Tag: help

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LET IT GO – HAPPY NOW YEAR!

ever-present now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now

May 2023 be the year we’ve been working toward and waiting for – do it!!

….Ok, how?

I’m not so good at calendar resolutions. Hoping doesn’t bring results. Wanting to improve, to shift something, though nice, is not the same as choosing to do so. For to choose action some of us have to first be aware of what we are even going after.

….Ok, how?

The past several years have been table flippers and noodle cookers for many of us. At times we all tune things out emotionally, psychologically or physically to survive the day to day.

Wanna talk CV, MK, JFK or any other supposed  “conspiracy?”  No problem, pass me a piece of that cake, let’s go. 

Does my husband want to tell me what he really thinks about the way I  ______ (fill in the blank)? Awesome, yes lets talk about it, help me improve. Open to seeing, sharing and learning.

My fuzzy spot is in the material realm, the world of stuff bringing my home down, like the Titanic, sinking from a burden of repair projects like lopsided chairs, fried electronics and broken auto parts (garbage). As well as things that can in theory be repurposed in some mysterious way like raggy sheets,  disintegrating books, empty plastic orange juice containers, and cardboard boxes (also garbage).

Am I really going to teach myself to macrame with all that neon colored string cut off the hay bales? The time has come to face the truth.

‘Just throw it away.’ But really, there is no away. 

We’ve work so hard to keep things out of the waste stream we ARE the waste stream. S O S!

And honestly I think there is also a strain of fear, of such a dystopic future where we will be grateful to have a pile of junk to search through for buttons or knobs or wiring, that we tend to hold on to the broken for that worse .05% chance scenario. Bah.

And really might my brain also be holding on to faulty familiars, old programming and ideas that no longer serve me, safe refuse, cluttering up the corners of my mind in loops, to distract from different ways of expressing or looking for solutions, from taking risks on something new? How does this pile up happen, by not dealing with each little piece of thought trash as it comes in?

Christmas week was flu week for both of us – tired, achy, spacey, lumping around slightly disconnected. A simple search for tissue meant maneuvering through useless stacks and piles and cases, so inconvenient, so ridiculous,  I was snapped out of my daily survival game of excuses, not just seeing but downright knowing that inch by inch this creep of junk has been taking over my house. 

We consider flu and fever as burning the cellular trash, to free up energy for building health and strengthening immunity. Nature’s update. If it was time for our bodies to ‘clean house’ maybe it’s time for the house to clean house too, and make room for the unbroken, the useful, or even nothing at all but space to breathe.

Maybe abundance isn’t having stuff, it’s having what you need when you need it. We can’t even find what we have when we have it!

So instead of some day or later, now is the time. Even without touching a bag or box I know I will recycle and repurpose what can be, and trust my amazing mother nature to breakdown the rest in her embrace.  Instead of walking past that sink of dishes again,  I’ll pause and do them. Instead of excuses for ‘later’ I actually turned off the TV to write this, and instead of waiting I will put it up as imperfect as it is.

Happy Now Year!

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WANTED: SCRIPT SUPERVISOR ASSISTANCE

Once In A While

The very first time back on set was also the very first time wearing a mask – hours and hours in the humid Texas swelter.  Add a Bizarro world hotel room of anti-slumber (next to a highway literally being demolished), and I was soon sleep deprived, heat exhausted and oxygen starved, with long stretches of heart palpitations.

By only Day 3, I barely made it to our distant location, a rough ranch. If staying on the road was a challenge by day, how would navigating the dark hills by night be any safer?

Extra coffee was not going to cut it. Despite multiple other situations of near incapacity, in 2 decades of movie making I have never called in to the office or opted out. Until now.  Sitting in crew parking, “I don’t think I can make it through the day.”

Covid pre-testing protocol means it’s near impossible to be replaced.  What could Production do?  They sent over TM, an AD, to quickly and crudely train so I could go home. OMG.

Well, an AD knows filming protocol, and the basic slating system.  An AD knows the Actors and the story.  An AD has their own long term career goal which doesn’t threaten the Script Supervisor position.  TM was glad to get to be in the middle of filming instead of at the periphery or at base camp.  

This was actually a good choice.

We started slow, with noting takes and lining pages, but it still seemed like too much. So I asked TM to stay with rehearsals down in the ravine, to follow the dialogue and learn what the shots were going to be.  Then as we rolled he followed lines while I took notes.  It was a relief to not tightly track dialogue and call out lines.

I kept still, in shade, hydrating. With lots of breathing breaks.  And started feeling a little better. They put me a trailer for lunchtime, to cool off and rest.  With TM’s help and a bit of care from my film fam (they know I am not normally needy), I made it to wrap. And Universe presented a room at a friend’s near by, saving a lengthy bumpy dark drive.

Long story short – having an extra person to take on just a couple of the duties made the biggest difference.  These scenes had several characters, stunts, 3 cameras panning all over.  Wide Shot, Medium Shot and Close Up of the same Character is a timesaver.  And doing Over The Shoulders at the same time saves all that matching. But 3 cameras doing their own thing is 3 times the work. Which is now rather standard.

Sometimes  – if we are pooped, if the dialogue’s pages long, if they add additional additional cameras , it can be a little much, tracking all and supporting the Actors, the Director, the Editor.  As THE Script Supervisor there is no one to support us, not even for a bathroom break.

On a few occasions I have been called in to cover the extra cameras for big filming days- like football games etc… But I have also tracked 5-6 cameras simaltaneously, not sprinkled throughout the day, solo, several times on two nightmare shows, and was too beaten down to pipe up when I realized what was happening.

So as our job has taken on more  – more cameras, less cutting during multiple takes, capturing screen shots and video, not alternating Script Sups for episodic (which means breakdowns and prep on the weekends), sending batches of notes ASAP at lunch and wrap to a growing list of people, and now with the CV excuse for more walking lunches where you don’t get that chance to catch up, I feel we trade quite a bit of the actual craft of Script Supervising for the data entry chase.

Is there a win/win way to have, on big days, some assistance and flexibility to help make even better work, that Production sees as beneficial? Or can nothing change the more work less pay steamroller crusade for content quantity as king?