Keeping your cool on set

[Robert Hughes]

My anger control story for the day: One AM call for a 1PM show: After nine hours rigging, working the man lift and hanging truss, the lift was pooped; I couldn't get it to move anymore. We plugged it in and I had an assistant walk with the power cable while I eked a few more positions out of it. But someone called me off to handle another errand, so I left the lift, battery exhausted but plugged in and recharging, so I could move it before showtime. Some time later, I came back and found a video guy had taken the power cable off my lift for his distribution amp - OK, well maybe he was perhaps doing a test and intended to return it when he was done, so I informed the DAV that I needed power back to move the lift and he said fine. Two hours later, my lift was still unplugged, dead in the middle of backstage and the show's starting in a half hour. Thought I, "Well I'll just need to borrow this back for a few minutes and move the lift, then give him back my cord" which I did. Of course, about 1 minute later a very angry video tech came over and got up on his high horse about my messing with his work. I called him on it, that he had stolen the cable from me originally and now a dead lift was sitting in the middle of his projection area. He didn't deny it, he just didn't care that he had screwed over somebody else for his own convenience. I used the cable and moved the lift, then plugged his dist. amp back in, then took a break, before I did something appropriately uncivilized.

[Brian S. Miller]

Sorry, I was doing my "Ray Leota" bit from "GoodFellas" (Bad month? FU Pay me). Humor is "Key" I download One new Joke for everyday I shoot. The Longer the day, the dirtier the Joke :-D