On A Bell...

That’s what the 1st AD yells and lets me know to ring the bell and put up the light to close the set. By the end of yesterday I got to keep the controls and run the bells. Getting more responsibility on set is something that I was excited about- and is helping me out a lot. The DGA trainee has been letting me shadow her and learn about the day long process of keeping track of basically everything. One of the set PA’s is also letting me tag along and is teaching me what not to do. Over the past few days different situations have come up and I am learning how to deal with those. When an actor gets sick, or playback won’t work, or sound won’t sync, when things are going wrong you have to keep your cool and figure it out, and being on set for all of that is a huge advantage. Everyone here is being extremely helpful and they are so willing to help me out. For the past two days I got to hang out in the AD trailer and learn about all the different paperwork that has to be done for each actor, and each department daily. I also got to see the whole process for a production report and learn how that works. In the office I’ve been doing a lot of paperwork as well. People thought I was crazy about my one, single production binder, the paperwork that goes into each episode is overwhelming. There are files and files and files of more files of different forms, schedules, budgets, scripts, and everything you can imagine. It is amazing. In the evenings I hang around and help get sides and call sheets distributed to both of our stages. Today the crew if filming on location, and will be for the next few shooting days. We are getting ready to move into splits and nights, so that will be a different experience as well. Just as I was getting used to the AM California traffic, it is time to change it up! Keep it real. Sam.