Urgent Messages

As the build of a set nears the crunch time of Load-In, the frequency and urgency of phone calls increases.  If for some reason you, the Designer, must be out of touch, for instance at a holiday party, a movie, a death-bed...  on your return you will find half a dozen urgent messages awaiting instant decision!

It's like mothering a toddler: take a fast little personal trip away and you may hear a desperate creature pounding on the bathroom door, sobbing, until you rejoin them.

Image borrowed from We Too Were Children - modified

If copyright holder (if any) wishes removal, gladly! Just ask.

This mommy-don't-leave! problem gets worse in film.  I once prepared the set for shooting, then told the crew and AD that I absolutely had to get something at Home Depot and that I would absolutely be back in thirty minutes.   Ten minutes later, when I was deep into the plumbing aisle, I got a frantic call because a) shooting had moved and now, instead of the prepped set, they wanted to shoot another area entirely and b) in that other area... how - please God! how?! - should the hand towel be folded?!!!

I kid you not.

But if this sounds like these calls are unwelcome - far from it.  Calls are much more welcome than what happens when no one calls!