MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Twenty

Okay, so I know it's been a while, but the internet here STINKS and I've been trying really hard to get homework done. During the first few days, I would be like, oh I'll just blog a little bit and then I'll do homework and then I'll go to bed. But when I get home at 5, and have dinner at 6, and blogging takes me at least an hour and a half with this internet, my bedtime of 8 o'clock rolls around rather quickly when I have to be up at 430 in the morning.

I've also been spending some time in whistler village, sleeping at the Delta with Hayley, where the rest of my crew is staying. It's hard to be all the way out in squamish by myself, when everyone else is in one place. I feel a little isolated sometimes, so Hayley and Bri have been kind enough to let me use a spare bed when one of their roommates is away, or let me sleep on the floor. Hey, beggers can't be choosers.

Anyway where to start? Well, work really started to pick up. I ended up picking up a sort of part time camera assist job. (Part time, as in there were already two girls doing in, but Victor and I would go up anyway and help out. Which worked out because later on, one of the girls left and I got to take her place.)

Anyway, the guy we work for is Per, and he is very Norwegian. Always telling me to make fun of and "give a hard time" to the other Norwegian folk on the production crew. I'm not too sure why really, but he says they all have a good sense of humor. It's been fun working with him. He told me about how Norway has a few months in the winter where the sun never rises. It just stays sunken at the horizon, barely visible. So it's pretty much dark 24 hours a day. Strange. I think I would go crazy.

He tried to convince me to go skiing while I was here since it's free and I told him that putting me on a hill would be like making a cat go water skiing with toothpicks on his feet. ... well, maybe not THAT bad, I would like to learn one day, but I would need someone to train me and hold my hand the whole way down and deal with my tears. Haha, basically, whoever it is would have to be paid. lol.

There's a video of me sitting in the chair operating the camera while Kelsey (the girl that ended up getting transfered to Cyprus so I took her job) was pushing me. But it's on her camera, so I have to wait to get a hold of it. It was wicked though, and when Per realized how interested I was in camera work and such, he talked to one of the guys on the production team that was operating the HUGE ZOOM LENSES, to let me check it out and watch. And this time, I'm not talking about still cameras, I'm taking about video cameras that get all the close up shots of the athletes. It's like a 900 mm or some crazy shit like that, 100X zoom, (compare that to your point and shoots that tend to say 3 or 5 time zoom) and now imagine this little booth, with a GINORMOUS square camera lense sticking out through a whole in bullet proof glass. Yes, bullet proof glass, because the booth is just to the left of the shooting range, so just in case someone's aim is REALLY bad. I also had to where a bullet proof vest. That was a first, lol.

(No I'm not wearing the vest in this pic)

Anyway, it's maybe 100 meters away from the athletes, and 350 meters away from the audience, if I were to take a while guess at it. But when the camera guy let me try, I could zoom all the way into a couple volunteers that were standing in the audience bleachers, and I could read their freaking names off their accreditation cards. Like, so unreal. I felt like a stalker to be honest. And then i panned up to see into the offices in the buildings just behind the audience and i could see through the window that the guy in their was eating a sandwich for lunch. WTF. lol. Insane in the membrane.

(it may be hard to tell but in the screen below is an athlete looking through the viewfinder of the gun. You can see the sunglasses sitting on their forehead and their gloves in the bottom right)

I'll tell you, keeping that thing smooth and not shaky when you are THAT zoomed in was virtually impossibly. Literally, your PULSE will make it move a little, and I'm not even exaggerating. Thats was the Norwegian dude told me. (Wish I could remember his name. But I do remember that the second guy that was there was also named Per.) Of course, looking in the monitor when they are zooming in a the athletes moving skiis, with the snow kicking up, they make it look soooo easy. Ridic. It's not. Don't be fooled.

We spent one afternoon checking out the ski jump event down near cross country. It was pretty awesome, those guys freaking FLY. And it's always fun to watch from the crowd because it reminds you just where you are and how many millions of people are watching it on TV. Even at Biathlon, we have passes to get right up close where the camera guys are, and we do that all the time, but it was almost as much fun watching it from further back where the standing audience is, because there is so much commotion and you can hear the commentators, and the crowd cheering and stuff. Awesome.

It actually brings tears to my eyes sometimes. Bri, Hayley and I have talked about it a few times. The excitement and the patriotism and the enthusiasm and fun...everytime I see a crowd cheer for a winning athlete, or when I watched the Canadian win moguls, I pretty much cry. It's so...moving, and inspirational. The Olympics is world uniting. It brings people of all kinds and cultures together, for one joyous time. Bri put it into the best words possible I think: "The Olympics is the closest thing we have to world peace." And I totally agree. That's what it feels like everyday, walking between compounds and hearing all the different languages and seeing all the smiling faces.

So, along with all the work, we also get to go to free concerts and such, if  you ever find the time. Hayley, Utah, and Victor and I, all went to see Swollen Members last weeks sometime, that played at the fire and ice show at the bottom of the ski hill in whistler village. There were snow boarders jumping through fire hoops. SO CRAZY. But I forgot that we would be standing on show, and I was wearing just normal boots, and my feet were freezing, and so when I couldn't feel my toes anymore, I decided it was time to bail out a little early. But that's okay, it was a good show :) and Prevail like attacked the crowd at one point, and was practically on stop of us, singing in the mic. I scrambled to get a picture but I was a little slow so they didnt turn out that great, and he had kinda already moved to the right a bit, but oh wells. It actually kind of scared the shit out of me for a second. I didn't see him coming so at first I had no idea what was going on and why people were screaming and reaching lol.

Before the show, we actually went for dinner at the Longhorn, which was good, but the service was shitty. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, WHISTLER HAS SHITTY ASS SERVICE when it comes to restaurants. I don't know if it's because they were not prepared for how busy it would be, or if they are just incredibly sick of tourists, but MAN i've never had a server be such a snot to me, and this was pretty much everywhere we went. We had good service today, when Hayley and I went to lunch at Caramba, and good service one night when we went to the Mongolie Grill (which is so freaking sweet, you get a bowl, and fill up on all the amazing ingridients you could ever want in a stir fry including all sorts of different sauces, and then you pay according to weight, and watch as the cooks cook up your meal on a big round hot plate, kinda like at Japanese Village. Anyway, that was a fun way to eat) Where was I? Oh yeah, other than that, bad service everywhere else. Oh well, what you gonna do?

A few days ago, Alyssa came into town! The first ACPer i'd seen other than Hayley since we've been up here. So the three of us went to lunch, and just as we sat down, we saw a torch bearer dude standing outside with people waiting to have pictures taken with him. So of course we rushed outside, telling out waitress we'd "BRB" and got pics. haha. Good times. I kinda felt bad for the guy because believe it or not, we was waiting in line to get his picture taken infront of the olympic rings, but while he was trying to visit the tourist attractions, he BECAME the tourist attraction. lol. But then again, he was carrying around the tourch, so what did he expect?

Other than that, I've been to 2 bigger concerts in the medals plaza. You have to line up early to get the broadcaster's tickets, but both times we did we didn't have any problems. The first we saw was DeadMou5, which was AWESOME. We SOMEHOW made it up to the very front of the mosh pit, where the rail was so we could see perfectly and didn't actually have to mosh. But getting up there was an experience. lol not going to lie I was a little frightened for my life. I'm a LITTLE PERSON. haha but NOT the smallest! When we got up there there was this little like 8 year old kid trying to push through the crowd, and everyone but these cold hearted bitches up front moved for him, because they were afraid he'd get trampled. But the best part was when he got up front, he crowd surfed. INTENSE. I'VE never even crowd surfed, and I'm 21 lol. brave little tyke.

Really good show though. The music cut out for about 10 minutes about half way through the show, but he handled it really well as the tech guys came out to fix it, and the crowd was supportive as opposed to pissed off, which is always a bonus.

Finally, was the show last night, JET! i was supper excited to see them. Obviously when they sang "Are you gonna be my girl" the crowd went wild. We didn't try to get into the mosh pit for this show. I personally think for a show like this, sometimes its better when you're farther back and can see the stage more clearly. But someone in the center of the pit, clearly jacked the sign that separated the regular crowd from where the pit started, and was waving around the MOSHPIT sign. Pretty funny.

ITS GOT TO BE SAID, about BOTH of these shows that I've seen so far, one of the best parts is the actually stage set up. It's GORGEOUS. the colors, the lights, the graphic design, actually amazing. I was mesmerized by it the whole time. Too bad it's temporary :( I almost feel like they should keep it, just because it's so awesome. I bet they'd get a lot of bookings.

Oh yeah, one more thing, on our way to the concert, Hayley and I saw Beavers eating at a restaurant. Seriously, there was a table of dudes eating at a pub, all dressed in BEAVER costumes. lol. So funny. Pictures were necessary. YAY CANADA.

AND CANADA PLAYS US HOCKEY ON SUNDAY. They better freakin win. The women's team beat US tonight with 2-0. WHOOT. And obviously the Men's game against Russia was awesome. Can't wait. I get nervous just thinking about it though!

Okay, so before I can make this any long I'm going to finish this off. Just a few more days left, and tomorrow is actually my last work day. Saturday and Sunday I have off, and I'll either be working all day on my script and major project, or be coming home early, if I'm allowed. We'll see!

Ciao bellas,

Meena

MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Eight

So I've only slept 4 hours, and I have to be up at 430 AM tomorrow so I've got to make this quick.

First of all, I have to say that it pays to not have specific duties. Well, we do have specific duties, but basically, if everything goes well, there's nothing for us to do audio wise because it's all running smoothly and there's nothing to fix. We aren't holding hand held mics because of the type of venue we are at, so it's a whole lot of prep, and then just fixing. Well, it turns out our crew is pretty good because there's not a whole lot for us to do in the audio department most of the time.

So basically our system has been this: 

• Get to compound
• Find Arne
• Cheer. (our boss is pretty cool) then proceed to ask him if he has any jobs for us.
• He says no, and blushes because he's not used to having a fan club. lol.
• We find Christophe, who makes fun of us, laughs, and tells us to shovel snow. (He is an equally cool boss, but in a, I'm going to poke fun at you because I am Belgian and that's what I do sort of way. lol)
• Then we find Andreas. Our crazy (but great) Norwegian supervisor. That's when it gets funny. I'm pretty sure last time I spoke with him, he stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes while trying to concentrate. He's an interesting one.
• Anyway, if he has nothing for us, he send us to Fausto, an Australian in Logistics. Or Mary, or Gill, who work in the BVM office. (I'm not going to explain what that is, it will only bore you as it's not that important to the story)
• If none of those pan out, we stand around. In a circle. And wait.

Well one day, after having asked absolutely everyone INCLUDING THE JANITOR (I must admit, that was solely me) if we could help them, we were standing by the main audio truck when a man comes up and introduces himself to us.

KENT (I think that was his name...) : Hi, I'm Kent. I need a camera assistant for a day.

ME (eyes bulging out of my head) : OHMYGODMEMEMEMEMEMEPICKME *waves hand in air*

KENT: Well I guess that would be you.

Okay so he assigns me to assist this camera guy, who takes me up to the venue and I GET TO INTERVIEW AN ATHLETE!!!!! How dope, rad and fabulous is that?!?!?! Okay, so I was pretty pumped. Wasn't on camera or anything, but I was the one who asked the questions, and who they had to direct their answers to so they were looking off camera. I had to go up to a few people to try to find someone who spoke English. Quite a few of them told me in broken english that they didn't have time, and others just flew by without answering, which either meant they had no idea what I was saying, or they just wanted to play to foreign card so they didn't have to speak to me. Either way, I couldn't complain, they were busy athletes, and I didn't blame them for not wanting to stop.

In the end, I interviewed a female from Canada. I don't think I'm allowed to list her name right now (which is good because I don't really remember it) but I did (quietly so as not to look unprofessional) cheer her on today during the first sprint event.

Okay so after that, we were supposed to get footage of a camera rail that was being built, so we went deeper into the venue, after all the athletes were gone, and went right into the target area. Oh yeah, and I got to carry the tripod this whole time, which made our ACP ones feel like carrying a kitten in comparison.

 OLYMPIC MONDO TRIPOD    

  ACP KITTEN TRIPOD

So the camera for the camera rail wasn't actually there when we got there, which would have made for a boring shoot, so instead, we took footage of the targets. (Every time I tell this story, I say we shot the targets, which makes it sound like I actually used a gun, and people get REALLY impressed, which totally steals the thunder when I tell them that we shot with a CAMERA.)

Anyway, we interviewed the guy who was in charge of organizing and repainting the targets, and supplying the practice sheets. Basically, while training, the athletes shoot for the first 20 minutes or so at the practice targets, and then at the real targets. The practice targets are just black circles of the same dimensions on a long strip of paper. He told us all about how the target mechanisms worked, and then when the volunteers were taking down the old papers that had already been shot at, they said I could keep one. OMG.

GOOD SHOOTING

NOT SO GOOD SHOOTING

Okay, so you may be thinking, who the hell cares, it's paper with holes in it. But I need to correct you. If I were there in person, I would likely be shaking your shoulders. ITS THE TARGETS THAT HAD BEEN SHOT AT BY OLYMPIC ATHLETES WITH REAL BULLETS. best memento ever. So beats the collectable pins. (Which I happen to have 8 of now, and I'm totally turning into a pin nerd.)

Man, what happened to keeping this short. I waited too long to do this.

Last night we watched the olympic ceremonies which were AMAZING, and afterwards joined some of our crew at an after party. It wasn't super huge, but it was definitely fun getting to know all these interesting characters from different countries. I even tried belgian beer, which was quite tasty and a hearty 8.5 percent.

Of course today was the first day of actual events, and we who have no jobs when everything is running smoothly, got to watch the first event at the Nordic Biathlon. Pretty awesome. Seeing the crowd cheering and chanting and waving their flags was both moving and exciting. I almost cried a bit. haha. Oh and there were like 826,275,322,285719878271718917 camera guys all with really fancy lenses. We were probably about 20 feet away from the athletes and those lenses could likely see up their noses. So jealous.

Er, not about seeing up noses but about having expensive lenses.

Me and Beck at Biathlon :)

Anyway, that about sums up the happenings recently. I will do my best to keep posting! 

CHEERS!

Island Hoppers Mini Doc

The final mini doc I had to get done before I left for the olympics. It's on the Island Hoppers Precision Skipping Team. :) Check it out!

My OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Five

Hurry up and wait.

Andy Bryce's favorite expression. Well that basically describes my past two days. Not much to do on the audio prep side of things. But, have been having a blast nonetheless!

Met Arner yesterday. He's become sort of our boss. A friendly little Belgian guy, whom we always run up to exclaiming: "ARRRNNNEERRRR!!!! jobsjobsanyjobsforusanyjobs?" I'm assuming we are kind of annoying, lol, but he's got a good sense of humor.

My first time meeting Arner, he was sitting with us at lunch, having a conversation about his time here in Canada with Corey, one of our fellow AAs (Audio Assistants).

Arner: "We spent the first few days having to shuttle back and forth everyday to Vancouver, since our accommodation is here in whistler, but we were working in Van. So it was 3 hours both ways everyday. It's amazing... 3 hours in belgium gets you from one end of the country to the other. You can FIT Belgium between Whistler and Vancouver!!!"

Lol he's a great guy and good for a laugh. He gave us a tour of the control rooms on the trucks. Pretty freakin awesome.

We meet a lot of great people on site. The technical crew are all from either Finland, Belgium, Russia, or Norway. At least in our particular venue. They have some great stories.

The event stadiums are awesome. Watching the Biathlon Athletes do their thing is so awesome. They are all so RIDICULOUSLY FIT. Seriously, they make me think of Avatar people (Na'avi) because they are all tall and lean and muscular and look like super humans.

Obviously, those aren't the athletes, those are volunteers. But this is the shooting range. Check out my facebook for loads of better pics!

On another note, I have also discovered that Hayley, a fellow ACP (!!!) thinks I'm freakin hysterical. Well, I guess I do a lot of strange things, or say a lot of odd things, and most of my friends are just used to it I suppose. But pretty much everything I say sets Hayley into hysterics, and then I start laughing because she's laughing, and I realize how stupid I may have sounded, and then she starts laughing even more because I have a ridiculous laugh, and then I start crying because I do that when I laugh really hard. We feed of eachother, it's so awesome. lol. And then everyone stares.

Hayley and I hanging signs. oooooooer.

I feel like I'm having more fun everyday. It just keeps getting better. Even when we aren't doing a lot, I'm having a blast. Today, we hung signs on a scaffolding, and it took like 8 minutes, and that was pretty much all we did that was productive all day, but somehow it was so much fun. I have seriously have laughed more in the past 3 days, then I have in a loooonnnggg time. Possibly since my mom did a spontaneous and disturbingly accurate impression of Golum. Anyway, to quote Monica, I feel like I have a hanger in my mouth the whole time.


OH and I can't forget, I got my uniforms!! So people are calling us smirfs...whatever. It's awesome. Package includes:

• Two white thermal shirt with red and blue shoulders that are padded and strangely reminiscent of startreck....
• One liner jacket that says Host Broadcaster on the back that's actually really nice.
• One Heavy winter coat
• One set of gloves
• One Neck Gater (so awesome, lol)
• One pair of matching blue snow pants
• One pair of black cords (which I will likely burn)
• One toque, which everyone seems to loath, but I don't mind so much

Ventured into Whistler Village for an evening which was awesome. A bunch of us went out for dinner. But before that, we went wandering around and I visited with Quachi and friends :) haha, so awesome.

Anyway, I have TONS of photos on facebook, so check em out :)

Till Next Time,

Meena

MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Three

FIRST DAY ON THE JOB. Awesome.


Well, everything fell into place, just as I had to keep chanting to myself that it would. Got up at 430 am, to catch the 5:50 bus from Brackendale, took me to the Whistler Olympic Park for approx 6:45, and then took a snappy shuttle up the Calihan to get to the Biathlon Venue. Finding where to go once I was up there was a little bit difficult, but once I figured it out, it was fine.

Some of the trailers and staff

I sat around for a long time while waiting for my team. Turns out I was pretty early. Ate breakfast. Twice. Once before hand and once when my team got there. My crew is the shit pretty much. There are some awesome girls from Kentucky in a Media program with a Film focus, a guy from Vancouver, one guy from Spain, Haley Macdonald of course! aand a few other people, all equally awesome. I had a great time getting to know them, we had a lot of laughs. Serisouly, A LOT. I don't know if it was sleep deprivation, or the jitters from the RIDICULOUSLY STRONG COFFEE, but pretty much everything was funny. Or maybe it's just cause were all so darned cool. Maybe both.

Anyway, I was DEFINITELY right about this Norwegian Andreas guy. Pretty much as soon as I got there, I got free theatre of him arguing with a logistics guy about organizing the food services. the logistics guy...Josh? John? I can't remember. How about we call him LG (Logistics Guy) for now... anyway LG was getting all pissed off...

LG: okay, I know you've been doing this Olympic thing for a long time, and I'm not trying to step on your toes, but we need some sort of system here. The employees are hurtling themselves at the food station as soon as they get in, and the caterers aren't ready that early in the morning, and they are getting annoyed. We should get caution tape to close it off until it opens.


ANDREAS: (flipping his hand out like a flamboyant 40 year old) No no. We no need tape. All need is a nice person to say, wait until open, and tell employees no ready.


LG:But that's not working. People still grab the food. And no one is hear that early to man the tables.


ANDREAS: No need tape. We need nice person. Its fine. Everything fine.

Seriously there was smoke coming out of LGs ears. Clearly he is the type that needs to be OCD organized, and Andreas is as laid back and non chalant as they come. I was laughing so hard. Fully just sitting there laughing out loud. Pure comedy.


First half of the day, we didn't do much, mostly stood around and waited to be told what to do. Eventually we started lugging stuff up to the biathlon terrain and thats when it got REALLY HOT. hell, it is not very cold out there, so all those layers when you are actually moving and caring heavy things - man I was breaking a sweat. But seeing the athletes training was freakin sweet. They were all skiing along, and then would stop, whip out their guns from the backs, lie on their stomachs, shoot some targets, and then keep going. I was trying to think of ways I could secretly strap a camera somewhere on my body and sneak some pictures. It was so dope, but pretty much if they catch you taking pictures of the athletes you get shot. Hmm.....

Then we had a two hour lunch pretty much, and afterwards, uncoiled and recoiled cable for a few hours. Sounds so boring, but somehow, with the people I was working with, it wasn't.

So that's pretty much my day in a nutshell. I feel pretty blessed to be located where I am, the busses were easy, and I have my own private room at home where I can do homework and blog in peace. And where people feed me.

Oh, and I should be getting my uniform tomorrow I think.

Cheerio friends, until next time!

Meena

MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day Two

The view from outside the house I'm staying at. And look, there's my little Audrey 2!  Wave at her! :)

Ventured out this morning to find where the shuttles are located. Theolympic security guys manning the bus stations are SUPER nice, and really helpful. Finding my closest pick up location was easy. Ironically when I called my Norwegian supervisor this morning, he said he'd call me back about when I would be starting. Conversation went something like this:

Andreas: YES.
Me: Um, Hi, my name's Maelina and I'm calling about my first day of work.
Andreas: You do what?
Me: Audio Assistant and the Nordic Biathlon.
Andreas: You stay where?
Me: Brackendale, just outside of Squamish.
Andreas: Yes. Okay. We need to find out how you come here. okay. I call you back later. Bye.
Me:.....?

So turns out I figured it all out on my own, so when I came back home today, I called back and told him when the bus was and what time it ran.

Andreas: YES.
Me: Hi there, this is Maelina I spoke with you this morning about my first day tomorrow...
(insert my schpeel here)
Andreas: It come in morning?
Me: Yes, every hour.
Andreas: Okay, it be good if you take bus that get you here for 8 am.
Me: And my shift would start shortly after that?
Andreas: No shifts now. You come and we meet whole team. We find out how many people, and our needs, and then you get shifts or you just come all day, overtime.
Me:...Great.
Andreas: See you in morning! buh-bye.

The only thing I can hope for is to not work later than 9 or so...the last shuttle to brackendale is at 930 and it would really suck if I missed it.

I also love walmart. I forgot a few things and picked them up today for like 9 bucks. rock on.

MY OLYMPICS 2010 ADVENTURE: Day One

Well, I made it in once piece. To be honest, I felt like I would never actually get here. We've been talking about doing this for almost a year now, but it still feels so unreal. Even as I'm sitting here in a stranger's house (ridiculously nice and accommodating strangers mind you) I still feel like I'm not going to be 5 feet away from olympic athletes in less than 36 hours.

The drive up was good. Uneventful really. I made a stop in Duncan to visit Adrien and his sister with her NEW BABY DAYTON :) so cute! Then I JUST BARELY made it to the ferries. Seriously, the lady was like, okay you have ONE MINUTE to catch this ferry heresyourchangegogobye!!!! lol she was awesome. And I made it on behind all the trucks and such. Good times.

The drive to squamish, Brackendale actually, was easy as pie. I even stopped to take pictures because the sea-to-sky highway has such a beautiful view... Mind you there was still construction going on, so there were a bunch pylons I had to skirt around, which was annoying, but other than that, it was fine.

I figured out how to disable the wireless internet security and my host's house because they couldn't remember the password, and so I am successful set up all nicely in my room! Yay me :)

Tomorrow, I take a venture out into Squamish to find the bus depots and such. Tonight, early bedtime!

COMING SOON: Pics of me in my olympics clothing! haha I will be so layered and colorful I will look like an easter egg!

Ciao!

TIME OF MY LIFE: PRODUCTION AND TECH PERSONNEL

WHISTLER NORDIC BIATHLON, HERE I COME.

Mr. GPS, please be true to me. <3