Armistice

People, for whatever reason, sometimes feel the need to take a stand.

Most of the time this isn’t about anything really critical – a parking space, which way the toilet paper is hung, what you really meant when you said “fine” the other day. It escalates to a point and then deflates.

But sometimes said stand will take down an entire production.

Actors and directors disagree about stuff all the time, and usually the one with more clout on that particular day wins fairly quickly, unless someone decides not to back down.

Today, our director and our actor (also a producer and said director’s boss) started arguing about what seemed like a fairly insignificant line of dialog, and it kept escalating as both of them decided they were right and weren’t going to back down over this newfound noble cause (totally worth dying -figuratively – for).

While all of us just stood there, doing nothing and waiting. Except now, under the rules of a pandemic gripped city, we couldn’t even grab a cup of coffee and retreat to the staging area to play Candy Crush and wait it out.

Crafty is set up too far away to get there and back at a moment’s notice, and we can’t be close together, so the staging area party is not happening.

So stand there we did. For an hour and a half. While they argued over one word.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I find that the sooner I’m off the stage, in my car, and out of the really uncomfortable PPE I have to wear for 12 hours a day, the happier my ears are.

So the arguing went on until they reached a compromise. They’d do it both ways and see which one worked better later.

Which, of course, was the suggestion we’d all thought of an hour earlier, but, you know.

Filed under: Work, behind the scenes, crew, film industry, television, Work