Me with mouse ears and the slate, empty Pick Staiger venue.
The board at 137 was kind enough to promote me to Director of Operations last week which will be keeping me quite busy with workflow solutions. Before I could get a big management head… (balance) I worked a 15 hour day as a PA for the Martin Luther King celebration at Northwestern. I got an incredible treat of watching the drummer of the Ramsey Lewis Trio tune his kit. I mean you think you know a good drummer, then you stand around just listening to this guy warm up. I was spellbound. Amazing. I want muscle memory.
I spent most the day crawling on the floor behind cinematographer Erin K. taping her cables, and moving gear from one venue to the next, mastering the art of 3 point turns with overloaded AV carts.
My good buddy Joanna, who PAs for commercial and studio productions in the region was recently telling me she’d like to move into the production office. It dawned on her that PAing on the set was in fact 15 hours of heavy lifting. (Yes, I have responded to requests of moving no less than 20 tires from one side of the room to the other in addition to flats. I’m 5’1″, I should be in front of a computer crunching numbers for union actor fittings.) I totally understand it. And while this is not to say muscle vs brains, I don’t know what I’d ever do if the equipment truck pulled in and it was just me to greet it at the sound stage dock. It’s a bit like having your grandmother be a furniture warehouse picker. Well, time to switch hats and play the “find indie film money” game this week. Still in the midst of grant-a-thon 2010.
Erin prepping to shoot the MLK candle light vigil at Alice Millar Chapel, Northwestern University.