One thing I have to admit about working Commercials is parking the crew early in the morning. Everyone wants to park next to their trailer to donwload or just be close. They'll tell me, "I'll be 5 minutes" What that really means is they're parking in that spot all day. The best thing is when I'm out in the open directing cars where to park and when they just fly by me, I have to go and put them in the right spot, I always get " Why didn't you tell me before I turned off my car" Of course my nice response is " Well dumbshit, if you were paying attention to me, you would of known where to go and we wouldn't be having this conversation".
Our basecamp is so huge (8th and Francisco in LA) So I could see how someone could get confused, but if everyone followed the signs, then they wouldn't have any problems. Nice car pulls up next to me...
GUY: I need to park over there.
He points over to the trailers.
ME: You background?
GUY: Background? No, I'm Atmosphere talent.
(I know it's only 5am but I'm not that stupid)
ME: Okay Atmosphere Talent parking is over there.
I point to the furthest of the huge parking lot.
GUY: Why way over there?
ME: Are you Client?
GUY: No,
ME: Are You the Producer, Director, Talent?
GUY: No.
ME: Are you fucking the Producer, Director Talent or anyone from the Agency?
GUY: No.
ME: Well that's why your parking over there.
The guy speeds off quickly down the parking lot. Now if he would of been cool with me and just say he's background and not pull that "this guard is stupid and use Atmosphere talent on me" I would of parked him much closer. We have over 400 extras today, on the other side of the parking lot is another commercial. I park everyone in our crew and chase out the other crew cars from the other production. I grab my breakfast then I leave my guard the details of basecamp duty and head over towards set. I walk through the parking lot and notice the other security guard (Trojan Security) giving me dirty looks. (alot of other security companies hate us!)
We film on the corner of 8th and Figueroa, damn this place is so busy and crowded with people. All day long were at this location and all day I couldn't put my finger on it but something was missing. My attention is taken to the RTD bus that stops on our corner, the bus driver and one of the passengers is fighting. The passenger gets out of the bus and runs up to one of our retired officers we have on set
*MENTAL NOTE*
The officers you see on a movie set are not active, they're all Retired, Bickering Racial, Grumpy Older men that are over paid guys who do nothing but sit around and eat off the craft service table sleep sitting on their bikes, read the paper all day long ( I really mean that, never seen someone stretch out the paper for the whole day before) or hang in the Moho trailer all day long. The worst part is all they do is complain about how they just came off another movie last night and they had no sleep and their making all this money. I always tell them, if you hate what your doing, then retire already for good. you old cranky bastards
So our officer on set tells the lady what anyone of us would of, call the police yourself. The police show up, apparently there was this passenger who was just about to get on the bus when the driver closed the door on them before they could fully entered. The only thing is the person's arm was caught and the bus dragged them for about 50 feet, before the passenger behind the driver and other passengers joined in to help the person being dragged by the bus, ( I wonder if this story will make the news) started beating on her.
Everyone on set starts talking about the incident, when this couple behind me ask the same question. I look down and realized what it was that I haven't seen since I been here.
The couple was in their mid 40's, they were walking their dog.
ME: That's the first dog that I seen today, matter of fact first critter that I seen today.
Now when I say critter I mean Rat, Roach, stray cats, or stray dogs, things you see in LA. I didn't even see any Pigeons!
WIFE: It's funny that you say that, cause since the New LA has been in progress there's alot of things missing.
ME: Well I'm just talking about the usual Rats, and Pigeons that flood these streets.
MAN: That's becuase their killing the pigeons too.
ME: Who is?
WIFE: The City.
MAN: Ever since these fucking yuppies have been moving in to the city, the Government is doing everything they can to clean this city up in a hurry.
WIFE: Somebody is dropping poison on the ground for the strays, rats and bugs to eat.
ME: What makes you say that?
WIFE: This is our 11th dog in 6 months.
ME: What happened to your other dogs?
WIFE: Poisoned!
MAN: We been mapping out every street we walk, and know what streets their dropping this stuff at. We have other friends who lost their pets walking the same routes we have.
WIFE: Have you not noticed the homeless are dissapearing? There's no pigeons anywhere.
ME: Do you thinks they're poisoning the homeless too?
MAN: No, their just dropping them off in different neighborhoods.
( I can vouch for that one, seen it done many times. More on that later)
WIFE: You can't sell studio lots for Four hundred thousand and leave trash outside their windows, you need to clean it up to attract people.
MAN: My belief is that alot of these tai wan restaraunts opening up are using the stray dogs and cats for meals on their menu's, people in this town love that shit yet they don't know what it is.
WIFE: They think its trendy.
I knew of places in Monterey Park doing this but didn't know about places in LA, mental note.. bring own sack lunch when working in Downtown LA.
MAN: If you see anyone pouring something on the ground, shoot the mother fuckers!!
ME: Um, yeah sure.
What's really bizarre is that this isn't the first time I heard this before.
Our basecamp is so huge (8th and Francisco in LA) So I could see how someone could get confused, but if everyone followed the signs, then they wouldn't have any problems. Nice car pulls up next to me...
GUY: I need to park over there.
He points over to the trailers.
ME: You background?
GUY: Background? No, I'm Atmosphere talent.
(I know it's only 5am but I'm not that stupid)
ME: Okay Atmosphere Talent parking is over there.
I point to the furthest of the huge parking lot.
GUY: Why way over there?
ME: Are you Client?
GUY: No,
ME: Are You the Producer, Director, Talent?
GUY: No.
ME: Are you fucking the Producer, Director Talent or anyone from the Agency?
GUY: No.
ME: Well that's why your parking over there.
The guy speeds off quickly down the parking lot. Now if he would of been cool with me and just say he's background and not pull that "this guard is stupid and use Atmosphere talent on me" I would of parked him much closer. We have over 400 extras today, on the other side of the parking lot is another commercial. I park everyone in our crew and chase out the other crew cars from the other production. I grab my breakfast then I leave my guard the details of basecamp duty and head over towards set. I walk through the parking lot and notice the other security guard (Trojan Security) giving me dirty looks. (alot of other security companies hate us!)
We film on the corner of 8th and Figueroa, damn this place is so busy and crowded with people. All day long were at this location and all day I couldn't put my finger on it but something was missing. My attention is taken to the RTD bus that stops on our corner, the bus driver and one of the passengers is fighting. The passenger gets out of the bus and runs up to one of our retired officers we have on set
*MENTAL NOTE*
The officers you see on a movie set are not active, they're all Retired, Bickering Racial, Grumpy Older men that are over paid guys who do nothing but sit around and eat off the craft service table sleep sitting on their bikes, read the paper all day long ( I really mean that, never seen someone stretch out the paper for the whole day before) or hang in the Moho trailer all day long. The worst part is all they do is complain about how they just came off another movie last night and they had no sleep and their making all this money. I always tell them, if you hate what your doing, then retire already for good. you old cranky bastards
So our officer on set tells the lady what anyone of us would of, call the police yourself. The police show up, apparently there was this passenger who was just about to get on the bus when the driver closed the door on them before they could fully entered. The only thing is the person's arm was caught and the bus dragged them for about 50 feet, before the passenger behind the driver and other passengers joined in to help the person being dragged by the bus, ( I wonder if this story will make the news) started beating on her.
Everyone on set starts talking about the incident, when this couple behind me ask the same question. I look down and realized what it was that I haven't seen since I been here.
The couple was in their mid 40's, they were walking their dog.
ME: That's the first dog that I seen today, matter of fact first critter that I seen today.
Now when I say critter I mean Rat, Roach, stray cats, or stray dogs, things you see in LA. I didn't even see any Pigeons!
WIFE: It's funny that you say that, cause since the New LA has been in progress there's alot of things missing.
ME: Well I'm just talking about the usual Rats, and Pigeons that flood these streets.
MAN: That's becuase their killing the pigeons too.
ME: Who is?
WIFE: The City.
MAN: Ever since these fucking yuppies have been moving in to the city, the Government is doing everything they can to clean this city up in a hurry.
WIFE: Somebody is dropping poison on the ground for the strays, rats and bugs to eat.
ME: What makes you say that?
WIFE: This is our 11th dog in 6 months.
ME: What happened to your other dogs?
WIFE: Poisoned!
MAN: We been mapping out every street we walk, and know what streets their dropping this stuff at. We have other friends who lost their pets walking the same routes we have.
WIFE: Have you not noticed the homeless are dissapearing? There's no pigeons anywhere.
ME: Do you thinks they're poisoning the homeless too?
MAN: No, their just dropping them off in different neighborhoods.
( I can vouch for that one, seen it done many times. More on that later)
WIFE: You can't sell studio lots for Four hundred thousand and leave trash outside their windows, you need to clean it up to attract people.
MAN: My belief is that alot of these tai wan restaraunts opening up are using the stray dogs and cats for meals on their menu's, people in this town love that shit yet they don't know what it is.
WIFE: They think its trendy.
I knew of places in Monterey Park doing this but didn't know about places in LA, mental note.. bring own sack lunch when working in Downtown LA.
MAN: If you see anyone pouring something on the ground, shoot the mother fuckers!!
ME: Um, yeah sure.
What's really bizarre is that this isn't the first time I heard this before.
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