360 Strike...
I've almost decompressed for the week that was U2 ...I went straight from the show to the very next day being a mook for ACT 's White Christmas...It was so nice to just not worry about other people's call times and if we had enough people. Just concern myself with my own getting back in time the next day to a theatre that I know so well.
During the production check in, with lots of crew arriving early hoping to catch a bit of the show. They didn't show up on the final prepared lists. It seemed that a computer glich on the web page. Or the fact that the posting programme was new, meant that people we'd booked on the show days earlier and were still coming to work, didn't exist when our H & W person downloaded the names to make the current check in lists.
So, at first it looked like we'd way over called which was the only fear I had going into the production night as I felt we didn't need to do an overcall. Thankfully, I was wrong - a lot of people didn't show up due to it being so close to halloween, and winter colds going around. Which meant that the No Show shifts went to the people not on the latest lists... So once everything settled around 11pm and all the coloured department shirts had been handed out. ( I didn't even get one ) And the Production strike began we were really close, if a bit over for the numbers. But, as were asked to overcall the show strike. We were in the money so to speak....
As crew were checking in I couldn't help think of when I was on that side of the dispatch table during Zoo T.V. Tour, working as a very new Permittee for the local. A scared video production climber on that event, so long ago That I I felt so old now, sheltering new fears as all these super young, keen people checked in for the evening.
Out on the massive floor of the venue. The place was a sea of crew ,trucks, cases, forklifts and cranes. With all these fresh faces swarming the set. In multi colored department shirts and Hi Vis vests. All hyped to move and move fast, syc'ed with that same intense love of great work. That super - get 'er done feeling fooded in me as well. With all the mass workers and confusion. And shards of food and drinks left over by the fans, it felt and looked at times like a battle field.
Often, they were so hyped to work that, as we were cutting them back as each ellement, Video crew , Ground riggers and lighting/sound crews left the field. They didn't want to be cut and kept jumping in to other people gigs and just kept working. We even had to gently yell/plead at a few, over the noise and sounds of trucks and forklift movers to stop. As the number of people wer becoming a danger to thier compatriots and themselves.
Or, they came up after and thanked me for the call, All super work sweatly and covered in post show grime and grease from hundreds of dirty staging pieces and chain motors. All the while desperately asking if there were any drop outs on the other, later, longer, juicier and heavier steel strike shifts.
Out of 199 crew on site that evening we had only one serious injury. Around 3am a road case landed on a Truckloaders foot as he was pulling it away from crushing another guy against the rigs wall. with the edge landing above his steel toe, fracturing his foot. The old guy was tough as nails and said to me and the first aid attendant he couldn't feel anything, as I helped fill out his workers comp papers. We sent him off in an Ambulance and by that time it was curfew for me at 4am
I woke up many hours later and ran to my next gig to get to White Christmas in time....
I've almost decompressed for the week that was U2 ...I went straight from the show to the very next day being a mook for ACT 's White Christmas...It was so nice to just not worry about other people's call times and if we had enough people. Just concern myself with my own getting back in time the next day to a theatre that I know so well.
During the production check in, with lots of crew arriving early hoping to catch a bit of the show. They didn't show up on the final prepared lists. It seemed that a computer glich on the web page. Or the fact that the posting programme was new, meant that people we'd booked on the show days earlier and were still coming to work, didn't exist when our H & W person downloaded the names to make the current check in lists.
So, at first it looked like we'd way over called which was the only fear I had going into the production night as I felt we didn't need to do an overcall. Thankfully, I was wrong - a lot of people didn't show up due to it being so close to halloween, and winter colds going around. Which meant that the No Show shifts went to the people not on the latest lists... So once everything settled around 11pm and all the coloured department shirts had been handed out. ( I didn't even get one ) And the Production strike began we were really close, if a bit over for the numbers. But, as were asked to overcall the show strike. We were in the money so to speak....
As crew were checking in I couldn't help think of when I was on that side of the dispatch table during Zoo T.V. Tour, working as a very new Permittee for the local. A scared video production climber on that event, so long ago That I I felt so old now, sheltering new fears as all these super young, keen people checked in for the evening.
Out on the massive floor of the venue. The place was a sea of crew ,trucks, cases, forklifts and cranes. With all these fresh faces swarming the set. In multi colored department shirts and Hi Vis vests. All hyped to move and move fast, syc'ed with that same intense love of great work. That super - get 'er done feeling fooded in me as well. With all the mass workers and confusion. And shards of food and drinks left over by the fans, it felt and looked at times like a battle field.
Often, they were so hyped to work that, as we were cutting them back as each ellement, Video crew , Ground riggers and lighting/sound crews left the field. They didn't want to be cut and kept jumping in to other people gigs and just kept working. We even had to gently yell/plead at a few, over the noise and sounds of trucks and forklift movers to stop. As the number of people wer becoming a danger to thier compatriots and themselves.
Or, they came up after and thanked me for the call, All super work sweatly and covered in post show grime and grease from hundreds of dirty staging pieces and chain motors. All the while desperately asking if there were any drop outs on the other, later, longer, juicier and heavier steel strike shifts.
Out of 199 crew on site that evening we had only one serious injury. Around 3am a road case landed on a Truckloaders foot as he was pulling it away from crushing another guy against the rigs wall. with the edge landing above his steel toe, fracturing his foot. The old guy was tough as nails and said to me and the first aid attendant he couldn't feel anything, as I helped fill out his workers comp papers. We sent him off in an Ambulance and by that time it was curfew for me at 4am
I woke up many hours later and ran to my next gig to get to White Christmas in time....
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
littlejohn22:
wicked, wish I could see that show, I rig for the Fredericton Playhouse... it has a double purchase fly system
anunnaki:
His name is Max, and he is the sweetest guy ever. You would never guess that this guy would become a monser on stage :-)