I said, Where's my headset!!!

So random, my day.

Actually it started a week or so ago when I got a call from my boss, Marsha, at the Cancer Center telling me that she had heard about some film work. Got that? Cancer Center boss with film work for me.... Apparently, Marsha used to work with a cancer research technician who has a sister who is a film producer. This sister was going to be shooting a film in Tucson and needed a Production Assistant (PA). Well, I wasn’t so much interested in that position but thought there might be some costume work. So I got the producer’s name and number and then got busy and didn’t call her. Adding to the interest is the fact that the producer’s name is Andi McCaffery and she’s the niece of Anne McCaffery the science fiction writer of the Dragons of Pern books. Though this movie has nothing to do with her books.

Anyway, today I go to a theatre union class on hair and makeup – I’m in the process of joining the stagehands union – and on my way there my friend Chris, also a stagehand, calls to tell me that he’s on his way to check out a movie production because he got a call that they needed some sewing work done. Huh. So he eventually shows up to the class and at the end of class asks me if I’d be interested in working on a semi-autobiographical movie about a guy who invented a talking bottle cap opener. Well, strictly for story value, yes I’m interested in being part of anything that has a talking bottle cap opener in a starring role. Chris gives me directions and I show up at the Best Western hotel where the movie production has taken over several rooms on the bottom floor.

I walk into the “wardrobe room” (room 108) and they say “oh, perfect you’re here.” I am? Turns out some wardrobe head walked off the job this morning, so the wardrobe PA got promoted to wardrobe head and now they need a PA, which is apparently me. As we’re discussing this situation I notice the phone list of producers with Andi McCaffery’s name at the top. So the niece of Anne McCaffery is making a movie about bottle cape openers. Curiouser and Curiouser… I make a few phone calls rearranging the rest of my work this week, go to “accounting” (room 110) and fill out paperwork consisting of my name, address and SSN (they didn’t ask to see my ID, so I suspect I could have put down anything I wanted…) and I was hired as the new wardrobe PA.

Now doesn’t that sound like the kind of job where I get to stand around in a short skirt, with a clipboard in one hand and my venti skinny latte in the other, yelling into my bluetooth things like “Not good enough! We needed it yesterday!!” Sadly, it actually involves a lot of grunt work – sewing, dyeing, cleaning, labeling, organizing – and all in a hotel room. I have to tell you it’s an unusual treat to see a washing machine stuffed into a tiny hotel bathroom with the water hose connected to the sink. The dryer? In the closet. The walk space? Minimal. People working and walking in this space? 4 at a minimum. Number of job descriptions that I have heard for the first time today? Many. What’s a Second Second??

Tomorrow, we load trucks for the shoot. Ah, the glamorous life of film!