the end of the day

New York Day 2, Part III

#5 Freight Elevator Secured
George. Where ever he came from was somewhere kindda like hero-ville. All I know is whatever work speed is, he knows it, what ever work speed does to help us get to use the freight elevator, he did it, what ever sway George has, works, cause I frankly didn't have to do anything except answer his easy questions like, "what time are you arriving in the morning?" and "how do you spell the names of the people on your crew?"

So at the end of it all, it was 5:30 p.m., Leisah, the employee from Rose Brand, was meeting us in an hour at the corner of Spring and Broadway in SOHO, a 25 to 30 minute Subway and walk away from where we were, we’d make it back in time for our 7:30 p.m. dinner with the client with a little time to let the sweat dry, smooth down my hair and reapply lip stuff.

There was a moment when we knew we had done it, we still had a ton of work to do till it was done done, but we had made it happen. We were insurance covered, set design ready, allowed to get back into the building with crew and equipment, food was ordered and scheduled to arrive, we had our sanity and we were on our game. I turned to J and with complete elation and conviction said, “I love my job, I really love my job!”

The dinner with the client went smashing. Perhaps details will arrive on the Pushplay blog. But for now. Day 2 is over.

Breakfast – Hotel Breakfast Bar, small croissant with strawberry jam, a hard-boiled egg, apple juice, and coffee for the subway

Lunch - Metro Café on Park Avenue, water, shared vegetable pasta full of artichoke hearts, mushrooms, tomato, asparagus, cheese, and so much deliciousness, and fresh shaved turkey sandwich on a black rye wheat bread

Dinner - with Client started with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, seasonal fresh vegetable salad with lemon dressing, and a fried calamari appetizer, then the seafood chef special – scallops with mushroom and spinach risotto, and at the end of the night, a wonderful perfectly even decaf cappuccino.

continuing where we left off

New York day 2, Part II

I'm sorry for being dramatic, but, come on! I've got to keep ya'll in suspense.

The stress of the day all came down to the fact that everyone on the west coast was eating a late lunch and everyone on the east coast were gearing down for the end of the day…like it was a Friday and the weekend was only a few short hours away

#4 Building Insurance
Let me preface this by saying one thing, George is amazing. He is a generous and insanely helpful man. This story should in no way reflect poorly on him. He is an exceptional human being and I have nothing but respect for him, he was continually a hero to us over the three days we were working for the client.

George did what we'd all like to do, he took a week off and went on vacation. The trouble came when he got back, it was today, our first full day in New York. He would normally check all the insurance information the moment a new one arrives...but, again he was on vacation when we sent ours in.

Well, after numerous phone calls back to our insurance agency, multiple attempts with fax machines on 3 different floors, running up and down flights of stairs and calls again and again with the building owners we had our building insurance...

and then George said, “you’ll need the freight elevator then, right?”
I, with trepidation, replied, Yes.
“You’ll need to be entered into work speed then…”
Oh shit. I have no idea what that means.

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…