NOTE: We went to St. Lucia a while ago, but I'm going to go ahead and withhold the dates because this blog entry could be potentially incriminating (thats it was fucking CRAZY).
Song "Fuck the Pain away" by Peaches (most appropriate song EVER)
All I have to say is 100 pound limit for checked luggage. This is a problem. I usually pack about 500 pound by myself, not to mention lighting and grip EQ packed by the assistant. So I brought two laptops, the camera bag, LOTS of batteries, and a little canon photo printer. Still couldn't make it under 200 pounds, but it is what it is. And it ended up being ok so I don't know why I'm complaining
We had a direct flight from JFK to Saint Lucia, which was amazing. Super fast and easy. No problems at the airport (except the first assistant overslept by two hours), and everyone eventually made it. Didn't do Carnet which was nice, and rolled through customs on both ends. We arrived in the late afternoon, and by the time we got to the hotel (hour drive from the airport), and got checked in, it was already dark. My hotel was enormous and had a huge wrap around deck on the side of a hill. It was dark so I couldn't see much around, but I cracked a Piton (local beer) and relaxed before the crew dinner.
Headed down to the beach (much easier than coming back up....this entire complex was on a ridiculously steep hill) where we met the huge crew of about 20 people for an amazing dinner. Lobsters, spicy stewed beef, delicious fruits, and a variety of fish cooked to endless specifications. The photo crew was all tired, as we'd been on set all of the previous week, so we headed home early and crashed out.
The next day was a scout day, and I essentially had it off. I laid on the beach for a few hours and listened to some new music, and went free diving for about an hour. Visibility wasn't great, but they had some amazing depth (about 55 feet) and I hadn't gone that deep in quite a while. Diving that deep on one breath is quite a sobering experience. Once down there, it is much darker, colder and alien. Looking back up is the only way to get the full grasp of how far down you are. My uncle taught me how to free dive, and its something I've never really lost the ability to do. Its all about being completely relaxed and doing everything very slowly and calmly. However, I got stung by a jellyfish on one plunge, and its relatively difficult to stay calm when you're leg is on fire. I resolved to only go that deep when I'm with someone else from that point on.
The shoot was pretty chill for the most part, shooting billboards for a clothing company. Not a whole lot of moving around and only three days of shooting. We had some amazing locations between these two mountains, and it was truly beautiful. We shot all available light, and all canon so we could rock 400 iso. The models were making about $150,000 a day (yes, count the zeros), but still managed to smoke three packs of cigarettes each, and start slamming vodka tonics by noon. They were usually tanked and swimming topless by 5. At least the images were amazing.
On the second night of shoot, the client rented a big boat, and we went out on it for a dinner cruise. Within an hour of leaving, everyone was so hammered that the models were pole dancing, 4 people were so sea sick they were puking over the edge, two people had crashed into the tables and knocked food over, a body builder wannabe had almost gotten into a fist fight with the captain, and about half of us were stoned. I was relatively inebriated but still was sober enough to be completely embarrassed for the entire crew. Don't get me wrong though, I had a fucking awesome time.
The party regressed back to the hotel, where I had two more drinks and went back to my room. At about 3 am I was summoned by my boss for a meeting. This usually consists of me rolling him a joint and having a heart to heart, whether drunk/sober/stoned or a variety of other states of consciousness. Tonight was no different. Good times in St. Lucia.
The next morning call had needed to be pushed to 10 am, which was absolutely necessary based the the debauchery from the previous evening. We were shooting the children's portion of the campaign, and lets just say it was uneventful. We finished by 2. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach and debriefing on the "boat incident." We had a phenomenal wrap dinner at the rooftop/hilltop restaurant where we stayed until 2 am and all the employees had just left and locked the door behind them. That was no problem for us until we ran out of wine and had the producer to find someone to get us more bottles. Oh, also I was tasked with rolling spliffs for the remaining crew from midnight on (Side note: I don't smoke pot, but apparently its part of my job description these days so I have to make an exception every now and then). A lot of other shit happened after that, and I'm not going to go into detail, but lets just say that when you're in a hotel where no one has a south facing wall, its pretty easy to hear EVERYTHING that goes on at night.
The next morning we didn't have to leave until 2 in the afternoon so everyone was pretty much chillin at the beach all morning. We bounced out to the airport and upon a midnight arrival, were greeted by 11 degree temperatures. Thank God I'm going to LA in three days.....I never thought I would look forward to that place.
