almost there

One more day of work then I'll be free until the 28th.

Just one more day of spinning my wheels, acting like I'm getting things done.

The agenda for tomorrow is pretty damn light. When I get in I have to call a client about a meeting at 10:00am. We set up the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, but he said "Now give me a call Wednesday afternoon just to make sure nothing pops up". Translation: "I know I just said we'd meet on Thursday morning, but give me a call the day before so I can cancel".

So I call this afternoon as requested.

At this business is this woman. She answers phones. She announces the name of the business and asks how she can direct your call. Her tone is neutral, but in a very charming way. She never lets you know her name. I let her know mine and who I'm with and can I please speak to her boss. "I'm sorry, but he's on the other line with a customer". Having played this game with her at least 40 times over the last month we both know how it's gonna end. I leave her my number and please ask our receptionist page me. She's heard it so many times that she probably doesn't even write it down anymore.

That was at 3:00.

She and I repeat the process at 5:00.

So now I'll have to call at 9:00am tomorrow to make sure the meeting at 10:00 is still on. It won't be. But those are the hoops I have to jump through.

Then in the afternoon I get to direct a 2 camera medical chat show that the host actually pays to have on the air. That's right, pays to have on the air. The show itself isn't that bad per se, it's just that it's hard to get around the fact that it's a 2 camera medical chat show.

One week you might tune in to hear what it was like to head up the entire NYC area medical community during 9/11, the next may be a show about polyps. So the topics are kinda hit and miss.

And to be honest, the show isn't the problem. It's the crew. Our floor crew/production assistants are paid about $6.50 to start. And as the saying says, you get what you pay for. The people who are actually good at running studio camera move up and on to better things. So the ones who are left are a bunch of fucktards who act like they're doing you a favor by showing up. They kind of forget that that's part of the whole job thing.

You don't have to be in MENSA to run camera at a TV station. Most things are formatted to the point that you don't really have to actually know how to run a studio camera. You just need to know 4 words: tilt, pan, zoom and truck. If you know what those words mean and know what to do when you hear them, then you are set.

The problems come when you combine those words with any other words. Then the gears grind, minds melt and hilarity insues.

Example?

Well, when you've run camera for more than an hour you come to the realization that in order to get the glassy lens thing to point in one direction you have to move the un-glassy rear end of the camera in the opposite direction. So in order to pan left, your arms move the tripod handle right. Tilt down? Tripod handles up. Pretty easy. Yet we have guys on the crew who've been working at the station for over a year who don't get it. So I get to say things like "No, your other left" and "No, your other down" to people who's parents have paid good money for degrees from very expensive universities. At least the parents get to brag that their kid has a job at a TV station.

Two weeks ago one of the camera ops pulled me aside after the exciting 2 camera medical chat show. He was concerned that I wasn't giving stand-bys for the next shot. Like "Stand-by
Camera 9, Camera 9 you are hot". Usually I give more stand-bys than are allowable by law, I call shows very well thank you. So I just kind of stared at this guy wondering if his mom knew he had gotten a fucking Manson tattoo on his leg, or if he was ever gonna wear long pants so clients wouldn't have to look at the tattoo.

"Have you thought about this show much?" I ask him. His eyes just glaze over as he tries to figure out where I'm heading with this. "See, here's the thing; this is a chat show. It's not scripted. I don't know what they're going to say or when they're going to say it. So Stand-bys are kind of hard to do".

More glaze. Ugh.

"Let me ask you this, how many cameras do we have on the show?"

He knows this. "Two."

"Right" I say. "So I want you to remember this..."

Glaze again.

"If your camera isn't punched up, it's the very next thing I am going to go to."

He gets it. He understands. He smiles.

Then it dawns on him, I've had to explain something very basic to him. I've told him that water is wet and that bricks are heavy. Still he shows promise. The other ones are very bad.

So like I said, I'm going on vacation on Friday.