Today began a six day shoot of run 'n gun style promos for a local affiliate.
The themes: Winter Weather and Black History Month
I would be working for Veruca once again.
A temperamental Brit with a sharp sense of humor.
I would also be working with Jerzy again.
A difficult contrary man.
We began the morning with hugs and handshakes.
I drove Veruca and the gang around in the passenger van, listening to them do bits.
As an admitted comedy snob, I usually have little tolerance for amateur bits.
But their bits were pretty decent.
Meanwhile Jerzy got lost with the cargo van.
Poor Jerzy.
This was going to be a long shoot.
Eventually Jerzy arrived at the first location and we shot a weatherman out in the stupid cold.
"I am sh-sh-Chicago."
Vermicious Knids
The second location was an elementary school in the South Loop.
We shot a first grade teacher with her rambunctious students.
The director this time was slow and boring and had little interest for anything it seemed.
His interviews dragged like talc in a sand smoothie.
The kids squirmed and whispered and shuffled and whizzed.
I would have a hard time being 6 around him, too, let alone 35.
After pizza, we interviewed the principal.
She owned the room like Tina Turner.
"I am Chicago!"
While the gaffer was busy setting up lights, Veruca took it upon herself to assemble an ancient rented jib.
It looked like a small, portable Texas oil rigger, and took her a while to put together.
Jerzy maybe could have figured it out quicker, but he had been exiled outside to sit and watch the vehicles.
He did this for four hours.
He was not Chicago.
Slugworthy Hornswogglers
The director's spiritless approach had put us behind schedule.
So we scratched the third location and went straight to Navy Pier.
That's where the ice sculptors lived.
In a ventilation duct inside a fake tree.
Nightfall had started and the pizza had worn off.
Veruca was getting salty.
Navy Pier, which inherently sucks, was awash with Christmas cacophony.
Sleigh bells echoed with reverberated choral dissonance.
It marred the possibility of filming anything coherent.
Besides, the ice sculptors weren't even sculpting ice.
They were sculpting styrofoam.
This was bad for all environments.
Veruca took it out on Chaz, the locations manager.
Chaz absorbed it and shrugged.
We aborted Navy Pier.
Wangdoodlers
Having sacrificed a location and reduced another to solely B-roll, we had officially gotten the shoot off to a wonky start.
Veruca was pissed.
She lashed out at Jerzy when he asked her what he should do with the cargo van.
"JUST PARK IT IN A GARAGE!"
Jerzy got mad, too, and told me how these New York people and these British people didn't know how to do things.
Then he asked me what he should do with the cargo van.
I told him he should park it in a garage.
Hsawaknow
It was a long, tiring day.
The first of six.
Stress and tempers were in the forecast.
But somehow I escaped their wrath.
Verdict: Win
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