The "System".

"... And here's where another distro box is hidden. I think that about does it. Any questions?"

I shake my head. I'm day playing on a new-to-me-crew on a new-to-me set, and one of the regulars is giving me a quick and dirty run down of the where everything is on the stage before the day officially starts. So far, nothing seems out of the ordinary. Just then, the Best Boy makes his way from around the corner.

"How's the tour going? Did you show her where everything is?"
"Yep."
"Good. What about the 'system.' Did you explain that to her?"
"Oh... No, not yet."
The Best Boy turns to me, suddenly serious, "So, our Gaffer has a particular way of working. When he asks you for a light, it's your light and yours only."

At this point, I'm a little bit confused by what he meant. Isn't that how it is on other crews? The Gaffer calls for a light, someone replies to him and they bring in the light. Meanwhile, others help him out by running him power and whatnot, but the placement and focusing of it is often the responsibility of the person who answered the call. That's the way I've been working a set for years now. Have I been doing it wrong all this time? As I pondered this, I must've had a perplexed look on my face because Juicer 1 jumped in to elaborate.

"So if he asks you for a tweenie,* you head it up, bring it in and find power for it yourself. No one else but you. He'll get mad at us if we help each other out."

"Wait... what??" I understood what they were saying, but I didn't understand it. "I can't even help someone run power?"

"Nope," replied Juicer 1. "He'll get mad."
"I know it seems weird, but you'll get used to it," offered the Best Boy.
"Don't mess with the system. It's actually pretty efficient," said Juicer 1. And with that, we got our first orders over the walkie from the Gaffer and our day had officially begun.

I've never worked on a set before that was run like that, and I'll admit the idea piqued my interest. Especially the closing remark where the guy said it was "pretty efficient."

After wrap, I reflected back on my first (and so far, only) day working this way. Was it more efficient than the "traditional" way of working the lights? I wouldn't say so. But interestingly enough, it didn't take us any longer to light a scene either. It was kind of a wash in terms of saving time.

What I didn't like about it though, was how strenuous it could be. During our "daytime" scenes, our house set was lit by what we dubbed to be "10k Alley"; a series of big lights, one lined up after the next, pointed through the large living room windows. And guess who ended up assigned to the row of BFLs?** Little ol' me. It was a bit of a bitch to move, power up, and tweak each and every one of those lights by myself while the other guys could do nothing but hang around staging, playing with their iPhones.

But once those tenners*** were set, it was good to not have to run around setting other lights. Those were now being assigned to the other guys. Well, it felt as good as it could get anyway. I'm not a fan of sitting around with free hands while other guys are scrambling to get their assigned project done, no matter how much I just busted my ass.

In the end, while it was an interesting way of working and I can see the advantages of it, I just couldn't fully get on board with the idea. I'm used to working as a team with my co-workers. With everyone taking a little bit of the burden (one guy bringing in the light, one guy running power, another cutting a piece of gel for it, etc,) the job seems a little bit easier. No one's sitting around, twiddling their thumbs while their colleague gets peeled. No one's moving BFLs by themselves.

Also, the problem with "the system" is that it assumes everyone is built the same way with the same capabilities. If I'm called to bring in a 5k, I'm expected to bring it in myself. Never mind that to me, it's heavy-ass piece of gear, and never mind that most of the guys I work with can throw it over their shoulder without a problem. And it doesn't matter that I can aim and cut a Source4 like nobody's business. If another Juicer if having an issue with getting it to hit juuuust the right spot, I can't help him out.

I guess I just like the option of working as a team and playing to our own strength and weaknesses, no matter how "efficient" the other way may be.





* By the way, anyone else annoyed by the fact that Mole Richardson started putting latches at the top of their Tweenies??
** Big Fucking Light.
*** Not my Flickr stream.

It Sucks When...

... you struggle to get a heavy light from one side of the set to the other, all while carefully fighting through a sea of actors, grips, camera people and unfortunately placed set dressing; send up said heavy light top stick on the stand, only for your Gaffer to tell you to "add a double" after it's set; all the grips are busy, so you struggle to carry a ten step ladder by yourself, again across the sea of actors, grips, camera people and unfortunately placed set dressing; and when you finally get up there, you burn yourself trying to shove that goddamned double in.

Once you're done, you radio to Gaffer to see how he likes his newly tweaked light that you just poured all your best effort and energy into and he says, "Eh... Yeah, it's okay."


Sigh....

Cinegear 2012.

Cinegear was this weekend, and for those of you who don't know, the expo is the place to be if you want to check out what's new in the grip, electric and camera departments. A crap load of companies are there showing off their latest toys, plus it's a good place to run into old friends and score a free t-shirt or two.

While I don't really know what's new in the grip and camera world, the big thing in lighting is officially LEDs. They were everywhere. Practically every lighting company had them. And while I can sit here all day bitching/praising about each individual company and their product line, one running theme among all the companies is that LEDs consume less power and run cooler to the touch.*

That said, my favorite part of the expo was when my friends and I were checking out the new LED Source 4s from ETC. One of their reps came over and chatted with us for a few minutes about them, and gave us the rundown on the specs of their new light. At one point, he demonstrated how much "cooler" the new model ran versus their more traditional one by putting his hand on it. "With our new light, I can grab it anywhere and easily make adjustments to it. I can't do that with our old model without a pair of thick gloves on. That means we no longer have to burn ourselves every time we use one."

That was the moment when we all looked down at our own arms in unison, and realized each and every one of us had scar from a Source 4 burn in one form or another.

Ah... The marks of camaraderie among strangers.




* Although, I do have to say that part is somewhat debatable. Most of the lights I saw heavily rely on a heat sink and/or a fan to keep cool.

You Know You're On The Right Track When...

...it's been a long time since you didn't know at least one person on a new crew.

"That's Fuckin' My Bucket All Up."

I've seen numerous videos of arc flashes before, but it was a slow Saturday night so I decided to take Michael's suggestion and looked up some videos on YouTube when I stumbled upon this one in particular.

Apparently, some construction work was being done when a backhoe hit some power lines underground* and fireworks obviously ensued. An event like that will surely "trip the breaker," so to speak, and shut down the power to that area. What many people do not know is that the system is designed to "reset" itself three times** before it gives up completely, so those workers were treated to a couple of light shows every 15-20 seconds.***

But what totally rocks my cookies is the dialogue in the video (which is somewhat NSFW).

That's THIRTEEN THOUSAND VOLTS running wild around in that hole and the guy wants to dive in there to rescue his bucket?? What really cracks me up is his answer when his co-worker tells him he can't go in to retrieve it:

"I have to."
"You can't."
"I have to!"

What?? Dude, it's not like you're a white knight deciding to rescue the princess from a dragon's cave. You're not Bruce Willis saving the world from being destroyed by an asteroid. And we're not talking about whether or not it's a good idea to tell your kid you ran over the cat this morning. We're talking about a bucket. You can replace it when you go to Home Depot after work and probably get it reimbursed if you remember to keep the receipt.****

How stupid do you have to be to insist on risking your life for a bucket? It's almost as stupid as the guy on set who tries to move an 18k on top stick of a Roadrunner on uneven ground by himself, obviously ends up tipping it over, only to rush to the other side to try and catch it.

Not that, ahem, that's ever happened...





* Digalert!
** I've been told the reset cycles are what contributed to Adrienne Alpert's unfortunate accident back in 2000.
*** At least, that's my (very limited) understanding of how shit works. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
**** Unless, of course, it's some kind of magic bucket, in which case I stand corrected.

I'm Not Your Personal Charging Station.

It's been a while since I've ranted about cell phones at work, and I really need to get this last part off my chest before I explode:

LUNCHBOXES ARE NOT FOR CHARGING YOUR CELL PHONE.

I'm sick and tired of finding a goddamn phone charger plugged in to every outlet I need to use. I'm tired of finding random phones plugged into MY equipment with no owner in sight and/or name on those very expensive and fragile pieces of electronics. It's times like those then I want to just rip them out of the outlet and hurl them across the set. It seriously fills me with rage.

Because if your MOBILE phone can't go a few measly hours without being plugged in, you're stupid and you're doing it wrong.

If you can't make it to lunch without needing to charge your phone, maybe you should stop checking Facebook every two minutes.

If you know your phone can barely last a day on a full charge, charge it up before you come to work.
 
And if your phone can't hold a decent charge, get one that can.

Another option? Get a spare battery.*

And if you fail to do any of that? Well guess what? You're shit out of luck. It's not my problem you suck, so don't make it our problem to find you a solution. As the old adage goes, piss poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. I've got more important things to worry about than your need to play Angry Birds.

If you're in another department, chances are we're running power to you anyway. The Camera Department needs to charge its batteries; Sound needs to run its mixer; Art Department needs to use a vacuum; Grips needs to plug in some power tools; Hair needs to heat up a curling iron; etc, etc. In that case, the power we run for your department is pretty much yours to do whatever you want with. If Costumes would rather use the stinger we give them to charge their phone than use it to plug in the steamer they need to do their job, that's fine by me. As long as what they're doing is safe, I don't give a rat's ass what they do with it. If they ask nicely, I'll even give them a cube tap so they can do both at the same time.

Now, with all that said, most of us in the electrical department aren't assholes. If for some reason or another, you're still in need of a place to plug in your phone, all you have to do is ASK AN ELECTRICIAN. Not a P.A., not a Grip, not an A.D., but a person who's actually responsible for the power used on set. We're usually pretty accommodating and will either direct you to the nearest possible option or get back to you in a few minutes after we're done running around lighting the next scene. And on that note, if we're unavailable to assist you in your dying phone emergency right that second, don't act like an entitled ass and plug it in anywhere you please anyway. Having a dead cell phone rarely constitutes as an emergency, so just wait five minutes. Consider it a practice in patience, which no one seems to have these days.

If, for some special, twisted, godforsaken reason, none of the above can be applied to you and you MUST plug in your phone RIGHT THIS SECOND, for the love of cupcakes, whatever you do, don't plug it into a lunchbox. 

Because do you know what they're often referred to as? Drag-outs. As in, we drag them out to wherever we need them. Which is why you often see lunchboxes sitting on nice piles of cable, all hooked up to the d-box, powered up and ready to go. It's so we don't waste any time. If we suddenly need power on the other side of that door when we're setting up for the turn around, all we have to do is drag the pre-connected lunchbox over there and BAM!, we're ready to go. The only problem is, we can't do that if there's six cell phones plugged into it.

And I'm guessing if one of those is yours, you'd rather I not rip it out and hurl it across the room.



* I understand that not all phones have a battery that's easily changeable. In that case, get a battery booster/emergency charger/solar charger/external battery pack/thing-a-ma-bob. Or better yet, get a different phone.

Technology.

... It's what lets us watch a now well respected actor do a serious scene on set one minute, only to turn around and watch him in an embarrassingly bad movie he did years earlier once we're back at staging.