This is it. This is what I’ve been training for. This is the moment that it all comes down to.
The first day of our shoot.
We don’t have a set decorator, a 1st Assistant Director, continuity, or wardrobe.
The director has been puking all night, and I have no on set help with my daughter today.
Bring it.
Surprisingly, most of me doesn’t care about the potential obstacles in our path, because things are finally underway. Even though there's a strange queasiness lurking in my gut, I still feel swept up in the contagious momentum of our project and how it has come together.
I have a few minutes before I jump into the car and head over to set.
We’re picking up equipment from White’s this morning, and shooting until about midnight tonight.
We have a bunch of shots to get through today, and for most of the interiors, there will be about fourteen people, hot lights, and super heavy gear stuffed into a 700-square-foot apartment.
You learn how to share space quickly on set.
Relationships are defined in the extreme, as you spill over into each other’s tasks and work together to pull a fictional reality together. It’s pretty surreal, actually, and somewhat addictive. The team becomes a kind of cohesive amoeba of creative execution—a sort of dirty, sweaty, scruffy family that busts in on the scene and lives in a makeshift caravan of c-clamps, and cables, and cameras, and booms.
So, what would happen when my two-year-old joined their ranks?
What if she was in the way?
What if she hated them?
What if bringing her on to set was the worst mistake I’d ever made?
I could tell that my team was wavering with these thoughts, too. They didn’t know me as a mom, they only knew that I had signed on to produce their film. And I’m sure they wondered if I could follow through when dirty diapers would trump everything.
Frankly, I wondered the same thing.
And to be completely honest, there were many times when I didn’t know how I would be able to juggle everything.
At the end of the day, I found myself bashing through things rather indelicately—baby on hip, while I figured out wardrobe for the support; bringing her into my world of contracts and posts, while sitting in a fort on set; watching her pet dead cat mics lovingly, or hide behind scrims.
But that’s what happens in real life.
People adapt. At any age.
And just like my two-year-old had to adapt to a new routine, people, and customs, I had to adapt to the fact that my kid was happy without conventional comforts. I had to accept that she was going to miss the people and the fun on set, as much as she might miss me when she left to go back to Toronto.
Amazing how a pint-sized little thing can toy with your heart like a wrecking ball.
Amazing how she can win over a team of hardened creatives.
Amazing how nothing matters when you’re doing what you love, together with the people you love.
Stay Positive,
XO Kat
A few months ago, I decided to make a movie. Remember? It was my new baby.
Well, after nurturing, growing, and carrying around this project, we kicked it into labour!
On Monday, I packed up my kid, got on a plane, and flew from Toronto to Vancouver to make a movie.
Now, I’ve got an hour to get forms over to ACTRA and my sweet child won’t nap. Oh, did I mention that I’m in a parking lot right now? Yep! And this is way before we even start shooting.
Ok, and by ‘way before,’ I mean we have twenty-four hours before our official principal start of photography. Tons of time, right?
Vomit.
Oh, balls. Wait. We’re shooting tomorrow and we still haven’t received a key prop, because it’s being shipped and the tracking system of the courier is down? So, there’s that.
Wait a minute, I just got a text.
“They left page eighteen out of all the bound scripts and we’re shooting that scene tomorrow. First thing—we have to have them reprinted in time.”
Of course, we do.
“Mummy, I have a poopoo.”
Of course, you do.
“Hey, so, I can’t actually help you tomorrow on set, because I forgot I’m working.”
Well, that goes without saying.
“Kat, I think you’re going to have to be 1st Assistant Director, after all.”
Huh?
For a split second I feel the crushing vacuum of self-doubt and what-if fear rise up and make itself comfortable on my chest.
What. The HELL. Are you doing?
You REALLY think you’re going to be able to pull this off?
The icy grip of ambition locks its dizziness around my heart and I think I might cry. I’m lightheaded—fallen prey to equal parts yearning for a future that I seem to be emerging into with each passing moment, and the unnerving feeling of a wavering trajectory.
Then I look at my amazing team. I look at my fantastic kid. I look at the momentum and belief that our friends, families, and sponsors have brought to our project.
And I know.
I don’t know how the next five days are going to roll out, but they will.
And they’ll change my life forever.
Follow along on Twitter at #filmsetmummy and see what happens next to a mummy who’s grabbing life by the balls, with her toddler in tow.
Aaaaaand ACTION.
Stay Positive,
xox Kat
P.S. The lead actor still doesn't know his lines, because he just spent the last three hours assembling a Barbie motorized jeep (the prop shipment we were waiting for). Ha. *Shakes head*
What is a divorce party? I have no clue. Let me amend that. I have actually been to a divorce party and I still don’t know what one is.
Technically a divorce party is the kind of shindig that brings people together to provide some closure and celebrate a fresh start in life. Kind of like a cross between a wake and a wedding shower.
And that’s the first place where the concept rattles around in my head like a pinball that refuses to sink. What exactly does a divorce party celebrate? Endings? Beginnings? Life in general?
I actually went to 'Divorce Party—the Largest Divorce Party in Canada' and it was a really cool event although I got the feeling that it was focused very much on divorce itself as opposed to fresh beginnings. It was half single’s mixer and half conference. It was pretty unique and definitely brought people together who were in the mood to celebrate, and also who wanted to learn about ways to keep their divorce healthy, smart, and happy. So that was interesting.
It was kind of about providing solidarity for people who were feeling lost after their split and needed a night out, or who were celebrating a new positive chapter in their life. Or who wanted to reinvent themselves, post-split. They had stylists on site and self-help/divorce experts speaking. It was sort of like a support group. With booze and a dress code.
Ok. Wait. See that’s where I got lost. What were we celebrating again? Why am I more confused than ever about what a divorce party is? And if it’s ‘whatever you want it to be’ than why are we calling it a divorce party?
Thank god that Katy Perry is jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe after I see the pics from her upcoming un-nuptial event I’ll have a better idea of what one should entail.
I mean, I get having a party because you want to celebrate new milestones, or new beginnings. Maybe that involves getting your close friends together, doing shots of tequila and bludgeoning some retro tuneage at your local karaoke bar.
Maybe it involves watching Wrath of Khan with your besties while concocting specialty drinks in your living room and discussing Hugh Jackman’s alarmingly ripped abdomen.
Maybe it involves streamers and champagne toasts, or fortune cookies and sparklers, or a makeover…or a trip.
Who knows, maybe you’re practical and actually doing a kind of ‘break-up shower’ where you get your friends to bring you the stuff that you had to give up in the split. Like a new toaster, or a new set of glassware. Huh. Hold on a sec. That idea? Gold. You’re welcome.
But here’s where I get existential.
Would a party by any other name not celebrate the same thing?
Or put another way, if you go to a house-warming, and your newly-divorced friend is the host, is it not actually a divorce party?
Do we need to call it a divorce party? Or can we just call it Saturday Night?
It just strikes me that if something is really about your transformation or reinvention, doesn’t calling it a 'divorce party' actually make it about the divorce and not about you?
Just putting that out there.
Or, is a divorce party actually the pre-party to the ‘You Party’ that comes after?
Why does this party concept make me feel like I'm staring at a math problem? I honestly think this idea is over my head. And I had a party when Pumpkin Spice Lattes came back to Starbucks this year.
Maybe I’m being too literal?
I’m a writer. It's been known to happen.
Help a girl out. What do you think about divorce parties? Awkward? Awesome? Would you have one? Have you had one?
Spill it!
Stay Positive,
XO Kat
Printer-friendly version