An Insider's View of Extreme Makeover: Letterpress Edition
Let me tell you about the last days on location at the Dore Family site. It's a
bit wordy, but this was no small affair.
I woke up at 5:30am on Tuesday morning to my cell phone. The phone was ringing
off the hook with vendors on the East Coast interested to hear if I receive
their goods. I tried to sound as alert as possible, but had only gotten a
little over three hours of sleep from the previous day. I threw on some clean
clothes, I think, and put on a hat - no time for a shower. I grabbed my
computer bag and threw in the piles of notes and files - organized with paper
clips and Post-It notes. My room phone rang as I prepared to run out the door.
It was the other Design Producer waiting in the lobby.
"What's the hold-up?"
I hung the phone up without a response and walked - quickly - to the elevator.
I stepped off into lobby and followed the honking horn outside to the rented
car outside. I got in and found a cup of coffee waiting for me.
The drive to location took less and less time with each passing day, but in
truth, was the same time - 30 minutes. I spent most of the ride on the phone.
And in no time, we were there. I got out of the car, grabbed another cup of
joe from the craft services on location. I followed the other producers into
the house to see how much work was left to do. Somehow in the evening - the
plumbers and drywallers got into a work-related conflict, which ended up costing
the production several hours on the finished product. Thus, I left the
following night ahead of schedule, came back to set...behind schedule.
We walked around the house, the other Design Producer and myself, both talking
on the phone to other clients, vendors, and production staff while ordering the
construction managers, contractors and staff to get the job done faster.
Suddenly it's 10am. I leave the house, and walk back to our production office
on wheels, and begin to inventory all of the needed products we have spent weeks
collecting from random vendors and business from all across the nation. If we
don't have something by 4:30pm this day, we need to find it elsewhere tonight
night. I discover through my files that two pieces of furniture are not yet on
location. I track them down, and FedEx tells me that have all ready arrived at
their destination. Stumped, I make some phone calls to other people on
production as well as Construction, locations, storage...still nothing. It's now
noon.
I get a phone call from the location staff: 95 little Girl Scouts are trying to
get into the locked down house location -- excited, armed with badges, supplies
for the family - and, of course, cookies. (I put on ten pounds due to the cursed
little morsels of sweet delight.) The Girl Scouts were promised a short spot
with the talent in the back yard and they came early. Thus, I am back on back
on the phones to the camera department to schedule the time; back on the phones
with the production to corral the girls into the back yard; on the phones with
construction to tell them to keep the back yard clear of equipment and
building...and in the middle of this a phone call comes in, the chairs were
found, but they sent the wrong ones, the welder you asked for is here, and some
kid named Daniel is at the first checkpoint here to put a "book press"
together!?? I thumb through the situations as quickly as I can.
Megan in storage - 'What other chairs do we have available?'
Chris in Location - 'Let the Girl Scouts in.'
Alicia, Production Coordinator - '100 Girl Scouts coming in for 3:30pm shot!'
Greg in Camera - 'Girl Scouts are here - printing press guy is here - welder is
here.'
John in Construction - 'Tell everyone to keep the Back Forty clear - Girl Scouts
moving in'
Liz, Design Producer - 'Get the design room clear and camera crew ready,
Daniel's here to work the press!'
Denise, Executive Producer on set -'Denise, Girl Scouts are moving into the back
40, Printing press is going to be ready for shot after that!'
3:00 pm Tuesday,
Chris - Michael has decided to change the carpeting in Design room - hold the
printing press!
Chris - John - we're putting down the sod in the back 40 ahead of schedule -
can't have anybody walking on it!
Chris - Megan - No more chairs are here!
4:00 pm - And the next twenty hours before the family comes home goes into a
blur as I go through fixing problems, finding new chairs, getting Daniel to keep
working on location till we need him, and finding a place for new vendors coming
to set. We don't start moving furniture into the home until 7:00pm - six hours
behind schedule. And into the night, furniture is constantly being brought
into the home - and some is taken out - the porch is covered in mud - piles of
dirty shoes stand waiting outside the front entry as hundreds of people inside
take direction from myself, the designers and the executive producers. Cameras
are pulled out of the house to avoid injury.
By 2:00 am Wednesday morning, the carpenters are busy taking my direction to
create two new chairs and a matching desk from the 4" x 12" x 8' planks of fir
wood I found via the lumber company helping the show. The printing press is set
atop the desk. Daniel is putting a bed frame together in Sarah's room (!) - the
welder is still putting fence post up in the back yard (!) - the rug providers
are placing dishes on the new dinning room table (!) - everyone doing what they
can to help this family find a new life - working into the night - finding short
naps in unused couches, chairs - and even rugs on the back patio - cars - and
the dinning hall tent. Some of us, though, never think to sleep.
5:00 am - Daniel and I are sanding the large, solid, desk getting the rough fir
wood smooth and ready to put up into the room. The few standing members of
production have retreated back to the craft table with the hopes of finding
stronger cups of coffee and perhaps a donut or two. The new day is starting.
8:00 am - All the major pieces of furniture have been placed in the house. The
final accessories are just beginning to be placed. Aaron Brothers finally
arrives with the 37 framed pictures for the house. The glass blower brings the
$75,000 hand blown chandelier for the entry way, the brick layers are placing
their final stones on the fireplace, the welder finally gets to attach his
letters to the walls, the Girl Scouts --- ? ? ? I don't know! I can only
assume it went well and production provided them a way off set. My head is
spinning, the air is cold. I'm wearing a T-shirt and jeans, wet, loose, dirty.
I'm ready to sleep.
8:05 am The sun shoots over the cloud line - a rare sight in this city of gray
skies, especially this early in the day. But it helps me begin to feel awake
again. The talent is arriving, more production staff are coming in to join in
the fight. And back into the house I go, Daniel begins putting the press
together. Little details are lost to the bigger objectives. Ty is running around
screaming into a blow horn about our time constraints. Small tourist
groups moving through the house, friends and family of the construction crew -
people yelling, the crowd outside cheering. The camera crews move in. Now the
whole world could potentially see the craziness - the insanity of men - men and
women, both young and old - struggling to beat the clock to catch up on lost
time and misguided direction - all holding one solid hope - to help - to bring
change and direction into the lives of this family.
12 noon Wednesday morning The family arrives to see their new home for the first
time. I'm dashing from the furniture tent some 200 yards away carrying a 200 lb
side-table made of hard stained oak in the back door. The bus moves and the
family sees the home...and still we are inside scrambling about putting the best
of the final touches on every room of the house.
1:00 pm The final call comes and we are pushed out the back door, just as
the family and cameras push in through the front. I am excited to see what will
happen... and then am told about the back yard. It was completely overlooked! It
is supposed to be a huge campsite - and it was overlooked! And thus I dash to
finish that. Again, minutes before it is shown to the family we are putting the
final details in: from the totem pole carved by a local native American; to the
cider press I found in Aurora, Nebraska; Girl Scout camping gear; lighting the
fire...and at 3:00 pm I am off.
I stumble to the production RV and climb inside to watch the family react, eat
some food - and take some cough medicine.
That, in short, is just a small sample of how it went. I apologize for the
spelling errors or poor sentence structure - however, I'm no Hemingway, though
I definitely feel as if I have survived the trenches on the Italian front.
Please forward this to everyone who was involved in Operation Letterpress. I
thank you for helping me, and, more importantly, the family. I tried my best to
get as much exposure as I could for the press; we even got a few shots of Ty attempting to use it (I tried to explain to him how it works).
I can't promise anything about the press will even make the final cut by air
date - but I tried my best. I appreciate everything that all of the letterpress
volunteers and donors have done. There is no
way I could have accomplished as much as you have - I simply didn't have the
time. I will try my best to promote this art form in the future, and would love
to work with you again if you would be interested.
Thank you,
Christopher Goettsche
Design Producer
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition