Let It Never Be Said That I Can’t Change My Mind

A couple of sound points came out of yesterday’s comments section.  From Galen:

Don’t forget that actors often have to go through hair and make up after the blocking during the lighting set-up. This takes a fair bit of time and it saves production money to have a [glossary]stand in[/glossary].

I’m all for efficiency on set, and doing two things at once certainly saves on time.

Of course, how much time varies from show to show.  I’ve worked on action shows, with lots of fisticuffs and explosions, where the make-up needs to be adjusted frequently.  Some others, though, have been just two people sitting in a room, and the make-up girls didn’t have much to do once the cameras started rolling.

FLS also had a valid retort:

3 weeks? Really? On a show in production? That would be bliss. In my experience, they have the script for the 7 days of prep, and it is being constantly revised out from under them, and if they’re series regulars, they’re filming episode 9 and need THOSE lines in their heads, not the ones for episode 10 that shoots next week.

Three weeks may have been an exaggeration.  Towards the end of a season, seven days may even be a bit generous.  Sometimes the script doesn’t get locked down until a few days before filming.  I’ve even seen major rewrites during production.  So, yeah, in those cases, I can forgive the actors ducking out to their trailer with a fresh set of double-pinks in their hands.

But let’s not forget that everyone else is under the same kind of pressure, after nine months of production, and no one else gets a pinch hitter.

And Mrs. TAPA would like you to know that she’s proud of me for admitting I was wrong(ish).