wow... just wow...
I've just been through such an ordeal that I feel like a war vet.
I just spent about 10-24 hours our of each day for the last 3 weeks working for a serious lunatic.
It would be hard for me to really explain to you how wretched and stupid it was, without explaining to you how the entire professional world of costumes works...

the easiest way to sum it up would be that I was on a huge high profile project... Beyonce's Sasha Fierce tour, and the woman I was working under was a total hack... WAY over her head, with no real concept of how much time and effort it takes to make costumes, and with an ego that stopped her from taking advantage of the talented and helpful people around her. So I was part of team douche, knowing how we could fix the situation, but with a boss so threatened by my experience level, that she won't listen to anything I say. The result was that NONE of the costumes we were assigned were finished. and they still aren't, and the tour has it's first performance on wednesday. This woman, expected us to work around the clock with no sleep or breaks, because she had gotten herself into such a mess. The situation was so disorganized that it was nearly impossible to spend time efficiently. And this bitch's priorities were REALLY messed up. Her experience level was so low, that she was worried about trying to return cheap items in order to save Beyonce a couple of bucks, when we're seriously understaffed and the tour was about to hit the road with no costumes!! She was also obsessive about sewing things by hand, that would have been stronger, better looking, and faster to accomplish on machine.
to top it all off she was a serious liar, and would insist that piddling little nonsense instructions had come from the top designer on the project. Stuff that he totally wouldn't have wasted his time on. Just trying to take a bathroom break or catch 2 hours of sleep a night were frowned upon. We were...

wow... just wow...
I've just been through such an ordeal that I feel like a war vet.
I just spent about 10-24 hours our of each day for the last 3 weeks working for a serious lunatic.
It would be hard for me to really explain to you how wretched and stupid it was, without explaining to you how the entire professional world of costumes works...

the easiest way to sum it up would be that I was on a huge high profile project... Beyonce's Sasha Fierce tour, and the woman I was working under was a total hack... WAY over her head, with no real concept of how much time and effort it takes to make costumes, and with an ego that stopped her from taking advantage of the talented and helpful people around her. So I was part of team douche, knowing how we could fix the situation, but with a boss so threatened by my experience level, that she won't listen to anything I say. The result was that NONE of the costumes we were assigned were finished. and they still aren't, and the tour has it's first performance on wednesday. This woman, expected us to work around the clock with no sleep or breaks, because she had gotten herself into such a mess. The situation was so disorganized that it was nearly impossible to spend time efficiently. And this bitch's priorities were REALLY messed up. Her experience level was so low, that she was worried about trying to return cheap items in order to save Beyonce a couple of bucks, when we're seriously understaffed and the tour was about to hit the road with no costumes!! She was also obsessive about sewing things by hand, that would have been stronger, better looking, and faster to accomplish on machine.
to top it all off she was a serious liar, and would insist that piddling little nonsense instructions had come from the top designer on the project. Stuff that he totally wouldn't have wasted his time on. Just trying to take a bathroom break or catch 2 hours of sleep a night were frowned upon. We were expected to be like robots.

And let me just tell you, this is a serious difference between professionals, and hacks, in the entertainment industry. Things get crazy, almost always, and stuff gets a bit mad near the end of most projects... but professionals are organized enough and have the foresight to keep the craziness at a minimum. Hacks on the other hand, view the craziness almost as a test of strength. They don't know how to prevent it from happening so they view staying up all night as a necessary skill, instead of as a project gone wrong. My girl Amy and I were viewed as weak for stopping work at 3AM and insisting on a couple hours of sleep a night. there were a couple of nights that I did not sleep at all... moving through 48 hours of near delusional exhaustion. As if anyone can be productive and make intelligent decisions like that.

Amy and I, have spent the last three days, decompressing, and marveling at how out of hand the situation got... we left the project a couple days early, and it felt like we were running out from underneath a tidal wave just as it was about to smash us to bits.

before this project I had seriously vivid dreams, but for the last two weeks I've had nothing but dreamless trauma-victim sleep. I've also taken to staring into space and needing middle of the day naps. Now, three days after the fact, I'm only starting to be able to pick up the pieces of my life. The residual stress was more intense than I've ever experienced. I can't believe how long it's taken me to relax a bit.

anyway - the cool part about the whole thing was that I fit Beyonce herself into some of her costumes, so that will be a nice resume point. The designer of the project, who's a big name, liked me quite a bit, but I stormed away from the project before I could pass him my info... if he's clever he could find me, but since I was part of "team broken promises and shitty looking product..." well I don't expect he'll call.
Also I made a dump truck full of money, And the entire experience has brought me much closer to Amy, who I've known for ages but haven't gotten really close to till now. Now we're bonded by the trauma! we spent two consecutive nights drinking wine and reviewing the shit mess. Then the next two consecutive nights texting furiously about our recuperation process.

anyway - I gotta try to pull my life back together. trying to remember where I was at 3 weeks ago when this disaster struck...