onlyemma's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 'are you on work experience, little girl?'
Last night I came back to Huddersfield feeling pretty disheartened. I tried my best as a runner, I tried really damn hard, but I was so nervous and intimidated every time I had to step into my role it was a bit like my personality had been sucked out and replaced by the personality of a small, trapped mouse. I was fine with the director and producer when we weren't filming; we had a great time when we went out for drinks and meals, but when it came down to the job, I just wasn't confident in myself. I mainly had to skivvy about doing whatever the director or producer wanted me to do, so my job ranged from setting up the kit to buying coffees and getting the director's cigarettes out of the van. I also had to log the camera shots. This was all stuff I could do. Logging was pretty easy, so I was a wizz at that. But when it came to knowing technical terms of equipment or what light to put up I was a bit of a jibbering mess. I'd go to the van and think "what the hell am I getting out?" and I'd route about a bit and get worked up if I had no bloody idea what I was looking for. I guessed though, and I got it right every time, but it was mainly luck. The first location we went to was a housing estate and the presenter had to do a piece to camera walking down a path. He had a mic on but the sound was wrong so the director said, "hmm, I think we're going to need to put a sock on that". What the hell does that mean? So I, being an idiot, said "I'm not wearing any socks" only to be asked to get a small foam mic cover from the van. He didn't mean a real sock. I power-walked it to the van as fast as I could, to save myself from causing any more damage to insides which I'd managed to churn up pretty well with embarrassment. When I was at the van I banged my head on it, mocked myself a bit ("I'm not wearing any thockth!") then took 50 million years finding the mic cover, which was about the size of a pea but was in its own tiny compartment in the sound kit. It was downhill from there with regards to my self-esteem. The presenter we were using was from local North East news, but he's going to Channel 4 to be the North East correspondent soon (so you'll see him on the TV). He's called Nick and he was quite nice looking and was really confident, so that, as well as a lovely geordie accent, made my personality shrivel up and die as soon as I met him. He thought I was on work experience too. Probably because I looked like I was around the age of 6 with my matted rained-on hair. I corrected him and told him I had just finished uni, but nothing was really going to save me after the sock incident anyway. At the end of the first day we went to film at a community centre. I had to pretend to buy something from the shop and I really can't act. Nope, I couldn't even pretend to buy a can of coke properly; I looked like I was about to wet myself with laughter. Then I had to walk out of the door and across the car park. I couldn't even walk naturally. I was walking to the right and the director signalled for me to go left so I just swerved left, completely obviously. I had to do 2 takes and on the second one I ad libbed and opened my can of Pepsi and took a swig and that was the extent to my limited acting skills. So all in all, the future's not looking so bright in that area. I tried my best though and if there's a next time I'll know more about what's expected of me. I worried though that my job was as a 'runner' and I was just walking or occasionally galloping about, and I wasn't actually running places. My mum found this absolutely hilarious when I told her over the phone last night. My dad overheard the conversation and my mum said "your dad's joining in laughing now too!" and then I heard Dad shout downstairs so Kate: "Emma's worried that her job was runner but she didn't do any running!" then Kate started laughing and came on the phone to explain that it was okay that I didn't run. I occasionally did a spot of jogging though. So it's been an emotional rollercoaster these last few days anyway. Especially since in my hotel room I had Sky and I frequently watched the Gospel channel. It reduced me to tears on the first morning because a nice song came on and then I found out at the end that the singer had died. My mum thought something terrible had happened when I phoned her at 7.15 about that one. "Oh Emma, just turn the channel off!" So now I'm back in Huddersfield until tomorrow when I'll go home for a while. Today I spent from 2pm to 6.30pm in bed because I'm completely bored. I thought "screw it, I'm staying in bed all day and when Tim comes back from work at 10, I'm still going to be here". But then I broke my strike by going to the toilet then into the kitchen and watching 5 minutes of a film starring Ice Cube. God, I think I may be the first person to die of boredom. I need to save myself somehow. I'm going to wash my fringe. 7:34 p.m. - 2006-05-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||