Somehow I feel like this was rigged. There is NO WAY that I'm 25% Gangsta and 25% Jock. And I only said that other people VIEW me as dark. That doesn't mean that I AM dark! I just wear black because it's slimming people! And a lot people listen to The Cure. Whatever! I'm gonna go read by myself in the corner of a cafe now.
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You scored as Loner.
What's Your High School Stereotype? |
I know you guys are just dying to know how this past weekend went (those of you who weren't actually there). Well, let me tell you.
It was certainly more of a challenge than the weekend before. We only had one location, but we had about twice as many shots to cram into the same amount of time. And speaking of cramming, there were about 40 people packed into a relatively small house.
We needed a lot of zombies so our diligent make-up crew got to work in the zombie factory pretty early on. But as usual, they did an astounding job churning out new and grotesque creatures. It's just incredible how good the zombies look! It's hard to believe they're OUR zombies!!
It was our first time working with extended dialog so we had to make sure the sound and blocking were spot on. We ended up re-working a lot of things in order to get everything done. We also made a lovely little mess of the house we were shooting in. Luckily, the owner left town before he saw the place. Dom, Faye and I went in Monday night and cleaned our arses off. It actually looks better than now than when we found it, but I was definitely worried for a while there. About half the mud in his yard had been transported and ground into his floors. And his yard is another story. It was rain soaked and very muddy and unfortunately, we had to be out there for pretty much all of Sunday tramping around and shooting our fight scenes. So by the end of the day it was a swamp. We purchased some grass seed and hopefully that will revitalize the yard eventually. But for now it is a horrific mess. I wonder how much film crews with money pay people to shoot in their houses.
We watched the footage last night. Everything looks pretty good! Especially the shot where Faye spit blood on an actor's face to simulate a spurting neck wound. I know our actor wasn't too keen on getting spit on, but it really did look amazing. It's actually the one blood effect so far that we don't need to punch up in some way. So thankfully, our actor was a good sport about it. Faye decided that from now on, she just needs to spit blood on everybody. All the shots are there, though and SO FAR it seems we will be able to get everything done in the time we scheduled. We will definitely have to do some ADR though (which is a whole new ball of wax). We will also need to do shoot some blood splatter in front of a green screen this weekend in order to bloody the thing up. (It's apparently harder than you would think to get blood to show up on camera…right now our blood level is at about a PG-13. Not NEARLY bloody enough).
One weekend left to go. It's not going to be an easy one either. It's ALL fight and zombies (which makes it sound really exciting!). We're learning as we go along and we're ready to kick ass!
I have GOT to stop listening to KEXP while at work. I keep hearing fantastic music that I've never heard before and I find myself going to Amazon.com about 20 times a day. Unfortunately, most of these bands aren't found at the library, so my amazon.com wish list is getting to be pretty long. And every once in a while, I will find a cheap used CD on amazon and just buy it. But cheap stops being so when you buy a LOT of records at once. This didn't happen when I listened to KJR because you can always find Foreigner's Greatest Hits at the library. Curses. Looks like it might be time for me to have another Buddhist Lent. Or else, I could just DEVELOP self control…nah!
There's a big protest against Bush's inauguration in Westlake Center this afternoon. I really wish I could go but I'll be en route to the doctor at that time. I wonder if anyone in my office thinks that my doctor's appointment was just an ruse to go to the protest.
So much for “Not One Damn Dime Day”. I bought a sandwich because I didn't have any food from home to bring for lunch. I suppose if I was a good liberal I would have just gone hungry. I'm still wearing black though.
Well, I thought things had calmed down with The Lil'est Dictator. She'll always be demanding and self-centered, but she hadn't been so outwardly vindictive lately so I thought maybe she was getting laid or something. But apparently not because as of yesterday, she is back on my immediate shit list. I'm not going to even pretend to be nice to her anymore. Here's why:
First, let me set up the scene a little bit. In this office, I am officially the bottom of the proverbial shit heap, that is true. But since there are only 4 of us, we are somewhat on equal footing. We have to be in order to run the business. Or so I thought. We all put in extra hours. The others like to stay late. I prefer skipping lunch if I have a lot to do. But lately, it hasn't been as busy so I've been actually TAKING my lunch. Even so, I arrive before EVERYONE almost EVERY MORNING and don't even get me started on all those times I arrived at 7am for our early meeting only to wait 45 minutes before anyone else showed up. In short: If I happen to take an extra 10 minutes on my lunch break ONE DAY, it shouldn't be a big deal. If I have to go to the doctor two weeks in a row because I have a legitimate medical concern, that should be ok. Especially since others in this office will disappear for two hours in the middle of the day and I don't know what they're doing or where they've gone. Does it bother me? No. Because I'm minding my own fucking business and concentrating on doing my job.
So yesterday evening, about 20 minutes to 5, Boss Man called me into his office. The bottom line was that Lil D had complained that earlier that day I was gone for two hours on a lunch break and she didn't know where I was and while I was gone she had to cover the phones. Poor little deary. Well, as it happens, I was only gone for and hour and a half and that half hour was spent in the UPS office mailing a package for my boss. Sure, she didn't know about that, because I didn't think I had to inform her of every little fucking thing I do seeing as how she's not even my direct boss. Isn't it enough that she's 24 and makes twice my salary? Isn't it enough that this is the little princess' first job and that she's never had to do any REAL WORK in her life? (I'd like to see her wash dishes for 8 straight hours in a hot dish room whilst touching other people's food). No, it's not. Apparently, she's been keeping track of my days off and sick days and lunch times, but completely missed the weeks I went without taking ANY lunch breaks because I was so busy. She forgot because she was out taking HER long lunch breaks and taking care of her shit during work hours. One day she disappeared for over 4 hours in the middle of the day to wait for the cable guy. I have lots of fodder like this to use in my defense. I used some of it yesterday and Boss Man definitely saw my side of the issue. He said he knows I work very hard, probably harder than the other two, but that he had to address the issue with me because he had been riding her about her scheduling recently. Then it all made sense. She decided to “rat” on me because she'd just gotten in trouble. What is she, 5 years old? So I'm not in trouble with Boss Man, but I do need to be careful from now on and keep strict track of all my breaks so that if she ever tries to pull this shit again, I can pull out some documentation to put her in her seat. Boss Man even suggested that I email him when I take my breaks so he has a record, all because of the little princess who is threatened by me because…why? Because I make half her salary and am the absolute bottom of the totem pole in the office? Because I am exluded from their little lunch meetings and trips to Vegas? Yeah, I can see why she would feel threatened by me.
I apologize if this entry is disjointed. I am just very angry right now. I'm sick of being nice to her and putting up with all her bullshit only to have it be thrown back in my face. To paraphrase Xander, I'm through being everyone's butt monkey.
UPDATE
I had a meeting with her at 3:00. Apparently she and Boss Man talked this morning and she pretty much reneged on the whole thing! She said she didn't want me to feel like everyone was against me and we need to be a team and that she knows I do good work. She also admitted that she overreacted about yesterday because she didn't have all the information. She was visibly nervous and her face was red and she talked a mile a minute. Meanwhile, I was stone faced and quiet. She even made a few joked to attempt to lighten the mood and I didn't budge. Awesome.
WEEKEND RECAP
Saturday
WOW! What a weekend! We began filming Saturday morning at 6am. It was extremely difficult to get up that early but we had a looooong day ahead of us and so we had to get moving. We arrived at the UW science lab and set up right in front of this salmon pink wall covered in weird switches and dials. Elyse lent us some beakers and test tubes as well.
We shot our stuff there and then transferred to the ATO fraternity for the next scene. For the day, we changed the name to Psi Omega Omega. (It's a visual joke). Our makeup crew got to zombifying our actors. Apparently, the frat boys had been partying all night and only went to bed when we got there, so we didn't really see any of them, apart from this one guy who kept coming downstairs for a healthy three course breakfast of chicken fingers, cheetos and something unidentifiable. This was our first experience with the fake snow and we were shocked as to how real it looked. We shouldn't have been though, because the box boasts that it is actually “preferred over real snow”. We followed the instructions of “fluffing before use” and set to snowing the frat house lawn. We also positioned some people in a second story window for falling snow which looked fantastic. We finished our outdoor shots shortly after the freezing rain began to fall. The freezing rain actually worked to our advantage because we had one more shot facing out the door and it covered the median in the street that we could not. Thank you, Jesus.
After we finished up at the frat, we moved to the incredible Bellevue High School A/V building which has a better TV studio than the Art Institute did when I went there. We used that for our news cast. At that point, we were about an hour and a half behind schedule and we had passed the 12 hour mark so people were a little ornery, but we stil got all the shots, and the actors were spot on with their performance.
We later retired to the Canterbury for a wrap dinner and regrouping. I must say that was one of the best pints I have ever tasted.
Sunday
We got to sleep in for a full hour and arrived at the abandoned Safeway in Ballard for the outdoor mayhem scene. We had a minor delay when we discovered Roxy had been given the wrong keys for the space, but we managed to get in anyway. ;)
The space itself was full of wonders to behold. Apparently, they had held the Middle Earth Ball there, so there were remnants of Middle Earth left behind including part of Fangorn Forest, a hobbit hole, and a scary mural of a ring wraith. The bathrooms were located in a dark section of the back that we dubbed “Moria”, thus inventing new bathroom code. “I had to go to Moria”. Dom also found a mysterious tape recorder with a tape in it. He pressed the play button expecting to hear music from the LOTR movies, but instead found the sounds of lesbian porn. Was it recorded live? Taped from a video? Faked live? We don't know. All we know is that it was hilarious. And it now belongs to us thanks to our A.D who snuck it into Dom's car when he wasn't looking.
We got to shooting and everything went really well, apart from one shot which faced a parking lot. We had to contend with all manner of pedestrians staring straight into the camera in the middle of a shot. After 11 takes, we got a perfect one which was bogey free causing most of the crew to cheer loudly once we called cut.
At lunch time, we had some surprise guests in the form of a bunch of bird fanatics. Apparently, the space, which will be demolished in two weeks time, is also a bird park. Several people brought in their parrots and cockatiels to fly around the space willy nilly and make the loudest, most horrific bird shrieks I have ever head. A few times, a bird landed on the heads of one of our crew. It was a damned good thing we weren't shooting interiors that day.
We finished up ahead of schedule and very optimistic. We watched the dailies later and discovered an audio problem that has since been corrected. We will have to do some ADR but luckily we discovered this before we shot our dialog heavy scenes.
Monday
Despite torrential rain that worsened throughout the day, we managed to get all our shots off (most exterior), whilst STILL having falling “snow” and paper props. The zombies looked FANTASTIC and we had our first blood effect which also looked really cool! All in all, it was a very successful weekend and I can't wait till next weekend. Our crew is incredible and everyone seems to be having a good time.
Pictures from this weekend can be seen here. I will put up some others later! Hope this entry is at least half exciting for the uninitiated reader as it is for me!
In lieu of a trip to Vegas, I wile away my time with this:
Congratulations! You're Pippin!
Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
This weekend is our first weekend of shooting. I am nervous and excited. Nerxited. We will be flying blind with the “snow” effects (unless it actually DOES snow…in which case we might have continuity issues next weekend when it DOESN'T snow).
The makeup, however, looks AWESOME! Our makeup shits sundaes all over the Dawn of the Dead remake. And no one will be doing any running.
But anywho, tomorrow morning, shooting we will be. At ass-early o'clock.
Filmmaking is fun, though. Really, it is.
PS: I get to leave work early today because EVERYONE is in Vegas! I'm seriously.
The Stranger is doing their annual Sexiest in Seattle spread. It's pretty clear that every year, it's just a bunch of people they know who win. (As is everything they ever write about or promote). Regardless, there is a nominations page on The Stranger website. Their only criteria is that the person has to be underpaid for what they do. And hell, that's pretty much everyone I know. You are even able to create your own category. So go forth and vote and maybe we'll see our names in that fascist rag someday, even if it's not for filmmaking.
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You Are 29 Years Old |
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13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come… love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax. |
Effed by the Wind 