Basic tasks required me running errands; printing and photocopying paperwork, tea and coffee duties, grocery shopping. Other than that, I had some duties in which I did not expect to be doing:
Broken Monitor
Other tasks I happily had agreed to doing were returning a broken monitor and picking another up at a different location. The production team were busy and needed someone to go out to pick up a monitor. Before leaving location I looked up 2 addresses and remembering where I had to drop off the monitor and where I had to pick it up. After looking up the addresses, I could map out my journey. The places were quite far. I was using my phone as a Sat Nav to direct me.
I decided to pick up the new monitor first. When I arrived at the destination, I got out of my car, and thought it was a strange place my phone had taken me too. The reason for this was because there were Giant Cows around me.
Me with a baby Calf. (2015)
I went looking for a office, knocked on the door and no one was there. I decided to go where I heard construction workers to ask them where I could find this address. They told me I was at the right place, but the place was divided into 2 parts.
1st Part - A farm
2nd Part - The Main house
Giant Cows (2015)
The farm belonged to the main house but I had to take the turning before to get to it. I managed to find the house and the man who owns it. I started speaking to him whilst signing for a monitor. Curious to know about his studio I asked him more questions until he happily gave me a tour around it. The place was full of equipment. I decided to stop talking as I didn't want to waste any more time as I still had to to go another location to drop off the other monitor and the crew probably needed a working monitor.
The next location was easier to find. It was a lighting company based in an industrial park.
The crew loved me for bringing the monitor back! They were thanking me with big smiles on their faces.
Phone contracts
As this was a European crew they were given British SIM cards.
My Task - Find out why the Director needs to keep topping up when he has unlimited data? and see if there are better options.
Solution -
I went directly to the 02 store to talk to a assistant to see if they could look at the contract and statement to find out where the money is going to. The problem was, whatever the contract was set up to needed money to activate it, which meant more money. I sat down with an advisor to go through all the best possible options for calling UK and abroad. I had been given the phone, passwords and details by the production team to find a solution.
I managed to find a better deal where the Director would be saving much more money throughout the production. For the transaction and a contract to be set up the phone company needed the assigned Producers who had the rights for the card to physically come in and give details. I then made a phone call back at base, luckily the Producers were in town and as I looked out the window, I saw them in another phone shop opposite. So I managed to get them to come in and set the contract up.
We needed a deal where we were not paying for more than a month because the production would have ended within a few weeks. The contract was set up to cancel anytime after 14 days, so I set myself a reminder on my phone to remind the Producers we needed to call up to cancel the contract.
Esther introduced me to a lady called Nieves. She was the First Aider also helping out on set. Like the Production team who are friends, she is friends also friends with them and have worked together since University. She was now my mentor. I followed her wherever she went, unless she asked me to help her do some tasks.
This is Neives, I have grown fond of her over the period of the production. She was always lovely to me and everyone else, and she knew what she was doing. Always looking for something to do to keep the production going. She would always make sure I knew what I was doing before being left alone.
New things I learned:
House Keeping
Every Actor has their own room. This is a place where they can take a break when the crew are setting up for scenes rather than them waiting on set. It is our duty to keep the rooms looking mess free and as comfortable as possible. Each room has a vase of flowers, to keep the room smelling fresh and looking presentable. Each room should also have a bowl of fruits and bottles of water that the actors can keep re-freshed and hydrated. As the rooms can get cold, the production team have provided heaters in each room.
Flower arrangements (2015)
Fruit bowls set up for the rooms (2015)
We would always try to go into the rooms when the actors were not in. This is so they can have some privacy, especially if they are a known actor.
When going into the rooms we should always knock 3 times out of courtesy before walking in.
At or around 4pm, is the usual time for serving snacks to the crew. The caterers usually prepare the sandwiches, cakes and biscuits and leave them on the side where we can collect them.
Before serving the crew, we take a few small plates and hand select some snacks for the actors. The AD usually gets saved food also. The snacks will be left on in the actors rooms unless they are filming, the food is taken to them when there is a set change.
Each of these tasks are to be done daily and fitted into the schedule along with other tasks if and when problems arises.
0 comments:
Post a Comment