OK I have gotten it down to the last of the mess

And I am going to take the rest of the evening off. Some day, if I am not too embarrassed to show them, I am going to take pictures of the before and the after. It is not that I am a lousy housekeeper, I just don't see the point of it at times.

Caroline had a good day at school. I came in and did my puppetry demo and gave the kids eyeballs to play with.



Bwahaahaaa. Apparently I have been voted coolest Mom by the kids.

Heeheehee

I am grateful that we are as far as we are right now in the cleaning process.

LJ Idol Week 6 Topic Sunrise

I have, in my time, done a lot of work in the entertainment industry. I know that there is a certain glamour to making films, working in the music biz, wiggling dolls, and doing theater. But for me the bloom is seriously off the rose. Not that I didn’t enjoy the projects that I have done and it was a kick working with the people I worked with, but I know all to well about the late night shoots and the load-ins and load-outs and the most happy feeling of seeing the sunrise.

I can remember when my pager went off with a phone number of a friend of mine who had, a while back, told me that she was getting backing for a film she wanted to produce. (Yes folks this was in the time before cell phones). I called her back and she offered me two weeks worth of work being a gaffer. Pay wasn’t great but it was for a friend. Then she dropped the other shoe, it was going to be mostly a night shoot. I was working at the Center for Puppetry Arts at the time so I called up the Museum Director and double-checked when we were putting in the next exhibit and cleared my dance card for the film.

One of the reasons we were filming at night was that most of the film took place in a bar and we could only use the space after they closed and until the cleaning crew showed up to get it ready for the next day. We would start to load in stuff towards the end of bar hours and setting up what we could. Once the bar close, we went quickly to work to get up and running for the cameras. The sunrise would stream into the bar windows which would be the end of the shoot because we couldn’t balance the light. The first signs of dawn would be our signal to stop shooting and strike our equipment. I can remember one morning finding an overlooked box of pizza from much earlier. It was cold and slightly slimy but it tasted like ambrosia to us because we were very hungry. I would go home and catch a couple of hours sleep before having to get over to the Puppetry Center for a truncated workday. It was long and hard but I was very happy to be doing it.

In many working theaters, the previous show closes and loads out while the next show is ready to load in. While at Yale one of my regular work-study assignments was the lighting change over to the new lighting plot. We would go in after the curtain hit the deck of the last performance and scurry up to the light grid where we would be for the next 7 to 8 hours setting up the lights for the next show. The head of lighting loved me because I was quick, precise, and able to get cranky equipment to cooperate. He could give me my part of the plot and usually two helpers and we would rock all night to the dawn. Below us the set was struck and loaded in as we worked. The sunrise was a lovely thing because it meant we were done for the “day” although the focus call was usually that evening.

I can remember a number of other times that sunrise were the end of my day rather than the beginning out it. It was always a beautiful thing to behold. The sunrise still holds a special place for me for both beginnings and endings. Now I can walk down the street to the local dock and watch the sunrise over the water, which is very magical indeed.

This is my entry for this week LJ Idol. I hope you enjoyed it and will vote for me when the time comes. Also feel free to ask me any questions that might have come to mind from reading this.