Anyway, it's been a good week.
Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day. They say it's like the Kentucky Derby, but I'd argue it's a whole lot bigger. Taking place in Melbourne, as stated in the name, it is a state-wide holiday in Victoria (the state in which Melbourne is). Here in New South Whales, however, the horse race is still a huge affair. Despite having work, everyone dresses up as though they are actually going to the races, women in sun dresses and crazy hats and heels. Anyone without a hat that they would wear to a race still wears some sort of hat (for example, the other intern who works with Tim, Michael, brought a rose to pin in his hair as a joke, but wore it the whole time he was at work with us). So everyone is dressed up and around 1 pm they go to lunch and the drinking begins. The race then begins at 3:30, and of course every office has a sweep (a bet but with the horses chosen at random), and by 5 most people are drunk and everyone is starting to go out, not having worked most of the day. (Tim said he heard somewhere that Australian's stop work at lunch time on Melbourne Cup day, and their minds don't return until after Australia day, January 26- it makes sense since that's their summer). For us it was a bit different. Around noon we started figuring out the sweep (it took around an hour to figure out since there were so few of us so it was hard buying all of the horses, but we managed to have a $1 and a $5 sweep).
Then Tim and I had a job to go to during the actual race, so we missed it all, though it was a fun shoot. We had to shoot two guys and their pizza shop, making the pizza and all that. It was nice and in the end we got pizza so who can complain?
Back in the studio though, Justina, Brett, and the people they were working with had champagne and watched the race. Despite not being there, Tim, Michael, and I won all but one of the prizes (1st, 2nd, and 3rd in both sweeps). I won $40! (A win of $26 after having bet at work and our program). It's also all in change (I don't think if I ever mentioned but $1 and $2 are coins not bills), but luckily for me that's helpful to buy my train ticket every day.
I then headed out to the Opera House, and in that area it was crazy seeing everyone dressed up already and out by 5:00.
Opera Bar
Hanna and I then saw a very funny performance of The School For Wives. To be honest, some of it was a bit hard to understand with their accents and them talking so quickly, but it was fun. Especially as a tech person, it was pretty cool seeing how they used the lights and all. They even had lights that changed gels (the color covering the light) automatically in the middle of the show! We were both amazed and had never seen that before, and wondered if other people noticed or just us since we both like working on shows.
Wednesday I went out with Brett and Justina to a shoot in Avalon, in the North Beaches in Sydney, in the Pittwater Peninsula. To the west was the Pittwater (bay) and to the east was the Tasman Sea. The view was beautiful and the house we went to shoot at had the kitchen built to video record so it was really cool. It was a healthy food shoot which was nice and all the food was vegetarian which made lunch easy for me. The woman whose house it was, asked right when we arrived if we wanted to turn on the presidential election when it started, so luckily Justina and I were able to keep updated the whole time. It was fun watching from an Australian news station. The first thing they did was explain the electoral college. They also didn't really follow the map as we do back in the US, they just talked a lot. It was funny though, at one point one of the reporters had a map and was trying to talk about some of the states and he pointed and said Minnesota, Wisconsin, and then he paused for a second and stumbled before he could remember Michigan. Anyway, it was fun to watch, though a bit stressful at points. Conveniently, just when we finished the shoot Obama won! It was a great day and the people we were with were happy with us (I don't think I've met one Australian who wanted Romney to win). The only unfortunate part, is we had to leave then and didn't get to watch the speeches, so I watched last night with Kate.
Brett and Justina at work
Blocking the light for Brett's shot
Yesterday was a pretty fun day as well. Brett had a big shoot that he got to design for himself, which was nice for him to have the creative license to do whatever. Basically he just had the recipes and then freedom. It was cool watching how he works and when he can be creative.
Today I finally got up the nerve to ask Tim if I could try to do some of the editing that he's been teaching me how to do. I used the pen tool in Photoshop, which everyone except Tim seems to dread. It'll take some getting used to, but I see why it's useful. It was nice having the responsibility, and I essentially did the processing of the picture for the client which was pretty cool. Hopefully now I'll be able to do some more.
This afternoon we were supposed to have an outdoor shoot by Darling Harbour. We got there with the client and started looking for the best spot to shoot, when it started thundering and the sky got really dark. It then began to rain lightly and we ran for cover, and just in time, as there was thunder and lightning. The thunder and lightning stopped quickly, but it began pouring and then out of nowhere it started to hail. The ice was about the size of Skittles. Then, just as quickly as it all started, it passed. We continued looking for spots to shoot, getting dripped on. We finally figured out some spots and went to get all the equipment and our client went to meet the chef we were shooting, when it started to rain again. So after all that we ended up postponing for Monday.
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