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!