Survival in NY Part I

New York day 2, Part I

Monday June 2nd, 2008

We thought today was going to be slow, relaxed, simple. And of course, I brought a mojo of bad luck with me or something because, it turned out to be anything but.

#1 Entrance into the client’s building
It wasn’t anything to write home about, or perhaps I should say, it wasn’t anything to blog about. We took the 7 train to Grand Central, exited the subway, walked across the street, and into the building, stood in line at the Security desk, showed ID and received our day passes. We headed up to the 17th floor and were shown to the Media/Conference room we had been scheduled to shoot for the next two days.



We figured out our plan of attack for set design & camera direction, the guys went to collect the packages we’d shipped from the mail room, and I sat down in the first quiet place I had been in since my hotel room to make a few, what I was considering, follow-up and just making sure-zies everything was lined up phone calls.

Balls began to drop, they fell out of the sky from every direction. There were balls falling that I didn’t even know we were juggling.

#2 Backdrop Fabric
In preparation for our shoot, we had secured the rental of a huge white curtain, something like 10 by 40 feet, and black velor curtains, four at 8 by 10 feet, from a theater product distribution company in New Jersey. That went completely smooth, the securing the curtain part, but we did that from Oregon.

This afternoon, when I called to check on our back drop curtain rental, you know to check on arrival time, to make sure they knew to ask for me at the security desk, to make sure they had my cell number as a contact, I learned a little something of consequence, they didn’t deliver.

Why then did they ask for the address where we were shooting? Oh wait, I get it, is that what is meant by the line on the bill that states – delivery, no charge? It’s not, no charge for them to deliver, it’s no charge because they don’t deliver.

Sweet. Raise your hand, who wants to secure a delivery service in New York at 3 o’clock, for delivery to a first time client (me) that afternoon or early the next morning? No one? Really? Alright. I’ll do it, not a problem, consider it done.

#3 Craft service
“I need food.” It was true. We were all hungry. A bit stressed, but hungry on top of it, and hungry mixed with any other emotion is bad. We headed down the street to the Metro cafe. After a sweet lunch we ordered breakfast and lunch for the crew for the next day. It was all working out. A little pricer than I had budgeted, but we were all arriving at location at 6 AM and we thought it was only fair to keep 'em feed and keep 'em happy all day, not just at lunch.


So, back to #2, we had to secure a courier service to pick up the huge yellow bags, at 35 lbs a piece, from New Jersey and deliver them to the offices in Manhattan on 42 and Park. The rule in New York is, if you want to travel to or from Manhattan from anywhere it’s going to cost extra, a lot extra. But, this wasn’t the problem…I mean, when you have to have something, you have to have it, it doesn’t matter how much it’s going to cost (okay within reason, but this was an integral part of our “set” and we had to get it.)

No the trouble came in securing a courier service, and in collecting all the information we needed to be a “deliverable vendor”, which was all back in Oregon. Our faithful guy holding down the fort in Oregon was on the job, working on getting all the pieces together. I was on the phone with multiple courier services, trying to save a little money by calling around, comparing, you know, doing my job…when another brewing storm hit…