My 48 Hour Day (Plus a little extra)

So I PA-ed

Alrighty so my day(s) begin around 10am on Thursday.

I stayed up kinda late the previous night writing a script for my storytelling class. It is the first piece of fiction that I've ever written that I am honestly proud of. I will post a link to it soon. I need to do some rewrites. So I get up and plan on leaving early so that I can have enough time to go to the comic book store, then go to the library to print out my script and make copies. So I go to the train station and THREE! northbound trains stop (NOT the train I needed) and no southbound trains do (the one that I needed). I only needed to go one stop so I decide to walk. As soon as I walk out of the station I see on the video monitors the southbound train coming. I was a little pissed. I walked to the station and got on a Manhattan bound train. I didn't have enough time to go get my comics. And it was a new Buffy this week also!

After that I have my screen writing class. My script went over well I thought. I got a couple of good notes on it, and my teacher appreciated the fact that it was an actual short film. Because most people in my class don't write short films. They write scenes that fit the criteria for the assignment. And poorly at that. They are rarely in the proper screenplay format, which I understand that most of them have never even read that format. But honestly, it isn't hard at all. If you read one screenplay you will know how to do it.

I left early from my last class and went straight to the set on 59th and first street. They closed down part of the 59th street bridge and they were going to have a guy jump off the bridge and on to a passing truck. I got set up with a walkie and then did some random setting up. Like move chairs and stuff. I met some other P.A.'s who were all really cool. After the first few hours of that there wasn't much for me to do. So I was assigned to watch a truck for the grips department. I guess it was a good thing that I was there because some old guy swung out and hit the car causing a 5 inch dent in the side. He tried to tell me there was no damage and then proceeded to drive off. I got his plate number. It was really random.

We broke for "lunch" around 11:30. And they had fantastic food. I had salmon, pasta, and pumpkin pie that was to die for. After "lunch" they sent me up to the bridge to help them out up there. It was around this time when they started to test the cables for the bridge jump. It was kinda cool watching some guy jumping off a bridge and being ok. After we got that shot then there was a car chase of sorts. It was funny we were standing on the side of the bridge when they were doing a practice run and the driver skidded to a halt about 10 feet from where I was standing. It was kinda cool~! We shot alot more after that. We wrapped about 5:30 am and one of the main P.A.'s named Niki decided to be the best person ever and gave me cab fair so I could go home and sleep for an hour and shower before going to my internship.

I slept for about an hour. It felt like I was only asleep a few minutes. But I showered which was a good thing because I had been sweating from doing all the stuff on the set.

Luckily there wasn't any labor intensive things happening at RSA on Friday. So I did some paperwork and other things while having a cup of coffee or an energy drink permanently attached to my hand.

The call time for Friday night's shoot was 5:30 Pm. So at this point I have only had one hour of sleep for 32 hours of straight work. This night's shoot consisted of a guy jumping through a glass window, running down the street, and then shutting down the street so they can do a car crash.

My night consisted mostly of telling pedestrians to not walk into frame. They were getting really agitated with having to wait all of one minute for a shot. When I asked this one guy to please wait for two minutes he was so mad that you would've thought I asked him to wait for 4 hours.

"Lunch" was even better on Friday. I had steak, pasta, and fantastic apple pie. We did some more shooting, and then around 3:00 am (41 hours) we shut down about 3 blocks to do the car crash. It took three hours for them to just to do the rehearsal. I was set up at a street where no one walked by for over an hour and a half. I walked back to hang out with Niki for a couple of hours. We were both really tired and we started getting pretty delirious. Like everything started to get really funny. We were quoting Anchorman and Talladega Nights for a good half hour.

After 3 hours of just setting up the shot and rehearsing (which they did for an hour) we got to shoot the car crash twice. Once the car got dented and then the next time the director told them to destroy the car if possible. They hit the car so hard that the wheel came off and the car spun around before stopping! It was kinda cool. So we were done shooting around 6:45 am (about 45 hours of no sleep), but we still had to do some packing up and stuff. I had to wait for the grips to pack up all their stuff. They took a little while to do it, and it wasn't something I could really help with cause I didn't want to break their equipment. So I finally got off the set around 7:30 am, and was at home and asleep by 8:00 am! So after 46 hours I finally got some sleep!

I would say that I slept but it was more like I was in a coma till about 3 PM when I woke up. I piddled around for a couple of hours doing laundry and getting a haircut, before getting ready to go to the after party.

Even though we invited alot of people from different departments it was really only production who showed up. But it was all really cool people. We had an open bar at the lounge for about an hour. But it was a vodka bar only, so it kinda sucked. But they started playing some good tunes and we all had a great time. After about two hours or so we went to this other club called "Fat Cats" where they had live jazz, pool tables, ping pong! and chess! It was really sweet. Around 1230 I decided to call it quits and head home.

So today I didn't do anything. It was great. I slept in and read my comic books. I also caught up on my shows. Reaper was great. And Grey's Anatomy was really good! Much better than the season premier. I'm all caught up on Californication and its really good.

But to some up it up I had a fantastic time on set. I met some great people and got some really great experience I hope that I can do it again some time soon.