Okay, yes I know that I am very behind in writing these articles. It’s not usually my most favorite thing to do. Now that I have some time to rest, I can write a few.
Since my last article, I’ve only had one gig that I was part of. The movie is called “The James”. My job, like many of the past gigs, was being a Grip. The nice thing though was I was allowed to take the title “Key Grip” for the second day of production. There was still many parts of being a grip that I need to learn but I believe I did a pretty okay job.
Day One
Here is a tip that I’ve discovered when looking for work: Hawk the hell out of Craigslist. If you want to get a job on Craigslist, you need to be one of the very first to reply when a posting goes up. Even being half an hour after the posting is considered late. That’s how I got this job. A few minutes after it was posted, I sent in my resume and a few minutes later got a response.
The nice thing about this gig was that it was very close to where I live. Compared to my 2-3 hour bus rides, this bus ride was only at the most 30-minutes. The crew was fairly small two and it was easy for me to learn names. I actually made a really good friend on “The James” and we keep each other up-to-date on things (Hi Neal!!!). Production was suppose to end around midnight but the shooting schedule was near impossible. We ended up getting out around 4am. People weren’t too happy when we found out call times was 11am.
Day Two
We came back to the same location to finish up the shots. Things were a bit more interesting as I was running around as Key Grip. The shots were also a little different from the first day. The scene was in a warehouse so we had to do a lot of climbing to set up lights and such. I was also Dolly Grip and did everything dolly. It was fun. I cant quite remember when we got out but it wasn’t too bad.
Since we were shooting on a P2 Card, they needed to transfer the footage every so often. The first day was disastrous because their P2 card reader wasn’t working. I brought in my laptop that had a built-in P2 Card reader. It helped a lot.
Day Three
The final day was in a differently location. Since the first shot of the day was outside, there wasn’t too much grip work that was needed. The only thing that we really did was put up shade for the crew and camera people. We also had a few stingers running about. The second location was at the DP’s house. Because the following day in the hospital (see future article), I couldn’t overexert myself being a grip. Because they needed my laptop and the bus route didn’t really like me, I stayed till they wrapped.
Overall, I’m happy with the people I worked with and am extra happy with the $20 I made working on this gig.
