Epiphanies Whilst Standing Still
One of the things that I enjoy about my job is the unpredictability the day brings, although sometimes I admit it’s good to get a heads up occasionally. Today was the latter as I spent the majority of 2 days watching very two beautiful ladies having a choreographed singing fight.
As you do.
There were of course precursors to this moment which involved me doing servant duties which involved holding a tray with some items on it for a principle at one point but mainly involved standing around on ‘standby’ if you will which gave me the epiphany:
We (as SA’s) get paid to stand around and look pretty.
I maybe embellishing things but bear with me here. Firstly the production goes to the agent to tell them of their criteria, agent puts forward based on prior criteria, production chooses us based on our headshot images and then when we do get there, or in the case of this scenario, got told just to stand there and do nothing. Pretty sweet job in the grand scheme of things.
The most interesting note about this scene was this was an interior shot where they’d be packing up and taking the shoot to Morocco to do exterior shots among other things. Naturally, we inquired whether they’d need us there for continuity but alas not. Oh well, worth a try. Right?
One thing that quite annoyed me was Ass-Hat made an appearance half-way through the day. The production were running 2/3 units so hoped he was with one of those or just about for a costume fit but lo and behold he was replacing someone who dropped out on our unit. Seems to be following me around from production to production which I find very disconcerting. Having to bite my tongue in the name of professionalism every time he opens his moronic mouth is becoming tiresome. But luckily I’ve got good friends on set and a laptop with Max MSP to keep me preoccupied so shouldn’t complain.
Much.