Here begins the tale of making the film
Grundler Bend, as told from my perspective as an aging yet green production assistant. Names have been altered out of respect for the litigious. Think of it as reality fiction
.
Good Morning/Evening, Ft. Floyd!!!
In traffic, the salubrious suburb of Ft. Floyd sits an hour and a half from the city.
Punctual, I arrived on set just before 4pm, and met with Holli.
Holli is the assistant director on the shoot.
More importantly she is my friend, and the reason I am also on the shoot.
She informed me of my title: Key Set PA.
"You're kind of the authority."
We had been chatting for about thirty seconds when Dan flagged us down.
Dan is the second assistant director.
"Hey, he's gotta make a pick-up at the train station."
And I was off.
It was a sunny afternoon in Ft. Floyd.
My brand new superphone navigated me along the peaceful Waagosh River.
It felt good to be working.
Her name was Elaine and she was an editor.
We made small talk on the way back to the set.
Elaine seemed cool.
"This'll be fun," I said, based on our five minutes of slowly volleyed, safely landed sentences.
It was the first day/night of shooting Grundler Bend, a low budget thriller based on the haunted road I know so well from my youth.
First Impressions
We were in a parking lot full of inert carnival rides in downtown Ft. Floyd.
I helped set up tents, chairs, director's chairs, tables, and coolers for the evening's breakfast.
Dan pulled me aside.
"Do you want to be in charge of radios?"
"Sure."
"Radios are kind of a bitch."
Inside an RV, I made a list of which crew members would have which radios, the same type of Motorola brick style walkie talkies I used for many years as a bike messenger.
While this was happening I was introduced to a bunch of people.
It was all very fast.
I met Jerry.
I met Sid.
I met Steve-o.
These were producers and a buddy.
I met Kate.
I met Zhangela.
Wardrobe and make-up.
I met Chris.
I met Mikey.
My fellow PA's.
Doug - an older volunteer - sat at a table and read a paperback.
"Do you need any help?" he asked me.
"Umm. No," I guessed.
He went back to reading.
Meanwhile Dan found work for him as the assistant to craft services.
He found his purpose.
I hadn't yet found mine.
Three trucks pulled up, filled mostly with hipsters.
Grip, Electric, and Camera.
It was a young crew.
Fresh out of college.
For many it was their first feature.
I tried to hand out radios to them.
The gaffer grabbed them from me and handed them out himself to his crew.
So much for introductions.
The others ignored me as I audibly mumbled their names.
I reverted to the shy, insecure nine year old I was on the first day at a new elementary school.
It felt shitty in the pants.
A girl who also didn't introduce herself said she needed a PA to make a run for her.
Apparently she was with the art department.
Making a run sounded good to me.
Dan pointed out that I was Key Set PA and that another PA should make runs.
Mikey got the enviable task of leaving the set.
Chris came to me for guidance.
"Do you need any help?"
I had no idea what needed to be done.
"I don't think so."
"Well then I'm going to help the grips."
From what I knew, grips wouldn't let you touch anything of theirs.
"It's a union thing," I said.
Chris didn't seem to think that mattered.
"Okay, good luck," I smirked.
I watched as the grips let him help unload the truck.
There went my credibility.
While the rest of the crew ate breakfast I distributed laminated clip-on crew badges.
I set a pile on each table.
"Crew badges, crew badges," I announced with slight conviction.
A few of them looked up to stare at me.
In their eyes I was already an idiot.
I didn't know it at the time, but my first impression was that of inexperience, timidity and incompetence.
It would be a lofty hurdle for me to try to clamber over in the following weeks.
"You better get some breakfast," Dan suggested. "You never know when you're going to eat again."
I sat down and ate some generic red sauce pasta from one of the catering tins.
So far I hated this.
Cut!
By nightfall, a small herd of locals congregated by a barricade.
Holli was on set waiting for the director of photography to set up the shot.
And waiting.
I stood near the locals on lock-up.
Finally we were ready to shoot.
"Pictures up," Holli's voice transmitted to all earpieces on Channel 1.
"Rolling sound."
"Rolling sound, quiet please," I relayed politely to the obedient crowd.
The director called action.
The actor playing a policeman knocked on the window of a popcorn stand.
He once had blond hair and carried with him an easy demeanor.
Apparently he had been in a big comic book movie I had never seen.
His name and face rang vaguely familiar.
In this scene he conversed with a real life carnie about something.
I don't know what.
I had only read the first three pages of the script.
"And cut!"
"Cut," I repeated.
Dan marched over to tell me that I had to yell out the calls.
"Okay, we're going again right away," said Radio Holli.
"PICTURES UP! QUIET PLEASE!!" barked Dan for me.
We were five feet away from the crowd, who had been quiet this whole time.
"Take the initiative!" Dan encouraged.
I groaned like a teenager.
A few more takes, and I had raised my voice by 3 decibels.
Not quite the umpire.
"We're moving on," Holli announced.
The next shot faced the river.
I stood north of the action, making sure joggers and cyclists didn't exercise through the shot.
A huge runway light illuminated the river.
It also attracted a
The Swarm-like swarm of moths, many of whom met their end in the hi-watt bulb.
The beacon sizzled, smoked, and stunk like burning hair.
It was 11pm.
No one jogged or cycled.
But G&E (grips and electric) were working near the shot.
"Rolling. Quiet please," I said toward them.
They held their work.
"And cut!" crackled Holli. "Tony, are you still on your lock-up?"
I fumbled to find the talk button on my earpiece.
"..........................Ten four."
"Somebody walked through that last shot. We need a tight lock-up, please!"
It was one of the G&E guys behind me.
Fucking hell.
Dan approached with a proposition.
"Since you don't like to yell and get in people's faces, how would you like to be an office PA?"
This sounded better.
As in more comfortable.
As in complacent.
As in I had an opportunity to learn, and possibly grow, and chose stubborn resistance to change.
Mikey, who I thought to be 19, replaced me on set.
In the RV, Dan gave me a tutorial on making call sheets and sides.
He gave me deal memos and one-liners to distribute during lunch.
I preferred life in the RV for now.
Midnight Lunch
Around midnight the cast and crew ate lunch under a few tents in the parking lot.
I attempted to pass out deal memos while people ate.
Really?
I'm supposed to interrupt people's meals to give them paperwork?
Most of the crew ignored the obvious piece of paper floating near their plates and the ironically suave muttering of "excuuuse me" under their conversations.
Can't say I blamed them.
Then I was supposed to hand out one-liners to the department heads.
I wished I knew who they were.
I wished I knew what they looked like.
I didn't know what anyone in any of these exclusive clubs did.
Somehow this chore got done.
I think.
Either that or it got interrupted by someone telling me I should eat.
I grabbed a plate and ate on a bench by the river, away from everything.
The moonlit river looked like calm oil.
I took a breath.
Maudlin Meltdown
After lunch I stuck close to the river while Holli buzzed in my ear.
"Rolling sound..Camera...That's a cut..Resetting..."
It sounded like she had it under control.
All the gawkers had gone home.
Ft. Floyd was asleep.
Coffee kept me awake.
And riddled with anxiety.
In my head, today's errors became catastrophes.
My shyness became sociophobia.
I became worthless.
Around 3am it got real emo.
A greater man would have blamed it on the coffee and the very beginnings of sleep deprivation.
A lesser man would have become a self-pitying milksop.
I chose the latter, capturing these embarrassing ruminations in my Saves The Day lock-and-key diary:
I let my friend down.
I let myself down.
Fact: I am not a team player.
I am afraid of people.
Still.
It seems it's gotten worse.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
I hate myself.
I hate who I am.
I feel like my friends are telling me to get some balls + be somebody.
Be a doorman - take initiative - be an authority.
Tell people what to do.
That's not who I am.
That's not who I want to be.
This is a hell I should probably conquer.
It's a new hell.
I am -
only 5 more hours to go.
Hang on, it's about to get much worse.
I can't imagine doing this another another day.
But there will be fifteen more.
I have no purpose here.
Sometimes I'm afraid of death.
Tonight I am not.
Whoa, whoa, whoa!!
Really, you stupid selfish asshole?
You're actually considering fucking suicide??
Is that what you're saying?
Go put on Fall Out Boy's Greatest Hits and dye your smegma black, you dickless puddle of shit.
I am done with this fucking guy.
If I didn't have Lauren or my mother in my life I would find a quiet way to disappear.
Oh my god.
THEN DO IT!
JUMP IN THE RIVER!!
IT'S RIGHT THERE, YOU BORING WEAK-KNEED CUNT!!
"OHHHH!!! NOBODY LOOK AT ME! I'M TONY MENDOZA!! I WAS BORN WITH THE LUXURY OF APATHY!! I GIVE UP AT EVERYTHING I DO!! DON'T LOOK AT MY PENISLESSNESS!! I'M HIDEOUS!!!"
Ugh.
I see why that guy hates himself.
I hate him, too.
Meanwhile, 40 other people were making a movie!
Well, actually more like 12.
Office PA
Dan sent me to the office.
Just what I needed.
More time alone.
But after that nadir of nonsense by the river, I realized I had to drift back to reality.
On a low budget ghost movie.
Nothing makes sense.
As an office PA, every night around 4am I would find myself in the Ripa Office Center, a large dormitory of rental office units. I would have the whole place and copier to myself.
First, I would have to make call sheets for the next day.
Call sheets list everyone working on the film, their contact information, and their call times.
They also contain the location information, schedule of scenes to be filmed, weather forecast, and the nearest hospital.
They are handed out at the previous day's wrap.
I made 30 copies of double-sided legal sized call sheets.
It took me several tries to get it right.
Next to be made were the sides.
Sides are the scenes from the script that will be filmed that day.
Using a ruler and a sharpie, you draw lines and X's through anything on the page that won't be filmed that day, such as the preceding scene.
Then they are miniaturized into cute little pamphlets.
Again, it took several tries and several trees to get it right.
But at least this time no one was watching my blunders.
I walked back to the RV in the cool dark dawn.
Dan checked out my work.
"Did you forget scene 31?"
As it turns out, I had.
Jesus cock, can I do anything right?!
I let out a laborious moan.
"Don't worry about it, man. You've got enough time to go back to the office."
At the office, I remained calm and quiet.
Like a corpse.
I added scene 31 to the sides.
Back in the RV, I readied the paper cutter.
Unfortunately Dan had found another error in the sides.
I inhaled.
"Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal."
I continued in silence, morosely chopping the crippled sides to life.
"Hey, the more you're grumpy, the more cheerful I'm going to be."
Somehow Dan was in a good mood.
For some reason he seemed to like me.
Wrap
A camera on a police cruiser drove through the deserted carnival for the fifth and final time.
"That's a wrap!" shouted Holli in our ears and in the air.
It was just after 7am.
Rush hour traffic began littering the main drag.
The crew made a frenzy of wrapping cables, removing lights, collapsing C-stands, packing cases, and loading trucks.
"Let's collect the radios," said Dan.
A couple of people from the camera department unplugged their personal earpieces and handed me their radios.
I approached an electrical guy with the musculature of Victoria Beckham.
He wore cut offs, rolled up to his arm-like thighs.
"Radio," I requested.
He transmitted quietly with a pampered, sarcastic velocity.
"wow hey guys i guess i'm going off walkie."
I asked him if he needed the radio a little longer.
"no dude its fine", and invaded my space in search of the next cable.
"I don't think I'm going to like that guy."
We crammed all the tables, tents, chairs, D-chairs, and coolers into a mini-van.
I put three boxes of radios and their chargers into my van and headed for the hotel.
Resort Life
During this job, Holli and I will share a room at The Gullch.
It's a strange resort & spa near the airport.
In addition to the golf courses, business centers, ballrooms, convention centers, and restaurants, there's a comedy club and a theater.
Plus, a 3/4 scale working replica of Bourbon Street, complete with an authentic Naw'lins-style Ben & Jerry's.
While generic zydeco eternally two-stepped, we lugged the weighty radio boxes past frozen Dixneyland troubadours trapped behind a faux balcony, smiling the terrors of manufactured excitement.
Aux naux!
We drew the shades.
We recharged the radios.
We poured two glasses of Jameson.
"This is harder than messengering," I admitted.
"Do you want to quit?" Holli asked.
"No."
I was going to have to face this.
Whatever this is.
We talked about our individual days.
It seems Holli's wasn't much smoother.
A few things appeared to be off so far: Communication, respect, cooperation...there's some more in there.
It was almost 10am.
Whiskey and the persistent chiggers of coffee battled through my head.
While Holli faintly sawed logs, I tossed and turned for an hour or two.
Vivid lizards and skeletal cranes kept lashing across my eyelids like a bad mushroom flashback.
I just wanted this 30-hour day to end.
Verdict: Loss
