So we packed everything into a really big van and moved down to Shoreditch. Apparently it is quite fashionable to live here, although we were simply forced by a lack of looking for flats skills. My boyfriend got a paid job at the very third day of his stay in here. He is a spark* on a short independent thing and gets 100 quid per day. Apparently he is late everyday (transport for London website - told him to not trust that thing) and misses breakfast everyday (about him: he is (or rather was known) for never being late on any call time, always prepared and checking his emails every 10 minutes, also he uses sony ericsson but wants an iphone (to get it synchronised together with his macbook i suppose). He used to be a professional production assistant before cinematography studies and worked on commercials for bmw, nestle, audi and other things like this. Apart from that he is emotional, sad and dreamy when he thinks nobody looks at him, and he loves french films, joy division and miranda july. and me i suppose. Let's call him Ted.). I got an unpaid job in the middle of nowhere (nowhere is called Harrow with trees forests and stuff) as a spark from 11pm till 2am everyday pretty much (that is all about working hours and uk film industry strict union rules). Carrying 2.5 kW HMI* on my own I was more than up in sky, and could possibly only be happier if they would give me that 50 quid per day. Or whatever. I loved the cold heavy headers* around my sleeves, 32 amp cables to batch through dark forests, the 6kW ballast* and Panalux's* system of putting sandbag*s in extra difficult to pull drawer on the bottom of all other ones, so you need to pull all of them to get one (amazing!). One would think that a girl like me could not do it - but hey, you would be so wrong! There are people who are not created for sparks or lighting team but still love cinematography - they usually stick around camera making jokes about you underneath their stuff trying to peak to know how to flicker (i agree, the "is it ok if I will pop in between your legs on a take" might not be the best thing to say surrounded by 6 men) but actually i dont mind lighting, as well as camera assisting. The disastrous situation is normally appearing when one of them decides to take sparking job, and sits bored out of this world on a chair, presumably because there is nothing to do (i just dont feel like carrying all this stuff you see) but of course the "unpaid" might makes him more lazy than the job character. at the end it is just all about you having to do more even than normally but it is ok since you love it anyways, and later on you will be having a ride home with this unfortunate other sparking friend who will turn up to be a good camera assistant, just not that interested in lighting, he is afraid.
So after this there comes the real life. No paid job. Mandy.com, Flimcrewpro, talent circle* they all look for unpaid people who will want to carry stuff. All your friends suddenly are working so there is nobody to talk to (like Ann for the new Scorsese film which is being currently shot in Pinewood studios) and there it is - the harsh truth of life, the dark shadow of upcoming homeless life on the streets of london, the bitter taste of lonesome, the hyper-magnified unknown future...
Moreover your boy is coming back home later on (when you just spent last 2 pounds on a tub of ben&jerrys cookie dough) and with a knowing smile he announces "i met this focus puller who worked on a zombie feature sequel, you know, and he said there is no job on mandy and filmcrewpro etc, but the only way to get is to know people, you know, generally" and you nearly choke on this extremely big chunk of cookie dough muffling "well but i don't know any people, so what should i do, kill myself?" and with this very happy accent you cannot even eat dinner worrying about 380 pounds rent due to pay on the 1st of september 2010.
the only good thing is to watch batman begins again, and look at this beautiful close up with no fill light, when christian bale is in mountains, remembering inception, and crossing fingers for a really smart and funny guy who you just met and who had an interview with Double Negative* just two days ago, because for some reason you are only happy to people who made it, since they show you that it is actually possible.
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*HMI - the daylight balanced light, normally comes with the ballast* and the header* which in film looks like a typical sunlight coloured light, opposite of tungsten balanced. H stands for Latin Hydrargyrum which means mercury - the substance used in a daylight bulb.
*ballast - they are produced to power HMI. Currently there are two types of those - electronic and magnetic ballasts. The electronic ones are generally silent and make the light not flicker if the framer rate of the camera is changed. Or simpler - these are those square boxes witch needs to stand besides the light, and you plug the cables to them and then press buttons on them to power the lights. ;)
*headers - common name for cables which run from the light to ballasts/plugs. They can get very heavy with bigger lighting units so never underestimate their weight when putting a light on a high stand or 55m platform.
The whole k-ey thing (ex. 6kW, 2.5 kW etc) - the power of lighting unit is commonly described by the electric power it takes to work. Bigger and brighter lights normally take more power than smaller units (logical) so when you hear something like bring me 4 k-e-y HMI you know that normally you will need somebody else to carry it with because it is going to weigh at least 30 kg with header, extension and ballast
*sandbags - are exactly what they sound like. Textile bags filled with sand to be used as weight on stands and equipment to make it more stable. as a trivia it is worth mentioning that biggest Indian film school do not own any sandbags at all.
*Panalux - is this big rental lighting (and grip) company connected with Panavision. They come with big tracks and bring equipment you booked before to light the scenes. Probably it is worth mentioning they provided equipment for most of biggest films made in Great Britain during last years.
*Double Negative - a company which make special effects for films, computer generated. With the more complicated language - they are responsible for compositing, matte painting, 3d objects etc. Their most recent famous achievement is probably "Inception". They have two offices in Soho London and Singapore.
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