Well if you still have grunt work that needs doing when I've finished this job count me in. I'll be happy to help.
The handover went well enough and Popstar Pete behaved himself. Wonderful Will dropped his things at the hotel and then got a cab over. So we got some training in and I left him setting out the training schedule for the next few days. Poor kid looked a bit phased by that but I gave him a look and hopefully he'll stick to it.
Anyway I got the late afternoon flight out of LA so was back in London for midday the next day. The Dashing Major collected me from the airport so he could fill me in on the job that I was taking over.
And what a job.
You know the saying - from the frying pan and into the fire?
OK I probably need to explain a few things. I've told you about Techy Trevor's shooting gallery. Not sure if I explained that we don't use guns that fire bullets. Too many accidents even when you fire blanks. So we use suits that are a bit like mocap suits (motion capture) and the guns fire beams of light. So Techy Trevor's system can record a hit on any particular bit of the body. The guns are created to act and sound as if a shot has been fired. In fact they are a little heavier than the real thing but not so much that you would notice unless you were using the real thing every day. But they do have recoil and there is a loud bang (volume modified most of the time so ear protectors aren't needed). So it should feel as if you have a real gun in your hand and that you are firing real bullets.
That last bit is important because when they get on the set they may well be firing prop guns with blanks so the two systems can't feel very different from each other or the work we do is a waste of time and money.
And the work we do is to acclimatise them to the guns. And how they will be moving with them. And using them. If there is a particular scene that involves a terrain that they need to move around and work with then we can mock it up. The guys also create gun battle scenes just as they do fight scenes.
With me so far?
So the job. Actually no - before I tell you about the job I should also explain that Wonderful Will is the most patient, diplomatic and conciliatory person I know. He takes the tricky clients. He takes the Divas.
We've had a few in the years I've worked with them. Some of them well known in the industry for being hard work. And Wonderful Will has been wheeled out and got the job done with minimal theatrics (other than the scripted ones) and lots of customer satisfaction.
So the Dashing Major and I were going to have to buddy up on this one because we were going to be dealing with one of the most well-known divas in the industry. Let's call her High Maintenance Mandy. Her team had already produced a long list of musts and must nots. To give you an example, one of the must nots was that no member of our team or staff were to look directly at her. There should be, under no circumstances, eye contact. I'm quoting there. Another was that there needed to be bathrooms - note the plural - set aside for her use alone. And they needed to be pre inspected by her team so as to be up to scratch. There was also a long list of very specific and branded items that had to be available. That bit is fairly standard I guess. The way the Dashing Major explains it it makes no difference to them if they need to buy in a particular brand of whatever. It is going on the studios tab.
But the Dashing Major will not take any messing around when it comes to his team. And the eye contact BS was a deal breaker. So he and Wonderful Will had already gone down the list of demands and responded to each of them. Some they were fine with but most of them were heavily amended or off the table entirely. If High Maintenance Mandy didn't like it then the studio could find another company to service her.
As I think I've said before these guys don't need to advertise for work. They are good and in some areas the best at what they do. So the message back from the studio was that the revised 'demands' were agreed by them and, as far as they were concerned, by High Maintenance Mandy.
So she had one bathroom which was attached to a large changing room with sitting room - VIP treatment as befitting who she was - but not taking the ****. Various drinks and food stuffs were bought in. Caterers had been shipped in for her and her entourage. There is a large area off reception. We use it for the high flyers and their people. Corral them in there so they don't get in the way. So all that had been put in motion.
The job was straightforward. High Maintenance Mandy needed to look as if she could use a variety of handguns. She needed to look confident with them and appear as if she was an excellent shot. The scene was a break in at her house and she needed to transform into gun-toting mommy who sees the bad guys off. Well I think she shoots most of them dead but you get the idea.
Problem was that High Maintenance Mandy has been an anti NRA campaigner for years and famously does not own or use a gun. I have no idea what made her take this part. Presumably the gun business is a small part of the film but here we were. And I'm not known for suffering the diva antics.
And this is going to require some sufferance.
And I'm now feeling jetlagged. Or maybe that's just the thought of what is ahead of me for the next four days.
So I couldn't help but think that Wonderful Will had definitely dodged a bullet.
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