22 minutes

Today was one of those days at work where we do what's called block shooting to maximize our efficiency in shooting. So we combined about 6 scenes that totaled about 12 pages of dialogue and shot it all as one long continuous scene. Now normally the rule of thumb in film is that a page of dialogue equals about a minute of screen time. This is just an estimate as comedic dialogue is often quick paced while dramatic dialogue accounts for dramatic beats and pauses. But I don't think anyone could have imagined what combing those 12 pages would equal. 22 minutes. That's right. 12 pages of dialogue with 2 actors added up to 22 minutes per take! Over and over again today we shot those same 22 minutes. I felt a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. After awhile it becomes the longest 22 minutes of your life. You could just see the life being sucked out of all the crew as they listened to it over and over and over again. It was unbelievably exhausting.

When we finally finished the 12 page scene and moved set there was an audible sigh of relief from both the cast and crew that the 22 minute repeat torture was over. Yes I know it will never play as one long scene and combined together it will never equal 22 minutes of screen time when it airs, but the 22 minutes that were devoted to each and every take was painful. It made the day seem to labor on. You almost expected that we should be going home once the 12 pages were finished, but no such luck. Nope we had to move sets and do another little scene with different actors. And to top it all off we were filming entirely on stage - the black hole of death. While I enjoy working on stage in some regards because it is climate controlled and convenient, in a lot of ways it is boring and depressing. Imagine working in a big warehouse with no windows. A warehouse in which you are only allowed to go outside for one hour in the middle of the day to eat lunch. The rest of the day you spend in a windowless room with no concept of the outside world. Is it still daylight? Is it raining?

But, there always seems to be something that happens on stage days to make the day enjoyable. One way or another we find a way to make each other laugh or to find comedy in our predicament. Today, I was rather amused by my new bookshelf in my office. Ross, our office PA, had asked construction to make me a two tiered bookshelf so I would have a place to stack the 12 script books from this season. Perhaps Ross should have been a bit more precise in his request. I did indeed receive a two tiered bookshelf. However, it was more the size of a nightstand than a bookshelf. My books wouldn't even fit standing up on the shelves and there was certainly no way 12 of them were going to fit. Ross apologized as he knew as soon as he saw the bookshelf that it was merely a comedy of errors and would in no way be of any use. Though it did become a rather great conversation piece as people filtered into the office to muse over it. So we decided we would keep it but hopefully also give it a larger partner as well.