, and I brought Sarah into my team to look after her.
I also got landed with Marcus, a nice enough lad but he acted like he was in charge of everyone when he was one of our peers, so naturally everyone took the piss behind his back.
Kurt and i both ended up carrying rolls of parcel tape each, for reasons unknown (if I acquire materials or equipment during jobs, I add it to my tool belt) and decided to dub ourselves team parcel tape.
Now the 2nd AD, James, who was our immediate superior on the job, was all about the teamwork. Hell, he even ran it like a military operation. So when I answered his call for 'Sean's team' with the phrase 'Team [i]parcel tape[/i] recieveing' he was delighted, and threw another member in my squad, Russell. My former team leader. I must've become a favorite of James' after this, and for this reason alone because other than that I can't think when I distinguished myself, for I was tired and annoyed and unenthused about the job and after a 13 hour day I was pretty surly.
None the less, the next day we got called in early, and after a night sleeping at Ben's in a cold, uncomfortable room, and having no breakfast, I was pretty bitter. REALLY bitter actually, and so was Russell. After starting the day with all work and no breakfast, we slotted off for a cup of tea and some cereal, and found it, shamelessly shirking off work.
After this we felt much better, and went back to loaf around for 15 minutes till we got called officially for breakfast. After a good old fry up, I strolled down the stairs of the catering bus and stopped at the bottom, cockily stretching and rubbing my belly in satisfaction.
The producer, Justine sighted in on me, and called me over.
Uh oh, I thought. What have I done this time. Well, I knew, but how much did she know?
'Uh oh' I said 'what have I done this time'
'Nothing' she said, 'come over here'
So I did. And I was most suprised. She asked me if I was Sean, and told me that James was very pleased with me and they were going to assign me to the camera crew instead of doing the monkey work with the other runners. But they'd promised Russell this job, and I said so, but asked what James had been saying about me and she said he thinks I'm great and on the ball and likes my style.
So that put my spirits up for the rest of the day, and off I went to decorate the ice castle (which is where they have their big party). I coordinated (very badly) the laying of a BIG ASS red carpet descending the steps, and even got to nail it down with a hammer, which after threading baubles all day made me feel manly again.
We did loads of other stuff, and finished with the limo convoy finale which had to be coordinated to the rafters, and then we finally finished shooting and the remaining runners rallied up in the cafe to debrief and hopefully get paid.
Now, I had an issue about payment. the previous day we'd worked 13 hours. Definite overtime there.
But I'd heard nothing of getting over time pay.
And I knew that a couple of people had stayed behind that night to help wrap presents or some such and they got paid an extra 30 quid for it. Where was my bloody over time, thats what I wanted to know, and so did a few others.
So when I saw justine I took her off to the corner for a word about it
'Well' she said 'some of the other days were shorter and it balances out with the longer days...' she trailed off as I fixed her with my glare, not convinced in the slightest.
'I'll see what we can do' she added.
Sometime later, after James had debreiefed us, she came back announcing that we'd all worked really hard and they were very pleased and you've all got an extra 20 quid in your pay packets.
Smug Sean insued, but made an effort not to show off about it. This isn't about you, I told myself. We all deserve this money.
I also volunteered to help clean up the show the next day. I got to freeload as much stuff as I wanted, what with asda using so much stock to deck out their christmas party. All this opened product, perfectly good but unsellable. I came away with 2 packs of plates, 2 packs of cutlery, an iron, ironing board, 3 crates of beer, a bottle of gin, bottle of red, 5 lamps, etc. etc.
Oh and I got paid 120 quid. Twice what I was paid for the rest of the days and half the hours.
And now I had plenty of kit to deck out my new flat, which I had been searching for and found during the week.