Wetworks

I’m waiting for Carl to ask for some gopher wood.

In cubits.

I’ve just never seen this much rain. It’s astounding. Constant, pounding, sweeping into the back of the art department truck in sheets that feel solid. We’re watching the water rise above the curb. We’re outside the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, setting it up to double as the first office of the CIA, circa 1947. Everything that’s post-1947 has to go: newspaper boxes, street signs, and most especially the big “GSA POWERPLANT” sign that could well be in the middle of the shot.

But the rain... it slows us down. My hitherto fore reliable LL Bean rainjacket simply gives up. I call in for reinforcements, and my above-and-beyond girlfriend heads over to Hudson Trail and gets me a new one. Yeah, that’s me in the photo, Set Dresser by day, Dementor by night, taking down a Metrobus sign that I’m sure I remembered to put back on wrap. Yeah.

It rains like it’s Sri Lanka for two days. The third day, Robert DeNiro, Matt Damon, and the primary crew come in to shoot for two days. Cloudy... but not a drop. How do they do that?

I’m scrambling to get a period bus ready for shooting. The production designer, who is a strange cross between Katharine Hepburn and a Newark longshoreman, is standing two feet behind me whilst I try to wrangle a plexiglass sign into the front of the bus. I’ve picked one that says "Alexandria, VA" in honor of the aforementioned girlfriend, who lives at the northern edge of Old Town. After constructing a rig out of gaff tape, cardboard, and a couple of (full) water bottles, the sign is flush against its mounts. Until the Production Designer says she prefers the "Pennsylvania Ave SW" sign. I start to mention that Pennsylvania Ave never goes into SW DC, but think better of it.

Shooting finishes fairly late Sunday, but we have to reset every sign on every street before the next day’s rush hour. We’re exhausted. But at least there’s no rain.

Well, not until the next day, when we’re doing all our returns. Bobby D. and Matt now back safely in New York, it bloody pours rain in DC all day Monday.

How do they do that?