Be Kind Rewind

well, it has been a long time since i last wrote a blog entry, and i am glad to inform you that it has been quite an exciting time here for old uncle jake (i am not actually an uncle). well i was living at angelos but i had to make way for his pregnant friend. so i have been staying in between Kerri's and steve and sarah's. well mama's boy was ok, wasent the greatest film ever made but like allways on the set there is one or two real charecters who give me a good belly laugh.

so since the last blog entry i have been mainly spending my time with Kerri, watching arrested development, going to the cinema, reading, hanging out with steve and sarah, checking melbourne victory relatede articles etc... but the best hing that has happened is this new film i am working on. it is called "Be Kind Rewind": it is a $30million budget movie staring Jack Black , Danny Glover , Mia Farrow, Mos Def, Sigourney Weaver and other actors, who prehapse you dont know by name but i am sure you would recognise their faces. it is amazing.

i am the youngest person on set by about 6 or so years and everyone on the crew have worked on big movies, etc.. our very famous director, michel gondry directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Dave CHapelles  Block Party and done a lot of music video's for groups like massive attack and the Chemical Brothers... i am looking at you tom reynolds. our 1st AD (1st assistant director: the man who basically controls and carries out the directors wishes, top 3 most important people on set) worked on spiderman three and i believe boyz in the hood etc... guys who have worked on cruel intentions and meet joe black, the godfather III. carlito's way: rise to power. the hours, stuert little II, queer eye for the straight guy, the producers, law and order, third watch and about every other major tv show around. the departed, the life aquatic with steve zizzou, royal tenenbaums, you get the picture... 

Atilla is the Key PA and hired me on as an aditional PA. they had been cycling through about ten or so before i joined and i have been asked to stay on, i guess my point is i am working really hard and i am sure that those who doubted my work ethic (very understandibly) would be impressed. the first day i joined on the shoot it was allready 30 days shot from 37 in total so i am on board for the final week. so the first day i get up at 4:30AM or theirabouts and get to the pick up van. get to work out in New Jersey and start doing my thing on the set. it was a pretty good day, got to meet Jack Black, Melanie Cruz and Mia Farrow. i worked hard and earned a call back for the next day. i get of the drop of van (coincidnetly the same vehicle as the pick up van) in midtown and i make my way up to harlem. i arrive at about 9:30PM after a long days work. but steve and sarah are not there. so i sit out on the stoop for about 2 hours before i fall asleep on the cold hard steps. litterally accross the road is some kind of crack house or some kind of illigal doings are happeneing their. i have personally seen the place get raided by cops twice. there are allways guys out the front on lookout. i woke up at around 12:30am by steve and sarah, and thier suprised look on their faces, actually now that i think about it it was more of a smile as they were taking pictures of me sleeping on the steps. i checked my pocket, my wallet was still their so i was happy. we go up stairs and they want to watch LOST, so they put that on for a few hours so i got to sleep on the couch at around 2:00am or so.

apparently steve woke me up at about 4:45am when my alarm went of but i dident wake up, and i dont remember him trying to wake me up. i guess i must have turned of my alarm in my half asleep faze. anyway he wakes me up again at like 7am and i rush to get ready. i missed the pick up truck so i have to make my way into Passaic (a notoriously dangerous city within New Jersey). so i go to the station and i am walking around to try and find the best way of getting out there. so i ask this random guy walking next to me where the bus depot is and he is answering me when we get pulled over by the police within port authority bus and subway terminal. the cops pull us over and one is holding the guy and another one is talking to him. one cop in plane clothes is talking to me... they interogated/questioned me for about 45 minutes. i wont go into what they said or what they were suggesting but as it turns out, this guy was a convicted rapist. i was "shocked and awed" by this little experience with the NYPD's finest and NY's most unsavory, but in the end it turned out to be a good excuse for being late. so i find the bus and i get on and land in Passaic 50 minutes later. it is a very hilly area and i had my skateboard. i almost crashed into one of a stream of cars turning up the steep hill on which i was comming down, at breakneck speed. i was praying that there would be a gap in the proccession of cars turning onto my street as i was going too fast for my crappy skateboard, the trucks are loose so it wobbles and is very unstable. luckily i go speeding in between two cars and make it to the traffic lights without falling off, so i was happy. i get to work finnally after skating around passaic lost for a little while.

i worked hard to make up for lost time. had a chat with Jack Black for a while. danny glover patted me on the arm, mia farrow asked me where i was from, i had a nice chat with melanie cruz about australians. kerri came and helped PA for the seconde half of the day. i went back to kerris afterwards as i dident want to have to sleep on the harlem steps again haha. she woke me up this morning at around 4:30am and i got ready for work. today was a pretty good day. as soon as i got there i was on breakfast duty which means i had to recieve the orders from the actor PA and the set PA and work with craft services to make the 20 or so orders i had. zak, another PA was sent over to assist me in this task. i delegated all the drinks and cold food while i organised all the hot food. i checked my orders and he checked his. we jumped in the van and got taken to the set where i took all the orders inside and started handing them out, zak comes in and takes over and says i should take the rest to base camp where the actors are. i get there and put out all the stuff and christina looks over it and starts getting mad that alot of the order is wrong. the hot food was fine but zak had completely screwed up his half. he had not got the banana, he had only one cup of OJ, no honey on the museli etc... 80% of what he did was wrong and of course as i was the barer of the food i got the WHOLE blame.... extrememly aggrivating. so i had to go and undo all zaks "work" so i get the rest of the order and fix the problem. i hear later on the radio that christina is talking to atilla saying that she wants zak to liase with her at the honeywaggons and not me. i kept the rage inside and am most likely growing a large tuma as we speak because of it. anyway the rest of the day went well.

 

(above was writen yesterday but i was so tired i had to sleep)

(below, today)

 

kerri woke me up at 4:30am and i get out to the bus. i get to work out at this train station were we were shooting some scenes. atilla was very aggrivated today as for some reason they hired two more PA's who were the most incompetant people on the face of the earth. they were more harm than good. i get to work coordinating with the other PA's to block the train area, control and position the 40 or so extras and do general PA work. after we shot their we had a company move back to the main set in passaic. we had a water truck to spray the ground to appear like it was rainging. we had around 70 extras at this stage and i helped organise and position them, and block the set from cizilians. liase with catering and craft with food and drinks for crew and cast and do my usual running around making sure things run smothly, running around letting each department know of the plan of attack, e.g. "clear the frame line for the next shot, then load up for the company move, go to catering for lunch, meet at the van at a certain time etc...". when there is nothing for me to do, which is very occasionally as i am atilla's go to guy, i find things to do like make coffee's and offer them around set.

today i made about 10 coffee's and started offering them around set, but atilla nd dave wanted me to delegate this lamo job to one of the new idiot PA's as he was ment to be blocking of the corner, not allowing civilians to walk on to set and brush past the cammera, and of course he was doing a horrible job. so i go to him and give him the coffee's explain what he needs to do and i block the street. i watched as he dropped half the suger and stiring straws right on to the set, in shot, stumble around for a minute or two then put the coffees down on the ground and take the milk back to catering. walk about 30 metres away from set and chat on his cell phone... umm i mean mobile phone... moron. dave fisher (2nd 2nd) who recently was the first person killed in martin scorsese's new film The Departed is a legend and i really enjoy working for him. so on todays shoot we had cop cars, a massive train, a water tanker, a steam roller which was cool, but still my favorite was my little power trip when i ask the police who are on duty watching over the production to stand back and clear the scene, which they did quickly and appologetically.. hahaha.

well it is saterday night now and i am sitting on kerri's bed typing this, she has gone to the bar to meet some friends but i cant afford to waste precious hours of sleep for such nonsence (rolleyes). it is actually quite interesting talking to the stars and seeing what they are like when they are off camera. danny is really tall as is sigourney weaver.. i mean she is really tall!

 

so yeah that is my good news i guess. so we have one day of this week, on a tuesday so no rest for the wicked. it is hard and sometimes arduous work but i am enjoying it as i am doing well and making great contacts. atilla for example is fantastic at his job and i believe he will go far and he says often that he doesent want to work on a film without me as i get what he needs to be done, done. well this was a long post but it was about due and containing my good news so it's all good.

 

 

Jake.