Retro Rollers vs T.I.T.s

In contrast to my no-worries day yesterday, I had back to back work today. I had to get some b-roll in the morning, which would be of Rainbow Sanitation garbage trucks at work for PCTA. After which I would follow up with helping out on a shoot for Lakewood at the Long Beach Roller Derby.

First, I had to head to Huntington Beach to pick up the equipment I would need. Then I called my contact at Rainbow and met up with them at a neighborhood in Huntington. The b-roll was fairly simple, mostly consisting of full shots of the truck and logo, the hydraulic arm that grabbed the trash cans, the trash cans being dumped into the truck, and just about anything else I could come up with.

After the vital and semi-vital coverage was covered to exhaustion, I spent a few minutes making a stop-motion skit with the garbage cans. This would be marked on the disc as “Frivolous Coverage.” Or “Nathan Is Being Dumb.”

I headed back to Huntington Beach City Hall to drop off the equipment. After all was said and done, I was done earlier than I had originally thought, and had a few hours to kill before I had to head to Lakewood. I wandered over to a nearby Blockbuster and glanced through their discount DVDs for the unlikely chance that I would want to buy any of them.

Turns out the likelihood was better than I had thought.

Because there, in the midst of SciFi Original movies and “Milk” DVDs, was An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder. This was the exact copy that I needed to complete my collection of Kevin Smith Q&A’s. I had the first and second, because they were my favorites, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want this one. And even better, it only cost 3 bucks or so!

On a whim, I called to see if Aaron and Amy would like to grab lunch. They had already eaten by the time I caught up with them, but I met up with them to hang out a little. Aaron had to go to work, but Amy and I played a quick round of Left 4 Dead 2 before I had to head to work as well.
I got to Lakewood, and within a half an hour, we were headed to the Long Beach Roller Derby.

We arrived to find that the “rink” was just a circle in the middle of an indoor stadium. But it was a big stadium, with a little over 2000 seats. It was also the first night for a new league, and the teams playing were the Retro Rollers vs. the T.I.T.‘s (Terminal Island Tootsies). I was working with a guy named Shawn, who was a veteran of city and film shoots, and we were set up and ready to roll in minutes.

Too bad the game didn’t start for almost two hours.

We had arrived way too early, but that left us plenty of time to figure out what we would need to do. And we also got to watch the live band (who were really good) warm up and play a few songs. And the teams were warming up, which was fun to watch. For the athleticism of course… and perhaps for the tight uniforms.

The game finally started, and Shawn had to run around like a crazy man to get decent shots. And the lighting… oh, the lighting. It was really rough to work with. It was pitch dark except for the blinding spotlights. Not a good combo for trying to white balance, or actually be able to see where you’re walking properly.

But the game itself was pretty good. And if I wasn’t on the clock and focused so hard on the shots and trying to see where everything was all at once, then I might have enjoyed it more. But as it was, I was way too busy to really appreciate it.

Oh yeah. T.I.T.s won.

T.I.T.s always win.

Topics of Conversation: The butler did what?, rubber bumpers, bad guy or antagonist?, the cleanest trash, the Hot Dog Juice explanation, fiber optic jungle, Go-Go Roll-Roll, Lip Stick Bail Bonds Penalty Box, haunted ships, etc.

-Nate