... forgive my wobbly singing but ...
... "oh happy days!"
Considering my working day started at 8.30am whilst I was still in bed (that sounds sooo wrong!) and continued into the shower (I will explain further, it's not as bad as it sounds) today wasn't actually that bad!
It all started yesterday - actually, it all started because I took a long weekend off to see my lovely sister and brother-in-law. Every single time I do this I have to wonder why. Because leading up to my time off I'm, naturally, very excited. But when I get back it's a totally different story! I made Kirsty promise not to let me take any more time off, I can't handle it any more. Particularly as Tuesday was spent on a training course which meant I had to work late. I wasn't overly bothered by this at the time, just slightly annoyed with myself for being stoopid enough to take time out of the office because when I came back I discovered a new production had joined us and we had a multitude of shoots (three scheduled for Wednesday) pencilled for the rest of the week and neither I nor Amanda were in the office on Tuesday to sort them ... technically. Of course, we did sort them.
And then Wednesday was spent playing catch-up and reorganising one of the shoots for Thursday that had been cancelled last thing on Tuesday. Which, due to the scattiness of our esteemed leader, meant staying late and missing my trip to the cinema to bawl my eyes out over PS I Love You with Jamie, Amanda and Scottie. Boo. That kind of annoyed me. In fact, it annoyed me so much that I came home and re-read an old SG-1 novella from JD-Divas that was about 5 chapters longer than the time I had to read it in. I gave up with 3 chapters left somewhere around midnight, knowing that I'd be tired and grumpy today but not really caring.
I really, really should have. Especially cos I woke up at 6.30 (never a happy occurence in my life) and struggled to get back to sleep again. Only to wake up 2 minutes before my phone rang. It was Sambo, out on a shoot for a training department in London who'd come down to Cardiff because ... well, actually we're not really sure why. Presumably for the same reason everyone else comes down, to ooh and aah over the sets. Only the main unit refused to grant permission for them to come down unless we were there to supervise them. Apparently. So I spent most of yesterday trying to get in touch with the guy running the shoot and he spent most of the day not at his computer and with all his phones (including his office phone) switched off.
Anyway, I digress. Poor Sambo had arrived at set at 8am as instructed to discover that Eric the Cameraman had had a blowout on his way home the night before. Moray, the man from London with no phone, had told him to come in whenever he got the tyre sorted, saying they'd cover the stuff they wanted with a Z1 (a type of camera that's not quite as good as the ones the crew use). Um ... what Z1? We haven't lent you one and you certainly don't have anyone capable of using it with you.
Not that that's an issue when no one from the training course has turned up. Two days of talks, show and tells and tours had been arranged and scheduled to within an inch of its life but due to the dinner and drinks last night no bugger had rolled from between their freshly pressed hotel sheets to turn up. Poor Sambo didn't have a clue what to do, he's a runner and the lowest on the food chain. I, unfortunately, am much higher up the food chain and am designated driver for this stuff. Hence the phonecall.
Personally, I was too tired and grumpy to give a shit. Afterall, if they couldn't be polite enough to a) fill me in and b) fill in the crew then they could just lose whatever it was they wanted to film as far as I was concerned. I told Sam to sit tight for an hour, drink coffee, and if no one turned up by 9.30 to call me in the office where I'd be better equipped to do something about it. Sambo happily agreed and, presumably, wandered back to the cafe on set.
I happily put the phone down and contemplated getting out of bed. Only for it to ring once more. This time it was Ian, who'd been sent out to cover PC out with a recce the main unit were doing. PC had been called away to Swansea for reasons unknown and so Ian had got off the recce bus and now it had driven away. Was that okay?
:facepalm: This was the shoot that had held me up last night and made me miss the cinema! How dare they! I told him to just come back to the office and not worry about it, we'll deal with the loss of footage another way (bearing in mind I think we're already on Plan C).
As I'm saying goodbye to Ian my phone starts beeping a call waiting at me. It's Ailsa, also out on set today. My opening words were not "hello" (I'm a non-traditionalist,, just ask JT, my sound guy) but a rather pitiful "why is everyone phoning me at 8.30 in the morning?!". After filling her in on why everyone else out on a shoot had called me she hurried to reassure me that it wasn't because anything was wrong but simply because Gill was due to arrive on set to film the DM interview we had scheduled whenever he was free and, despite texting both her phones, she was concerned Gill wouldn't get the message so she wanted to let me know that they were on standby from 10.30 to grab DM as and when he had 5 minutes. Phew! And all that because Gill phoned me on my way home last night to admit she'd only just remembered she was due to do this interview but didn't know what time she had to be there. I phoned Ailsa, explained the situation, waited until she stopped laughing long enough to get her to promise to text Gill the time once she arrived on set at 8am and immediately regretted that once my phone flashed up Ailsa's name at 8.42 this morning.
Hoping that because I'd now spoken to everyone out on shoots I could safely take a shower I wove my way into the bathroom (I have a weird inner ear thing going on which makes simple things like walking down the hall into a rollercoaster adventure) and hurriedly jumped in the shower. Unfortunately, this activated my brain and my sense of guilt. So I switched off the shower, climbed out and retrieved my phone. Shivering uncontrollably, I called Ian back and told him to stay put with the kit and cover for Eric until Eric got there. I admitted that I was probably going to regret that decision once I got into the office but would deal with it then. And that way, maybe we could cover the production meeting scheduled at midday with PC instead of the recce and still have something useable from today. I then text Amanda to tell her I was going to be late and headed folornly back to the shower, damning my conscience.
Turns out that was the right decision to make, Gill approved mightily and after various phonecalls Ian's day of following PC around was sorted. Eric turned up shortly after the trainees and took over from Ian so that shoot was all covered nicely too. I was looking at a day spent fighting sleep, sat in an office dealing with crap once again. This just would not do. So, I decided every time I needed to talk to someone in an edit suite I would just go up there rather than phoning or MSN-ing (yes, we have work sanctioned MSN!) because that way I'd move about more and be less inclined to nod off. I also took the opportunity to go across the road to our main building where the canteen is housed for a mocha (yum!), something I'd never done before and earned me a few strange looks because no one had ever seen me drink coffee. I didn't care, I needed the caffeine desperately.
And then I got told that the DoP couldn't remember the particular episode we wanted to interview him about as it was shot last summer and therefore we had to drop a DVD up to set for him to jog his memory with. Um ... all our runners are out on set already. At least, all those with cars. And as I needed to talk to Jess (my main unit counter part) and Gill about tomorrow's shoot I thought I'd kill three birds with one stone and take it up there myself.
I remember looking at the clock in my car when half way there. It said 12:50. Bugger, I thought, I'm not going to be able to get any food from the canteen by the time I get back. But was too excited to be getting out of the office for an hour or so to actually care. Ha! If I'd only known ....
Finding people when there are three sound stages in use, four seperate shoots (and that just our shoots) and five or six film crews running around was a bit beyond my capabilities. So I called them all, finally getting hold of Sambo who came to meet me because, let's face it, I've been there - what? - twice? I know where the big room in the box is and where the secret underground government facility is but beyond that I'm lost. He knew that Ails and one of the crews had been filming DT hanging from wires in the main sound stage so we headed there and ran into Gill on the way (yay!). So I filled her in on what was going on and then she offered me a tour and suggested I stay for lunch as the food was much better on set than the canteen could ever hope to offer. I didn't need much arm twisting to convince me as I really didn't want to go back. So we wandered off into the main soundstage and ran into Ailsa who was on the phone to Jamie who'd phoned her because I'd phoned him to say I was lost and looking for her. Huzzah! Two people I was looking for found really easily. I handed over the DVD and questions and wandered over to the crew to give them shit ... possibly a bit too loudly as DM kept glancing at us as they gave as good as they got then gave me hugs and kisses in greeting.
Then Gill and I left DM hanging in mid air and Ails and the crew to run around after EL, the Director, whilst we headed off to see Jess in the production office and begin my tour. Sorting out tomorrow with Jess (we're riding on the back of their arrangements in London) took a while as the place they'd booked had slightly ballsed (sp?) up and we were left without a room to film in. It all hung on the Andy's and whether they were going to need a room for their possible totally unrelated casting session. We wouldn't find out til after lunch so I resolved to come back once I'd eaten to see if there was an answer and happily headed off for an hour or so of skiving with my boss as we explored the caverns and flats on the other sound stages before heading for the lunch bus. Yes, bus. We really do eat our lunch on a converted double decker bus. Even DM does. My day was exponentially brightened by the prospect of lemon cheesecake, yes, I really am that easy to please some days ;) And it lived up to all my expecations too. Very yummy indeed.
I ate with the crew, enduring and giving more shit. Promised JT I'd let him in to our office tomorrow as long as he was nice to me, then spent most of the afternoon telling him he was fired. Headed back up to Jess to discover the Andy's didn't need the room so we were good to go, checked my watch: 14:41. Time to head back. So I wandered back down to reception with Gill, discussed tomorrow a little more, spotted PC and left her to chase him whilst I chatted with Jamie who'd wandered past and just as I was about to take my leave all hell broke loose.
It seems that the area of caverns we'd picked to do our interview with DM was being invaded by a second shoot and the noise levels as they set up were not going to be acceptable for us whilst interviewing him so we had to relocate. I got drafted in to help sort out an edit suite, panicked slightly when I had to sign out the key to the room under my name knowing Gill was likely going to be the one responsible for taking it back (bearing in mind that there was a time we kept a copy of her flat keys - Cardiff AND London - because she kept losing them) and got down to booting up the computer so there was something interesting in the background. That done, with the knowledge that DM was on his way, I was asked to sit in the chair he'd be sitting in so Aled (Cameraman) could adjust the lighting. A pointless exercise, I pointed out, as I am significantly shorter than he (and almost everyone else I work with) is, but that didn't stop them. As I'm giving JT sound levels by telling him he's fired again, DM comes in and my moment to escape is lost. Particularly after the computer's screensaver comes on just as he's getting settled and, despite trying to turn it off, I'm asked to stay to make sure it doesn't come back on again if I can help it.
An hour or so later, after leaping forward to move the mouse each time Gill asks a question, hoping against hope I'm not being caught on camera at a vital moment and spending the rest of the time trying not to blatantly broadcast just how big the crush I have on DM is, we're told he had 5 minutes before he's needed back on set. It's time to wrap it up. It's 15:56 and I am so gonna get blasted when I get back to the office. Despite being busting to go to the loo, I grab the tapes of the interview from Ails and run out to my car, tearing back to the office as fast as the speed cameras will allow me, Gill's apology for keeping me so long ringing in my ears.
Only to have Kirsty laugh at me as I come back in and tell me that Clare and her had me pegged from first thing as intending to slack off today. It's 4.30 and, barring the 20 minute or so tour Gill and I had, I'd been working the entire time! I decided not to argue seeing as she was not visibly angry and get on with tomorrow's callsheet. It's not like it's an everyday occurence, and besides, I really really needed to not be sitting at my desk all day today. It also meant that all the crews out today could just come talk to me rather than keep pestering me on the phone which helped my mood enormously. Of course, not being in the office for most of the afternoon made a big impact too.
Which reminds me: in-the-bottle, yes, my boss is doing his best impression of Mr Burns, revelling in the screams resounding around the world ... or he would be, were he not off sick at the moment. Heh.
Considering my working day started at 8.30am whilst I was still in bed (that sounds sooo wrong!) and continued into the shower (I will explain further, it's not as bad as it sounds) today wasn't actually that bad!
It all started yesterday - actually, it all started because I took a long weekend off to see my lovely sister and brother-in-law. Every single time I do this I have to wonder why. Because leading up to my time off I'm, naturally, very excited. But when I get back it's a totally different story! I made Kirsty promise not to let me take any more time off, I can't handle it any more. Particularly as Tuesday was spent on a training course which meant I had to work late. I wasn't overly bothered by this at the time, just slightly annoyed with myself for being stoopid enough to take time out of the office because when I came back I discovered a new production had joined us and we had a multitude of shoots (three scheduled for Wednesday) pencilled for the rest of the week and neither I nor Amanda were in the office on Tuesday to sort them ... technically. Of course, we did sort them.
And then Wednesday was spent playing catch-up and reorganising one of the shoots for Thursday that had been cancelled last thing on Tuesday. Which, due to the scattiness of our esteemed leader, meant staying late and missing my trip to the cinema to bawl my eyes out over PS I Love You with Jamie, Amanda and Scottie. Boo. That kind of annoyed me. In fact, it annoyed me so much that I came home and re-read an old SG-1 novella from JD-Divas that was about 5 chapters longer than the time I had to read it in. I gave up with 3 chapters left somewhere around midnight, knowing that I'd be tired and grumpy today but not really caring.
I really, really should have. Especially cos I woke up at 6.30 (never a happy occurence in my life) and struggled to get back to sleep again. Only to wake up 2 minutes before my phone rang. It was Sambo, out on a shoot for a training department in London who'd come down to Cardiff because ... well, actually we're not really sure why. Presumably for the same reason everyone else comes down, to ooh and aah over the sets. Only the main unit refused to grant permission for them to come down unless we were there to supervise them. Apparently. So I spent most of yesterday trying to get in touch with the guy running the shoot and he spent most of the day not at his computer and with all his phones (including his office phone) switched off.
Anyway, I digress. Poor Sambo had arrived at set at 8am as instructed to discover that Eric the Cameraman had had a blowout on his way home the night before. Moray, the man from London with no phone, had told him to come in whenever he got the tyre sorted, saying they'd cover the stuff they wanted with a Z1 (a type of camera that's not quite as good as the ones the crew use). Um ... what Z1? We haven't lent you one and you certainly don't have anyone capable of using it with you.
Not that that's an issue when no one from the training course has turned up. Two days of talks, show and tells and tours had been arranged and scheduled to within an inch of its life but due to the dinner and drinks last night no bugger had rolled from between their freshly pressed hotel sheets to turn up. Poor Sambo didn't have a clue what to do, he's a runner and the lowest on the food chain. I, unfortunately, am much higher up the food chain and am designated driver for this stuff. Hence the phonecall.
Personally, I was too tired and grumpy to give a shit. Afterall, if they couldn't be polite enough to a) fill me in and b) fill in the crew then they could just lose whatever it was they wanted to film as far as I was concerned. I told Sam to sit tight for an hour, drink coffee, and if no one turned up by 9.30 to call me in the office where I'd be better equipped to do something about it. Sambo happily agreed and, presumably, wandered back to the cafe on set.
I happily put the phone down and contemplated getting out of bed. Only for it to ring once more. This time it was Ian, who'd been sent out to cover PC out with a recce the main unit were doing. PC had been called away to Swansea for reasons unknown and so Ian had got off the recce bus and now it had driven away. Was that okay?
:facepalm: This was the shoot that had held me up last night and made me miss the cinema! How dare they! I told him to just come back to the office and not worry about it, we'll deal with the loss of footage another way (bearing in mind I think we're already on Plan C).
As I'm saying goodbye to Ian my phone starts beeping a call waiting at me. It's Ailsa, also out on set today. My opening words were not "hello" (I'm a non-traditionalist,, just ask JT, my sound guy) but a rather pitiful "why is everyone phoning me at 8.30 in the morning?!". After filling her in on why everyone else out on a shoot had called me she hurried to reassure me that it wasn't because anything was wrong but simply because Gill was due to arrive on set to film the DM interview we had scheduled whenever he was free and, despite texting both her phones, she was concerned Gill wouldn't get the message so she wanted to let me know that they were on standby from 10.30 to grab DM as and when he had 5 minutes. Phew! And all that because Gill phoned me on my way home last night to admit she'd only just remembered she was due to do this interview but didn't know what time she had to be there. I phoned Ailsa, explained the situation, waited until she stopped laughing long enough to get her to promise to text Gill the time once she arrived on set at 8am and immediately regretted that once my phone flashed up Ailsa's name at 8.42 this morning.
Hoping that because I'd now spoken to everyone out on shoots I could safely take a shower I wove my way into the bathroom (I have a weird inner ear thing going on which makes simple things like walking down the hall into a rollercoaster adventure) and hurriedly jumped in the shower. Unfortunately, this activated my brain and my sense of guilt. So I switched off the shower, climbed out and retrieved my phone. Shivering uncontrollably, I called Ian back and told him to stay put with the kit and cover for Eric until Eric got there. I admitted that I was probably going to regret that decision once I got into the office but would deal with it then. And that way, maybe we could cover the production meeting scheduled at midday with PC instead of the recce and still have something useable from today. I then text Amanda to tell her I was going to be late and headed folornly back to the shower, damning my conscience.
Turns out that was the right decision to make, Gill approved mightily and after various phonecalls Ian's day of following PC around was sorted. Eric turned up shortly after the trainees and took over from Ian so that shoot was all covered nicely too. I was looking at a day spent fighting sleep, sat in an office dealing with crap once again. This just would not do. So, I decided every time I needed to talk to someone in an edit suite I would just go up there rather than phoning or MSN-ing (yes, we have work sanctioned MSN!) because that way I'd move about more and be less inclined to nod off. I also took the opportunity to go across the road to our main building where the canteen is housed for a mocha (yum!), something I'd never done before and earned me a few strange looks because no one had ever seen me drink coffee. I didn't care, I needed the caffeine desperately.
And then I got told that the DoP couldn't remember the particular episode we wanted to interview him about as it was shot last summer and therefore we had to drop a DVD up to set for him to jog his memory with. Um ... all our runners are out on set already. At least, all those with cars. And as I needed to talk to Jess (my main unit counter part) and Gill about tomorrow's shoot I thought I'd kill three birds with one stone and take it up there myself.
I remember looking at the clock in my car when half way there. It said 12:50. Bugger, I thought, I'm not going to be able to get any food from the canteen by the time I get back. But was too excited to be getting out of the office for an hour or so to actually care. Ha! If I'd only known ....
Finding people when there are three sound stages in use, four seperate shoots (and that just our shoots) and five or six film crews running around was a bit beyond my capabilities. So I called them all, finally getting hold of Sambo who came to meet me because, let's face it, I've been there - what? - twice? I know where the big room in the box is and where the secret underground government facility is but beyond that I'm lost. He knew that Ails and one of the crews had been filming DT hanging from wires in the main sound stage so we headed there and ran into Gill on the way (yay!). So I filled her in on what was going on and then she offered me a tour and suggested I stay for lunch as the food was much better on set than the canteen could ever hope to offer. I didn't need much arm twisting to convince me as I really didn't want to go back. So we wandered off into the main soundstage and ran into Ailsa who was on the phone to Jamie who'd phoned her because I'd phoned him to say I was lost and looking for her. Huzzah! Two people I was looking for found really easily. I handed over the DVD and questions and wandered over to the crew to give them shit ... possibly a bit too loudly as DM kept glancing at us as they gave as good as they got then gave me hugs and kisses in greeting.
Then Gill and I left DM hanging in mid air and Ails and the crew to run around after EL, the Director, whilst we headed off to see Jess in the production office and begin my tour. Sorting out tomorrow with Jess (we're riding on the back of their arrangements in London) took a while as the place they'd booked had slightly ballsed (sp?) up and we were left without a room to film in. It all hung on the Andy's and whether they were going to need a room for their possible totally unrelated casting session. We wouldn't find out til after lunch so I resolved to come back once I'd eaten to see if there was an answer and happily headed off for an hour or so of skiving with my boss as we explored the caverns and flats on the other sound stages before heading for the lunch bus. Yes, bus. We really do eat our lunch on a converted double decker bus. Even DM does. My day was exponentially brightened by the prospect of lemon cheesecake, yes, I really am that easy to please some days ;) And it lived up to all my expecations too. Very yummy indeed.
I ate with the crew, enduring and giving more shit. Promised JT I'd let him in to our office tomorrow as long as he was nice to me, then spent most of the afternoon telling him he was fired. Headed back up to Jess to discover the Andy's didn't need the room so we were good to go, checked my watch: 14:41. Time to head back. So I wandered back down to reception with Gill, discussed tomorrow a little more, spotted PC and left her to chase him whilst I chatted with Jamie who'd wandered past and just as I was about to take my leave all hell broke loose.
It seems that the area of caverns we'd picked to do our interview with DM was being invaded by a second shoot and the noise levels as they set up were not going to be acceptable for us whilst interviewing him so we had to relocate. I got drafted in to help sort out an edit suite, panicked slightly when I had to sign out the key to the room under my name knowing Gill was likely going to be the one responsible for taking it back (bearing in mind that there was a time we kept a copy of her flat keys - Cardiff AND London - because she kept losing them) and got down to booting up the computer so there was something interesting in the background. That done, with the knowledge that DM was on his way, I was asked to sit in the chair he'd be sitting in so Aled (Cameraman) could adjust the lighting. A pointless exercise, I pointed out, as I am significantly shorter than he (and almost everyone else I work with) is, but that didn't stop them. As I'm giving JT sound levels by telling him he's fired again, DM comes in and my moment to escape is lost. Particularly after the computer's screensaver comes on just as he's getting settled and, despite trying to turn it off, I'm asked to stay to make sure it doesn't come back on again if I can help it.
An hour or so later, after leaping forward to move the mouse each time Gill asks a question, hoping against hope I'm not being caught on camera at a vital moment and spending the rest of the time trying not to blatantly broadcast just how big the crush I have on DM is, we're told he had 5 minutes before he's needed back on set. It's time to wrap it up. It's 15:56 and I am so gonna get blasted when I get back to the office. Despite being busting to go to the loo, I grab the tapes of the interview from Ails and run out to my car, tearing back to the office as fast as the speed cameras will allow me, Gill's apology for keeping me so long ringing in my ears.
Only to have Kirsty laugh at me as I come back in and tell me that Clare and her had me pegged from first thing as intending to slack off today. It's 4.30 and, barring the 20 minute or so tour Gill and I had, I'd been working the entire time! I decided not to argue seeing as she was not visibly angry and get on with tomorrow's callsheet. It's not like it's an everyday occurence, and besides, I really really needed to not be sitting at my desk all day today. It also meant that all the crews out today could just come talk to me rather than keep pestering me on the phone which helped my mood enormously. Of course, not being in the office for most of the afternoon made a big impact too.
Which reminds me: in-the-bottle, yes, my boss is doing his best impression of Mr Burns, revelling in the screams resounding around the world ... or he would be, were he not off sick at the moment. Heh.