2nd AD's Diary


Day 1, 8 AM: I'm so excited to be working here on my first shoot. And with a star the magnitude of Disco Dan - wow! I'm in heaven! The star hasn't shown up yet, but everyone's still plenty busy, and there's a nice buzz in the air.

Day 1, 3:30 PM: Disco Dan still hasn't shown. I'm a little worried, but no one else is. Whatever. We're going to try to shoot some establishing shots.

Day 2: Disco Dan didn't show up again today, so we shot some more establishing shots. This director's pretty good. He used to just shoot commercials, but he switched over to features when the actor's strike hit its third year, because the work just wasn't there.

Day 3: More establishing shots.

Day 4: Sat around picking our butts cuz all the establishing shots are done.

Day 5: Disco Dan showed up! He had a full entourage with him, the works - security, assistants, hangers on, and girls girls girls. Oh, and Robbie Williams, for some weird reason. He looked a little worse for the wear and never even took off his sunglasses. He came in, shouted "The script is shit!" at the director, demanded it be rewritten, and disappeared into his trailer. Just like a star. We were then sent home early so they could rewrite the script.

Day 6: Disco Dan didn't show up again, but we have more establishing shots to shoot now thanks to the new script.

Day 7: More establishing shots. The writer showed up and started hanging around in the background, complaining to anyone who will listen that he doesn't like the direction this movie has taken.

Day 8: This sucks.

Day 9: Disco Dan showed up again today. He arrived around noon with Don Johnson and went straight to his trailer, but at about 3:00 he came out raring to go. We actually even shot a scene before he fell over, unconscious. But at least we have some footage now!

Day 10: Apparently the producers have sent Disco Dan to a spa to "rest up". So we shot all the King Kitty and crowd scenes today and wrapped early.

Day 11: Disco Dan is still at the spa so we shot some more crowd coverage.

Day 12: More crowd coverage.

Day 13: This really sucks.

Day 14: We're now 7 days over schedule and have only one scene shot with our star. The writer had some strange fit, yelling about how this wasn't his vision, yadayada, and tore up the craft services table. The producers had him removed and barred from the set. Found some strange little vials when cleaning up the craft services table.

Day 15: Disco Dan was fresh back from the spa today, and it did him a world of good. He looked rested and full of energy. He even showed up only one hour late with Liza and after just two hours of makeup and hair he was ready to go. We actually shot the entire "Battle of Bob" scene today. What a professional!

Day 16: Disco Dan came in around noon today with Courtney Love, looking a bit tired. Probably from all the footage we shot yesterday. We actually got through a few of the opening scenes before Johnny Depp showed up. The two of them disappeared into Disco Dan's trailer and didn't come out for the rest of the day.

Day 17: Disco Dan has disappeared. No one knows where he is. We seem to be running pretty over budget too. Maybe it's all those double-mocha-lattes-with-a- shot-of-espresso everyone's been ordering?


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