The Rain

I finally signed up for a photograhy class. This makes me a little overly excited. I've been looking at doing it for about three years I think it is now and I finally did it. One of my friends agreed to take the class with me but he backed out when he realized it was a class not just going and taking pictures. I have no idea how he got that idea. I think the question "Does anyone want to take a photography class with me?" is pretty straight forward...unless that's just me. I don't see why I would make a plan to go out and take pictures, that's more of a just do it thing. Sorry I'm kind of annoyed at him. Anyway I'm taking this class by myself which I'm kind of scared about because last time I did something without one of my friends with me I ended up being the weird girl with the book that no one talked to unless they wanted to make up something I did wrong, so I'm hoping for something better this time. I figure I have to get out a do something though or I will go nuts so yay for steps forward.
The deal with being the weird girl was this. Last summer I worked on a movie that was being directed by the guy who runs the film school I went to. Josh the 1st A.D. called me about two days before the start date and said that he wanted me to run the wardrobe department which was fine by me so I agreed although after talking to him for a couple minutes it became obvious that the real reason he wanted me to work wardrobe was because I was a girl. The next day Josh called me up several times asking me to bring things to set like and iron and ironing board stuff of that nature although the day before he told me that they had everything all set up. I showed up on the first day and Tom the line producer showed me where the wardrobe room was (we were shooting in this mansion in Detroit the wardrobe room was on the second floor on one side of the house hair and makeup were on the first floor on the other side) he told me that my main job was to just make sure that the clothes were clean and neat and that obviously people were wearing the right thing then he left. That day I think call time for crew was 9 am cast wasn't supposed to get there until 11 that left me with two hours with nothing to do which was kind of annoying but I know that there is tons of down time on sets usually so it didn't really bother me. At one point Josh came up and told me to take the tags off of Sasha's (the main actress) outfit, which I could have easily done except I had no idea what we were shooting that day let alone what Sasha was wearing for it. So I just took the tags off of everything and not very carefully becuase really why would I. After being there for about an hour and a half the script supervisor came up because the wardrobe room really was the only room that we were allowed in that had someplace to sit down (one tiny couch with the cushions missing) I asked her what we were shooting that day because of all people to know the script supervisor should be the one, se had no idea, she said I should ask Juile (the director's wife). I searched that house and couldn't find Julie anywhere or really anyone who could tell me anything. I finally found Tom who told me that Julie wasn't there yet which was nerve racking since it was already 11:30, upside Sasha had some crazy makeup to get into, I went back to the wardorbe room and Julie was there wondering where I had been so I finally found out who was supposed to wear what when, she also mentioned that when I took the tags off the clothes (she hadn't noticed that I had already done that) I should be careful and make sure to save them because they were planning on returning all of the clothes after the shoot. (I don't know if they actually did that or not I don't see how they could because this movie was a horror movie called The Rain and those clothes got drenched, caked in mud and coated in fake blood) So I had to go a find all of the tags I had already gotten rid of, annoying but I guess I should have thought of that as something that could happen. By about 12:30 Sasha was ready and they were ready to shoot that was when Tom came up and told me that they were doing a shower scene and Sahsa's clothes might get wet and I the dryer was broken so I had to find a way to dry the clothes really fast. (I never actually had to dry the clothes that day but we finally figured out that if I had to I would blow dry them using Cat's (make up) hair dryer she had one the girl doing hair didn't) They started shooting in the basement and imediately Sasha got fake blood on the sweater she was wearing and Doug (director) went nuts leaving me to sprint up the two flights of stairs to get the extra sweater and back down to switch it out then back up to help Cat get the blood out ( I liked Cat she was the only one there who didn't talk to me like I was a six year old. She was also the only one that Richard Lynch trusted which made getting him into wardrobe interesting. Eventually I just left his clothes in his trailer and let him figure it out.) That was the high point of the day. The rest of the shower scene went fine although there were a lot of people who didn't need to be there hanging out. So Josh kicked everyone out, that made my job hard because I was supposed to be there to make sure nothing went wrong with the clothes but I had to go back upstairs. Sasha only had the one outfit that day and after the shower scene she did a bit where she walked into her dorm and had a conversation. There was really nothing else for me to do that day and yet I had to sit there for another five hours. I got a lot of reading done that day. At four thirty Tom sent everyone who wasn't doing anything home but not me. I was there alone (because apparently I was in the way on set although they let a bunch of pa's stay) in the wardrobe room. At five I asked Tom if I could leave he had to think about it for awhile, he admitted that I wasn't doing anything there and that there was nothing else for me to do then but he still didn't let me leave until five thirty.
The next few days I had more to do what with other actors coming on.(The creepiest being Tiren Jhames who when he was in make up looked like Voldemort and when he was in costume looked like on of the gentlemen from Buffy) Sometimes there would be wardrobe decisions that I wasn't allowed to make so when I wasn't sure they would look at me like I was an idiot and when I would just make something up Julie would be there telling me that I wasn't supposed to do that. I still read when I had nothing else to do. Julie told me after a couple days that I wasn't allowed to read I had to go out and get to know the people on set so that if they needed something they would feel comfortable asking me, I still haven't figured out what anyone else on set would need with the wardrobe but I went out and socialized then Julie yelled at me for not being in the wardrobe room when she needed me.
After we were done at the house in Detroit we moved back to the set. I finally found out why I needed to get to know the crew, one of the guys in the art department was wearing long sleeves and needed them shorter so he had me cut them off. I guess that's what Julie was talking about that or she meant that I should get to know people so that they could come and steal all of my towels and use them to soak up water from the floor. I needed them for the kid they kept sitting in a bathtub fully clothed for several hours, this time I was allowed on set because I needed to be nearby to make sure that Will(The kid in the tub) didn't turn into a human prune and I had to keep running back and fourth to dry of Sasha's sweaters. Everytime I would find a corner to hide out in so that I would be nearby but would also be out of frame Julie would show up and sit by me and invariably take my spot leaving me totally in the shot and I would have to move again. One again I was apparently doing something wrong and was sent back to the wardrobe room. Where once again the cycle started. I wasn't socailzing enough I need to be on set I'm in the way.
I know this really makes it sound like all of my problems were Julie related and mostly they were but everyone else there would talk down to me or just ignore me when I talked and they all immediately forgot my name (even though I had been in class with several of them) and called me Ella no matter how many times I corrected them. The only person I really liked on set was Cat she remembered my name and would acknowledge my existence, she even got Josh and Tom to notice when Julie was being too hard on me sometimes.
At least I got some experience on a set and have something I can put on a resume now.