Sometimes, I've Had It! Right Up to Here!

Tonight was my first shoot of the year. Make that, tonight was supposed to be my first shoot of the year.

The day started out pretty well. I sold a camera I no longer needed: a Sony VX2000 miniDV camcorder. I got $1250 for it. That wasn't too bad. Although the camera cost me about thirty-five hundred or so new, it was three-years old and I got plenty of use out of it. Still, it was in great shape and excellent working condition. (I take good care of my gear.) I had to throw in some extras but, other than a Tamrac bag that I really didn't want to part with, the extras were accessories that only went with that camera. While I might have been able to sell the accessories separately, had I done so I would have been lucky to get a grand for the camera by itself and who knows if the accessories would have even sold? (Separately, that is.) Selling it all as a package deal sounded easier, with less hassles. I sold it through Craigslist. Ebay might have netted more money but it's more of a pain with waiting for a check, shipping, and all that.

I also received a couple of phone calls from clients who owe me some money. Both told me to stop by and pick up a check. I like that. Being told to pick up a check trumps "check's in the mail" anyday and everyday.

Tonight's shoot was scheduled for 4:00 P.M. at my friend's studio. I arrived at 3:45 and, within minutes, the MUA showed up and, a few minutes later, so did the model. The MUA and the model were busy in the makeup room doing their thing while my friend, John, who owns the studio, helped me begin setting up. It took John almost a half hour to put together my Octodome. "Dude," I said. "I could'a had that thing mounted and ready to go in five minutes."

"But I'm doing it the right way," he said, a little too smugly for my liking.

Whatever. I was happy for the help as I didn't, officially, have an assistant. If John was willing to step-in and perform assistant duties (he likes doing that), who am I to complain about his slowness putting together my Octodome?

Next, my client and his assistant, Melissa, show up. The client, Melissa, and I walk into the makeup room to check on the MUA's progress with tonight's victim leaving John to set-up all my lights. Hey! He said he wanted to do it! Who am I to spoil his fun? Besides, he's a gaffer so he (sort of) knows what he's doing with lighting gear for still cameras. I already know he'll be a bit miffed when I come back into the studio and move all the lights into different positions from where he set them but he'll get over it.

So we're chatting in the makeup room and the model says, "What time should my driver pick me up?" (Yeah, she had a driver. She just arrived from England a few days ago and this was her first gig she had scheduled for her stay in the States.)

Melissa tells the model she'll be there till about midnight.

"Right," she says, very matter-of-factly with her British accent as she picks up her cell phone.

None of us paid much attention to her cell call. Maybe we should have. A few minutes later she's off the phone and back to chatting with the MUA. Thirty-seconds after that, Melissa's phone rings. The client and I aren't paying much attention to Melissa's call either. Again, maybe we should have. The client and I walk back into the studio. A couple of minutes later, Melissa follows us into the studio and hands her cell phone to the client.

"It's her agent," she says. "He wants to talk to you."

The client take the phone, excuses himself, and walks to the other side of the studio. It's about a 5,000 square feet studio so it's pretty good size. I'm now moving the lights to where I want them and John, my gaffer friend, is scowling and questioning me as to why I'm moving the lights out of his lighting configuration.

"Because I'm doing it the right way," I said.

John was about to object when, all of a sudden, the client starts yelling into Melissa's cell phone with quite a colorful littany of profanity. Melissa, who had gone back into the makeup room, hears the verbal outburst and comes running back into the studio just as the client shouts "F__k you!" into her cell phone, snaps it loudly shut and, spotting Melissa, tells her to go back into the makeup room, tell the model to pack up her stuff, call her driver, and be on her way. The shoot is canceled!

"But the makeup artist is just about done," Melissa explains.

"So pay her and tell her she's done."

"Whoa!" I said. "What do you mean the shoot's cancelled?"

"Sorry, Jimmy," he says. And then verbally goes off on the agent in quite a colorful way.

Here's what happened: The model was booked a week ago through one of the agent's minions. Apparently, the model was told it would be about a 4-hour shoot. When Melissa told her she'd be there till midnight, about 8-hours, she called her agent, i.e., the agent who owns the agency (not the minion) and asked him why she'd be there till midnight when she was told it would be a 4-hour shoot which should have meant she'd be done by 8:00 P.M. The agent, apparently, told her he'd take care of it. So the agent called Melissa and gives her a bunch of grief. Melissa, who tried to be diplomatic, could get nowhere with the agent. The agent then demanded to speak to the client. According to the client, the agent then tried to double the model's fee. The client offered a couple of hundred more for the mixup but the agent wasn't having any of that and the two them got into a screaming match on the phone. That was it in a nutshell. In the end, the MUA made out okay. Everyone else got screwed.

What was it Ed Norton, consumate sewer worker and Ralph Kramden's best friend, used to say? I think he used to hold his hand, flatly, just under his chin, move it back and forth and say, "Sometimes, at work, I've had! Right up to here!"

That's how I feel right now.

Below is the model, Carmel, I was supposed to shoot tonight. I didn't shoot this lackluster, flat-lit image. I lifted it off of her agent's site.