On The Island
This dispatch was written by our cameraman Ari Haberberg
Sunrise at JFK. I met much of the rest of the crew at the Delta curbside hoping to help with the gear. Knowing none of the show crew as of this morning and reality being notoriously tough work, I figured to make friends early or at least attmept to. The general attitude was subdued, either due to the hour or some predated logistical trouble that I knew no part of but was so common in this sort of work. It occurred to me well after taking the job that going to Puerto Rico in September could delay that inevitable end of summer depression, I hoped. I watched the show crew label their gear (THIRTY THREE CASES!) numbering each with violently green tape and then, lightened, we all got our coffee and airport eggs and started the conversations that would develop into quick banter as the job wore on.The flight was short and all the gear (both Doc and Show) made it to San Juan in a curbside pile. The climate was like the inside of a dogs mouth and we were drenched before the bus left to take us to the ferry which would then take us to ***** Island off the South of PR.
We rode the bus for an hour or two and chattered more about our lives and who we were. There were Chris and Lane, video engineers and cameramen. The exec producer was in the car as well, though I didn’t figure it out till late in the game. He sat in the back smoking a joint for the first bit of the trip and I figured him for an agency type except for the joint which really threw me at first but after a bit just seemed to figure in the Puerto Rico rhythm. He was very friendly and introduced himself as KB. There we the two creators of the show which kept to themselves for most of the ride, as well as Michael, the producer who hired me for this documentary and Ryan, the supervising producer of the reality show, the name of which was still a mystery at this point.
You can usually tell how organized a production is in the first fifteen minutes of the job and barring a major sea change, that level will stay consistent throughout the job. When we arrived at the ferry we were told that we could not drive our vehicle on board as originally led to believe but would have to carry all these cases on board ourselves.
The boat was leaving in ten minutes and had to act fast so there were the crew, exec producer, doc crew, bus driver, and one stranger who seemed to have show up for the gear hump only, as well as the writers and myself puffing and shoving our luggage and thirty three cases out of the bus and up the gangplank. Did I mention the heat? I think the ferry people charged some usurious per bag fee as well because there was some lighthearted swearing but we ended up on a sizable ferry, sitting on a mountain of gear and changing into shorts and t-shirts.
An hour later we end up doing a less hurried version of the same on ***** Island. We sat dockside for about a half an hour waiting for the vans to come. The production manager and a couple of PA's arrive in the one rusty van and we managed to Tetris the cases and luggage into the back and pile us into the front and head off to our home base.
Home base, fifteen minutes later, turned out to be ***** Which was, in fact, a sort of oversized tree house with a huge wrap around porch lined with production supplies, tents, cases of water, protein bars, c-stands, shovels, and like 30 cases of Red Bull which I assumed was a sponser.
There was some talk of shooting this or that meeting but most of the rest of the day was spent metting and catching up with the show crew that had already arrived and swimming. I found the writers/creaters of the reality show playing Marco Polo in the pool with the engineers and one drunk redneckie type from Florida who’s wife sat poolside smoking thin cigarettes and drinking Budweiser from a sixpack they brought. They (the writers) seemed fun and clever so I hung around for a while and then starting to feel like I was in the wrong place I went back to the house.
I bumped into a PA named Paco, he told me that Michael and Perry (my bosses) were tailing the production on a search for locations/permits/something, so I stowed my gear and built my camera for shooting. I met another shooter for the documentary named Erica who also knew nothing and decided to match our cameras to while the time but also to prepare for some inevitable moment of panic shooting. So we hung around the “Porch/Deck” feeling lost. shooting some establishing shots and cutaways and discussing the finer points. I was happy to do nothing at this point. The heat was debilitating and the universal feeling was a sort of apathetic disconcern. I got siesta culture right away.
