A DAY IN THE LIFE OF . . .

The time that the day begins, largely depends on how far I have to travel to the film location or film studio. A ‘location’ can be anywhere in the country and if it is not within reasonable distance of London then the production company provide accommodation near to the location. The main studios are all around London and are all within striking distance of the centre of the city, these are: Shepperton, Pinewood, Ealing, Elstree, Three Mills and Leavesden. My current project is filming on location in London and today I have to be near to Tower Bridge on the south bank of the river Thames. To be there at 07.00 (Crew Call is at 08.00) I leave my home, which is to the west of London, at 05.45 and arrive at Unit Base just before 07.00. I park my car, go to the Production Bus and check with the Second Assistant Director (2nd AD) that the schedule of work is unchanged and that the actors I’m working with are on time. The principal actor arrives at 07.15 and I go to his trailer parked in amongst the assorted vehicles that go to make up the base camp of a film unit. These include the Actors Trailers, the Production Bus, Hair and Make up trailer, the Wardrobe truck, the Caterers and the Dining Bus, Generators and the Toilets.

As a kind of ‘warm up’, the actor and I chat to each other in the dialect for five minutes over a cup of tea, then he and the other actors are called to go to the set for a private rehearsal with the director. In most cases I would be privy to this first rehearsal of the scene but it varies from production to production and in this case I don’t. I use this time to go to the caterers to get myself some breakfast and sit on the dining bus to eat it. Eventually the actors return from the rehearsal and go to the make up bus where I join them. This is the work-space of valuable members of the crew: the hair and makeup artists. As a mark of respect, well before filming I talk to the hair and make up artists and ask if they mind if I work with the actor when he or she is in the ‘chair’. More often than not this is quite acceptable but if this is not the case, I wait until the process of make up and wardrobe is finished and then work with the actors in their trailers before they are called to the set. Sometimes there an indeterminate period of ‘down time’ for the actors after make up and wardrobe while preparatory work on the set is completed: lighting; camera set ups; dressing of the set with props; setting and rehearsing background action etc., but sometimes there is no ‘down time’ at all!

The work I do with the actors during the period before going to the set usually involves a quick, scene by scene look at the dialogue for the day, and a more detailed run of the dialogue for the first scene. If time allows I then go to my trailer and do more work on my own to prepare for upcoming scenes. Once the set has been readied, the crew remaining at Unit Base travel with the actors to shoot the first scene. I arrive at the set, having either travelled in the actor’s car, giving us another chance to talk together in the dialect, or in a crew bus. Once on the set I go to the Sound Mixer to get a wireless radio receiver, into which I plug my head-phones, the receiver is quite small and clips on to my belt. The headphones enable me to hear the dialogue, more or less in the same way as the sound mixer hears it.

And so the ‘on set’ work begins. I listen to each ‘take’ and if the actor and I have done a good job in preparation I won’t have to go on to the film set ‘proper’ to give any notes. If it is necessary then I choose my moment after the take and have a quick word with the actor. I mark my script, indicating the good takes for ‘dialect’ and then give these notes, generally at the end of the scene to the Script Supervisor who then enters them on her daily report to the Editor. These notes might become more prolific when there is more than one character speaking in the scene. This situation can occur quite frequently and can involve several dialects.

The sound mixer is an invaluable source of information regarding the sequence of ‘sound takes’ during a scene. Together with his advice and my experience I can determine to which of the takes I should pay particular attention. If an actor is not ‘in shot’ i.e. not seen by the camera, it is possible that, the particular piece of dialogue won’t be used in the cut of the film. Similarly if an off screen actor speaks a line and overlaps the dialogue of an actor on screen it makes the sound edit and therefore the picture edit much more difficult and there is a chance that the take will be discarded. In the same way, if there is unacceptable background noise on a particular take it may be determined a ‘guide track’ and the dialogue will have to be replaced in post-production. In all these cases, where the dialogue is unusable I consider an opportunity for the actor to rehearse the dialect for when he or she is actually on screen. If the actor is willing I continue to give notes even though the recorded dialogue is unusable. The day progresses much as described. Someone aptly said that making films constitutes “Endless hours of boredom interspersed with two minute bursts of mad panic” without the benefit of a passion for the work I suppose the boredom bit might drive one mad – thankfully most of us in the industry are already mad! There is a non-dialogue scene now so I leave the set to go back to unit base to work with an actor who has just arrived. His call time was later in the day and his scene will be shot this afternoon. So I work with him in his trailer and then return to the set with him for the next scene. We complete three scenes today and then it’s ‘wrap’.

Wrap – the industry’s way of saying the end of the working day (it’s from silent movie days when the cameraman had to “Wind Reel And Print”) is tonight at 19.00. There wasn’t a request for an extra hour this evening as there can often be! I get a lift back to the unit base and go to the production bus to talk to the 2nd AD about the following day’s work and get a Call Sheet. The call sheet informs me of tomorrow’s call time and the scenes we will shoot. I might then spend a moment of down time with the actor and then get into my car and drive home. Tonight I arrive at 20.45.

What you have just read can go on for six days a week for twelve weeks. Sometimes in hot confined sets on sound stages or in dusty and dirty disused buildings, in muddy or frozen fields, sometimes working ‘Split Days’ (11.00 to 23.00) or ‘Nights’ (16.00 to 04.00)

Once we’re working on a shoot there is no ‘life’ other than the shoot – it’s odd but some people can’t see the glamour in the film industry!

Andrew Jack, March 2008