Made the jump from production assistant to production coordinator/manager this week, working with a London Film School team in connection with the Fast Forward producing scheme. Saw the ad on Mandy.com and dropped them a line, not expecting much, but the producers dug my CV so we met for a chat and they asked to me to come on board.
It was only a couple days before the shoot so a lot of the usual production coordinator tasks had already been taken care of; I was more there as an extra pair of hands, helping to get quotes and arrange van hire and so on.
Sunday was spent running around west London, collecting first the van, then a trip to Panalux in Park Royal to get the lighting kit (so much!) then to Panavision in Greenford to pick up the Arri 3 and everything that goes with the camera. Having not shot on film for years, it was interesting seeing how much was required (gosh, digital is a good deal simpler, isn't it?)
We were shooting in a props yard in west London, about 10 minutes away from my parents' house, so I just moved back with them for the week; I actually barely ever saw them as I was usually out all day, and would get back late to find my mum had left me dinner, despite my saying don't bother (my mother is practically incapable of not feeding us, if we're home). Call time most days was 8 to 8:30am, which wasn't too bad and we were exterior shooting almost all week. As it was early August, the weather was pretty good for most of it, but of course, this is England, so we also had a fair bit of cloud cover (which bugged the DP no end) and a day of constant rain. I caught the sun pretty quickly (perils of being fair skinned), but still better than sitting in an office all day...
The first day our main task was to figure out where we were going to sort out the food for lunch. One of the producer's mums had cooked us a ton of amazing Iranian food, but there was no where in the props yard to heat it up. We ended up at the kebab shop on the main road (Boston Grill on Boston Manor Road, should you ever wish to visit), sweet-talking the guy behind the counter. His name was Faro, and he told us that he'd been working in central London when they were shooting American Werewolf, and had ended up as a background extra during the big Piccadilly Circus scenes. Hilarious. He was happy to come let us use his kitchen every day, which was a massive help.
As well as sorting lunch, I was making sure things were stocked and managing the runners. Though, resume-wise, it was a rather quick jump from runner/assistant to production manager, having made our own short at the beginning of the year with minimal crew and budget, it was actually a really easy shift into the role, and I found that everything I'd had to do on Playtime's Over came in handy on this shoot. It also helped that we were working in a part of London I knew well, as I could easily run errands, knew where places were - and how to get to them quickly.
There was one fabulously Film School moment, when I was chatting with one of the students as we were finishing for the day, asking him what he was up to that evening.
"Oh, just going to throw on some Kurosawa, you know."
Film School Students. They just don't help themselves, do they?
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