You can stink up a golf course all day, but it only takes one long, solid drive or one sweet approach or one awesome putt to make it a good day. When working on set, sometimes it works the opposite – one bad shot can ruin an otherwise easy day. It was smooth sailing today. Then we kind of got into a funk after lunch. Maybe the long days and short turnarounds were finally hitting us in the face. Or maybe it was just one of those days.

I take pride in my job. So when you don’t do it as well as you know you can, it’s a sucky feeling. I did my job well for most of the day. But it was that stupid last shot of the day that got me. It was a simple move, but it just ended up OK. It was kind of a letdown at the end of the day. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but when you know you it could’ve been better, I feel some sort of accountability, you know?

Eh, it happens.

So last weekend, Tess and I watched 2 Days in Paris at the apartment. It was ok – about an 1.5 hours of playful banter between Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg. It’s amazing how little range that guy has. From his role as Chandler’s roommate, to the one in Saving Private Ryan, to this one – he’s the exact same guy. Although I will say his neuroses was right on the thin line between funny and annoying. It’s also kind of interesting how anti-French that flick is, especially since Delpy – who wrote and directed the film – is French.

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So last night, I attended a Sony F23 event at Sony’s building on Madison Ave. Now for all the camera geeks and techies, the F23 is a Cine Alta camera that is pretty much the baby brother of the Sony Genesis camera. For the layman, it’s a REALLY expensive HD camera used in commercials and music videos.

I was invited by a DP friend of mine Jon Fordham who was asked to speak about the camera’s performance in two music videos he has shot in the past 4 months or so. I was among his usual suspects – Jon’s 1st AC, Gaffer, AD, and other collaborators. I was the Turtle to his Vincent – wait…Boris is Turtle. Anyway, Jon’s crew rolled pretty deep.

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Cool article in today’s NY Times about how they’re promoting the commemorative Thriller album. It even includes a shout out to the Filipino prison video. I wonder why the article didn’t mention the Indian version.

The most recent episode of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew devoted this round of competition to MJ as all the competing crews performed dance routines to songs from that album. Here are the performances from some of my favorite crews:

I thought this was a myth. Until today. Finally, after job after job of sub-$200/day rates, I struck it rich with a full rate for a Proactiv commercial. So my rate was $575/10 hours (usually, it’s a 12 hour day). Sometimes, I don’t make that much over the course of TWO jobs…let alone one job…let alone one DAY. Plus, got OT. OT for film is similar to the way regular OT works. For the first 2 hours after “regular” time, you get 1.5x the hourly rate. After those 2 hours, you get 2x the hourly rate. Today, I worked 13.5 hours total. So for the first 10 hours, I got the initial $575. Then I got two hours at 1.5 x $57.50, and then 1.5 hours at 2 x $57.50. The best part was that it wasn’t even a hard job! There wasn’t even a dolly! Not bad for a day’s work, eh?

However, these jobs will likely be very few and very far between. And I know I lucked out with this job. I was hired by the same guy I interned for way back in May. He knows a lot of GOOD grips and while I’m on his short list of guys, I’m pretty sure I’m closer towards the bottom. But who knows, maybe I’m slowly working my way up the list. I’ll have to thank the guys ahead of me – they were probably unavailable for the day. Man, can you imagine working like 10 of these jobs per month?! Insane, dude.