Hello,
Well I finished my work on the commercial for Rabiah. It was good. I started on Wednesday, doing mainly props work. Going out to stores all over the city to buy wood, ladders, drills, brackets, bike pedals, fake blood etc… I had to construct a ladder, which had small wheels on the bottom so it could spin around, so I attached castors to the legs. On Thursday I picked up a van we had rented and rabiah and I made quite a few more pick up's in the city, including the director before we headed out to Staten island to check out the set. It was a massive abandoned hospital which had hundreds of rooms still containting out dated equipment, it was paridise, I wish I could take half that place back to Melbourne. My job on this production was Assistant Art Director, and on a shoot this size means I do most of the construction of sets and prop handling and set dressing. After we check out the place and get everything ready to build on the day of the shoot I drive back to manhattan, then Brooklyn… what should have taken 15 minutes from manhattan to Brooklyn it took me two hours or more. I got horribly lost when I missed the Hamilton ave exit and ended getting of in some dodgy place in queens. I tried to get back on the highway but somehow got into a tollbooth and had to pay $5 to use it. Suddenly I am under the east river driving on the tunnel and I come out the other end in mid town (a long way from where I want to be). I drive down town and get back on the Manhattan bridge out to Brooklyn, this time to be safe I decided to get off on exit 26 instead of the now almost fictional 28 th. So now I am in Brooklyn and am not sure of how to get to Kerri's. I drive around Brooklyn for ages, seeing street names that I know lead in the direction of Kerri's but going the wrong direction, it took along time and all of my patience but I finally get there. It is about 10pm or so and I am tired with a big day ahead of me.
On the final day of the four-day production, and the only day we shot the commercial happened to be Kerri's birthday. I woke up at 5:30am and picked up rabiah and we make our way to set in Staten Island. We get there after an hour or so and I begin construction of the set and the props. We had to fasten a few aluminum hollow bars to the roof and have a light fixture come through it etc… so I got the ole' drill out and tried to remember my brief fling with wood work class back in year 4 of Steiner school, my only memory was crying for some reason, so I had to learn as I worked. The rig worked well and on time so I was happy about that. For the next shot rabiah, our art department team and I started turning one random room into a science laboratory, we used many beakers and random equipment found in the hospital. The scene after that I broke a lot of glass to use as props for the hammer scene, which involved fake blood. After the martini shot we cleaned the place quickly as I had to try and get to drinks with Kerri and her friends and I had already missed the all you could eat sushi dinner at this great Japanese restaurant… I would have killed an 84-year-old Egyptian man for that meal. So I drive people back to Manhattan, help rabiah move the equipment back into her apartment, drop the van off in midtown, at about 11:30pm (what a long day!) skateboard to the bar where Kerri and her friends are and drink red bull to keep my self awake. Fell asleep pretty quickly at 2am when we got back.
Yesterday Kerri, her friend katey and I went and saw Borat, and we had to wait in this huge line; the film did very well which is good. It was very funny, and shocking too! Today I relaxed and slept in.. To a whole 10am. Watched the graduate today, good movie. Tomorrow is the elections for senate in America.. Steve and Sarah are down in Nevada doing last minute campaigning for jack carter, Sarah's dad. So lets hope the democrats can gain a majority in the senate so bush doesn't have a rubber stamp in passing legislation, or at least so there is some sort of evidence of checks and balances in American politics…
Signing out,
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