Currently i am working three jobs. I returned to reality tv out of desperation after about a month of no calls for work. I am on Make me a Super Model with the same coordinators from Project Runway but not enough of the organization. It's not their fault really, its just a very different set up and too much transitioning going on between firing of the AD and the UPM quitting.
What i liked about reality is the set works hours, they don't like to pay OT so you cut out at 12hrs on the dot. its the fist time on a production my bosses have insisted i go home. usually they just keep you till you soul shrivels up and dies a little and you've waited to get every fucking GE teamster props costume etc. persons out time.
but on reality its a 24hr day so pa's are rotate throughout the day.
There is a lot of opportunity to disappear in a day like that. there are so many PA's and so many locations and nooks and crannies to the places we house the contestant i get a lot of opportunity to read and draw on rooftops.
A connection from a film i propped on last summer gave me a lead on a set dressing gig on a Russian feature film. Turns out i know the lead man from a couple of other jobs. its an interesting crew of mostly black men of various ages older then me. they like really like my humor and seem amused by my sassiness. I like crews like this the best because they got nothing to prove, they have the ease of a sense of position that pa don't. some of the guys are old school, have more stories then a library. we drive around and the guys all have a world of opinion on food , ny, productions, and most of all woman. I did well to make them feel comfortable in expressing their opinions, my humors a good tool for that, they finally stopped apologizing for swearing.
The film got a good budget so the rate is good and the hours for set dressing are great at a 8hr day with OT. Basically i make 4 times my rate as a pa when i set dress. We shot in the Gold Club the other day, what a cheesy place, the walls are coverd with several large images of nude women in various poses tat ubscure their bushes and nipples. In some photos its clear they could not full ubscure the nippls so they air brushed anything peeking out.I guess a customer wouldn't be as critical and probably nobody ever notices.
The Lead sent me a text the night before.." We're going to be around strippers .I hope your comfortable". I texted back "I hope they are comfortable around me!"
Just to keep good relations with my gallery job i am also doing a a few days of art handling this week in hopes they take me to Chicago for the SOFA show at the armory in the beginning of November.I make the same rate as i do PAing but for a day that last half as long.
If they ask me to go to Chicago I would have to drive a box truck from NY to Chicago buti have made long hauls in like that before coming and going from college. Or they might just ask me to stay in NY and watch the gallery while their gone. i can use my down time to write and apply for grants while getting a paycheck.
Organizing my schedule has been a bitch but i really want to keep all these good relationship cause winters is coming and money has a way of getting very tight around the holiday on the East coast.
Though i heard that this next month is going to be a lot of work. I am going to put myself on the auxiliary list for local 829 and hopefully i van get some set dress work too.