Film Journal 06.25.03
"Hotcha!"
by Matthew Marshall

Production is a rigorous physical task. It involves heavy lifting and long hours to get things done. Occaisionally it involves difficult environtmental factors such as cold, rain and heat.

Nearly a month ago I worked on a commercial for Maybelline. It was rained out, so the production was cancelled for a day. Recently, the production picked up where it left off for one more day.

Instead of a cold, rainy day, this day of production was hot and stifling. The sun was steadily rising over Midtown Park Avenue and there was no breeze. In the morning hours, thankfully, the buildings shielded us from the sun. But between noon and 4pm, nothing saved us.

By the late morning, I could feel my neck cooking. Fortunately, I was able to swipe some SPF 45 from the craft services lady. It saved me from nasty sunburn.

Interestingly enough, the craft services lady anticipated the sun. At nine in the morning, she offered me a dishtowel soaked in ice water and anti-stringent ointment. I wasn't hot yet, so I turned her down. However, once the sun hit, I put one of them on.

At this point I looked both pathetic and silly. Sweating, greasy and exhausted from the heat, I had a dishtowel tied around my neck like an ascot. Or a Frenchman on safari.

But I didn't care. I was a little cooler.

As I was on lock-up with most of the other PAs, there was very little to observe in the way of interesting camera work. My partner on lock-up was a TV producer who was slumming it by doing PA work. I don't think he had PAed very much because he was shocked at how boring and laborious our work was. Lock-up is both simultaneously boring as hell and physically exhausting. Imagine standing out in the sun all day long telling people they can't walk down the sidewalk. Now imagine telling this to New Yorkers. It's fun.

What amazes me is that people don't take a hint. In our lock-up position, we had a wall of orange parking cones behind us. Further back on the sidewalk was the camera position, a giant greenscreen and a whorde of film people. Yet for some reason, certain people walking down Park Avenue thought that the wall of cones didn't apply to them. They walked right through us. I had a pregnant lady tell me off for asking her to go around the set. It was the first time I've ever had the urge to cuss out a pregnant woman. I bit my tongue.

So my partner and I hang out by the cones, taking turns sitting on an apple box. An apple box is a name for a wooden box with handles cut on the side. I don't think they were ever used to hold apples at any point in time. Apple boxes come in three sizes: full, half and quarter. So if someone on the set asks for a "half apple" they don't want you to run to craft service.

Apple boxes make great seats when you can't be bothered to bring in chairs. And they're perfect for crew because you can relax on one and you don't look like you're loafing. (Imagine the look on the producer's face if he saw a couple of PAs relaxing in tall directors chairs. Yeah, this business is like that.)

As we sit, cooking in the sun, I watch the girls pass by and my lock-up partner watches the boys pass by. As the heat fries both our brains, we get into a discussion over why straight men like women's bodies and why gay men like men's bodies. I couldn't explain to him why straight men want curvy soft jiggly woman-parts and I just couldn't see why gay men look at men's butts. We agreed to disagree, content in the natural order of our respective orientation.

Meanwhile, on the set...

One of the models was from Brazil. Adriana Lima was her name, I believe. At one point, this business man approaches myself and another PA and grills us for info on who she is. Next he asks when the next shot is going to be. He comes back at the time we tell him, but she's not shooting yet so he pries the next shot time out of us. I'm not sure if he came back again, but he was very interested in seeing her. I think he was Brazilian himself.

The day ended in an anti-climax. I made several trips to the garbage dump. Woo hoo. After that I bought a big ass gatorade and hopped on the train.

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