What a Difference a Day Makes
As I’ve mentioned on this production, we’ve had some muddy days with some awful weather. However this was the worst by day.
It wasn’t just the cesspool of a set, or the horizontal rain we experienced but our frankly awful treatment. For the crew it was an unorganized mess. The scene was was a public execution with a few establishing shots but frankly not much attention was paid on our behalf as we were too preoccupied shivering.
I consider myself quite lucky in retrospect to some of my colleagues as some people didn’t even get fed. The SA caterers ran out of food (even though they give small proportions to start with!) and told to get their food from the crew caterer. Who guess what? Didn’t have anything.
Morale was at an all time low and it was more than justifiable. The ultimate kick in the teeth is watching the principles being pampered with costume girls running in between takes with thick and warm coats to try and keep the cast warm whilst the SA’s are expected to stay put with very thin period clothes and look on, continually getting drenched in the ever-worsening climate.
The previously mentioned, unprofessional SA who I shall now on reffer to as “Ass-hat” even had the audacity to storm off set even though the gear he was wearing was by far the warmest and has the most layers which made him look like a complete prima donna in comparison the mud-laden ladies in substantially less clothing which did tickle me somewhat.
The most ironic thing about the day was due to the bad weather they couldn’t shoot one scene which was the crowd’s reaction to the execution. So the production was asking people if they’d like to come back tomorrow to do the pick-ups. That, did not go down well. Especially as everyone was complaining about the appalling conditions we were expected to work in today.
Literally half of the SA’s refused to come in the next day, a few admittedly due to prior commitments but mainly on the principle of it. It was late at night anyways and they was no way in hell the costume girls would be able to dry out 90 drenched costumes for 7am the next morning. I opted to come back as I came out from the experience relatively unscathed and extremely lucky to be placed by a huge brazier during a scene.
The next day, was the complete of opposite.
It did start off being somewhat of a cloudy day, and I even had a confrontation with the costume department. After the events of yesterday I had a thermal top on for a change. Even though it was white, they were worried about it being able to be seen, which quite frankly was rubbish as it’d be covered in layers and chainmail so I exclaimed:
“Well cut the collar off then. There’s no way I’m not wearing my thermal after what happened yesterday.”
She looked at me for a few seconds as if she was going to protest but opted not to argue and proceed to snip the collar off my top. A fair compromise I thought.
Although I did regret it later as soon as we got to the green room and the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. A very stark contrast from the previous day, even the morale was better, there was a brighter atmosphere and we were all laughing and joking. Just shows you the difference a day makes.
We were kept for quite a long time because, believe it or not, it was now TOO bright to film and had to wait until we had some overcast to match the previous days murkiness. When it came to the reaction shot of the execution, I was stepped away from my spot for safety as a horse would be riding past with a wooden post in tow so was relocated to the top of the wall where I had a great overview of the events.