We all beat the sun to breakfast.
All 100 of us.
Another 100 were on their way.
I devoured something delicious and made-to-order from a truck, then started a now forgotten pre-dawn project the thin man had given me at the end of yesterday.
We were all making a commercial today.
The call sheet had listed the thin man's title as Phantom Tech.
It sounded spookier than it was.
Phantom is a camera that seems to run on a PC-based program.
If you're into cameras it might be of interest to you.
The thin man seemed pretty over cameras.
His Mac with Windows shared a cart with a monitor and a hodge podge of accessories.
I helped him maneuver the cart, tethered by a hundred foot snake of cables, onto the ice.
He told me to stay away from puddles.
Earlier I had seen a grip eat shit on a puddle while transporting an unwieldy beacon, and somehow keep it from falling with him.
Could have made the blooper reel.
Or the OSHA file.
The image I had of today was one of rushing across the ice to grab lenses, holding up white balance cards, maybe even slating the takes. But on the ice I met two camera assistants who were actually familiar with Phantom, its lenses, their purpose, making commercials, education, and knowledge.
So they did all that shit.
I would rush across the ice though.
To retrieve water and coffee.
Like PA's do.
Because I'm a PA.
Meanwhile the Horsey-Cam guys were having laid back problems with their mighty contraption.
The little city of beams and tracks and electro-pulleys had no juice.
The camera hung lifeless with potential energy.
Cody the director used kinetic energy to display impatience and frustration.
The Horsey-Cam guys didn't seem too worried about it.
A decision was made to manually push the camera down the track.
We watched as a large chunk of the budget was reduced to a man shoving a camera down a space age curtain rod.
From our perspective at the monitor, the image looked shaky and slow.
Like the player at home was a fraidy cat.
Cody pulled the plug on Horsey-cam.
All that crap had to come down.
All that money down with it, too.
I heard it cost something like $10,000 just to ship.
The Horsey-Cam guys invented a dent in the equipment as an explanation for the failure, and enjoyed the rest of the day away from the rink.
Some local players donned in Blackhawks and Flyers jerseys entered the ice, along with a man from the NHL clad in referee stripes. They skated around the set, stepping carefully over the myriad of wires and cables. Occasionally they would snag a cord with the edge of their skate.
I sometimes wondered if the combination of metal, electricity, and frozen water would make for a death-filled afternoon.
A famous hockey player I had never heard of was summoned to set.
He was handsome and nice and short a front tooth.
The female extras took note.
I think even some of the Crowd-In-A-Box corpses livened up.
The assistant director began shouting with great enthusiasm.
"PICTURES UP!! WE ARE ROLLING!!"
And action!
The locals skated quickly while the camera stayed fixed on the talent.
The extras cheered from behind the glass.
The art department flashed camera bulbs.
And cut.
Everyone did this a lot.
Between takes Cody came to us to review the shot in slo-mo.
Then he would mumble something that Jane - the script supervisor - couldn't hear.
I liked Jane.
She seemed flighty and spoke in non-sequiturs.
I became the translator and liaison between the director and the script supervisor.
Eventually Cody, the AD, and the ref choreographed the action and got the shot.
I noticed I was the only PA on the ice.
The thin man had me get him a water.
Sven - the production coordinator assistant - seem surprised to see me.
"I forgot you were on this. You're like a ninja!"
At the craft services table, a tall funny lady named Gail asked me my name.
I gave her this information.
"Holli told me to be nice to you."
Surprised, I used the word "wow".
Thank you, Holli!
For the Steady-Cam shots a little wooden playpen on pucks had been built. The camera operator was a Midwestern curiosity with a weeble wobble waddle and a farmer's bouffant.
Her name was Billie.
Billie sat cross-legged in the 3'x3' box while two grips on ice skates pushed her at top speed.
The Steady-Cam caught the pro athlete racing down the ice.
I ran alongside them in my sneakers keeping the cable snake away from the skates.
Non-union ice gaffing.
By now it was close to 3pm and we were goddamn hungry.
Someone brought us some paper plates and chicken.
We ate on the ice.
A few minutes later we were given an official lunch break.
I laid down as best I could on the floor in the cab of the camera truck.
It meant my right leg was elevated on the seat and my head used the parking brake as a pillow.
I wilted into this uncomfortable shape, resembling a Crowd-In-A-Box refugee, and stole fifteen minutes of actual sleep.
The second half of the day was mostly spent in the upper deck, away from the action. The grips were up there making wisecracks on their own radio channel.
"She ain't from this planet, I tell you dat."
Poor Lyne.
The pro athlete had wrapped at lunch and was long gone.
His stand-in skated for him.
The art department tossed scoops of chipped ice in the air.
He really did look like the back of the pro athlete.
A glitch with the PC-based Phantom camera held up the end of the day.
The thin man explained that the problematic program was designed by two feuding brothers who sabotaged each other's work.
In the end one of the brothers won because the glitch never went away.
That's a wrap, I guess.
I helped the thin man break down the endless wonderland of camera minutia by taking a very long time to unravel and wrap the 100 foot snake of frostbitten cords. They were tangled like a college kid who just discovered reggae and was trying to grow deadlocks.
Between my sleep deprived grunts of "fuck", I listened to the thin man's advice.
"Don't get seduced by this business."
I assured him I wouldn't.
Nash and Julio - two PA's I had hardly seen all day - helped me load the camera truck.
Nash gave me some shit.
"I saw you out there on the ice. Schmoozing with the producers."
I went back to wrapping up the 400 feet of cable.
"He wants to be a cameraman but he doesn't want to load the camera truck."
Jesus, man.
For the fucking record, I did help load the fucking camera truck.
After I untangled and wrapped that 400 foot rat's nest of goddamn cables.
Christ.
The hockey player guys all changed back into their civies.
I had no idea how horrid hockey equipment smelled after use.
Holy shit.
It's like crotch rot incubated in a sauna fueled by farted-on sweatsocks.
Call The Johnson Smith Company, we've got a new gag perfume.
I spent the next set of hours doing traditional PA chores like collecting radios, tables, chairs, coolers, drinks, snacks, garbage cans, and garbage. And looking for more things to do.
Around 9pm there were no things to do.
Except beer.
In a hotel room, Ned, Chip, Julio, Sven and I split a case and dished laughingly about the day.
I learned that one of the hockey guys had walked off the shoot.
It seems wardrobe had talked at him like he was a stupid child.
I liked wardrobe.
She had a fiery spirit.
I guess that's a euphemism for bitch or the other word.
On a particularly stressful pre-production day I had taken her food order.
"Just get me a fucking chicken salad."
"So that's one fucking chicken salad," I repeated.
She didn't laugh.
Still I liked her.
But I could see a hothead hockey guy walking off the shoot and using the other word.
Cunt.
That's the word in case you were wondering.
Spendy - a PA mentioned earlier in this saga - drove the shuttle between the set and the hotel.
When the Horsey-Cam guys got an early cut, he drove them to the hotel.
He was gone for over three hours.
The last time Spendy shuttled the Horsey-Cam guys, their tongues hung out as they passed State Street Station, a gentlemen's club. They expressed a vocal interest in the club.
We, too, passed the strip club.
It's a grey windowless rectangle further tackied by pink and turquoise neon garbageness.
Our tongues remained within our mouths.
In the three hours he was gone, Spendy did not answer calls or texts.
He returned wearing sunglasses and seemed a bit blurry.
"Where were you?" asked Sven.
"Traffic was bad on State Street."
This would become a catch phrase.
"Do you need me to work tomorrow?"
Sven said no.
Here's a one-liner I learned today about the industry:
YOU WILL NEVER WORK IN THIS BUSINESS AGAIN..UNLESS WE REALLY NEED YOU.
The beer felt good.
It had been a long day.
Then Ned and I split a bottle of cheap chardonnay.
That did not feel as good.
Time to end the endless day.
Verdict: Win
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