Florida

good morning everyone! 

I'm in Florida right now! What?  I am shooting a Subway commercial which had me working with Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch (football players that are apparently very good - we shot them in LA on Thursday and Friday - Russell Wilson was very nice and I have some wholesome videos of him playing some flag football with some kids and it's very nice and wholesome. Marshawn was a little more... hard to handle, but he was ok too. He didn't have much to say to me... as the director I was the bad guy, but we got through it ok. whatever.) 

But for the 3rd spot we had to fly down to Jacksonville to shoot this new star rookie, Trevor Lawrence.  me, my DP and Producer got in last night, checked in around 8 and made plans to meet back down in the lobby in a few to get some dinner. There's a Morton's Steak House in the lobby, so we were all like, let's just go there and have a fuckin steak and a drink, nice and easy. So we all meet down there but Morton's is all booked up - They had a small outside patio, btw, I wasn't gonna be eating inside in this Covid swamp...  We're right on the river here so the hotel suggested going across the bridge to the Ruth's Chris.... We we walk over there and no one is wearing masks, It's a full restaurant and it's surreal. It's like, do you know about Covid? does anyone care? luckily, they have a table outside so we take our seat, out on the river, looking across to our hotel... and eat some overly buttered and very salty steaks. We're having a fine time when we start seeing a MAJOR police presence develop across the street at our hotel. more cops, a fire engine.... Hmmm. We finish dinner and start walking across the bridge. And when we get across the bridge we find the whole block has been blocked off - cops everywhere. What happened? Well of course there was a shooting in the Morton's!  

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/09/05/jso-investigating-shooting-at-hyatt-downtown/https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/09/05/jso-investigating-shooting-at-hyatt-downtown/ 

Yikes!  Naturally,  we were like, "we ALMOST would have been eating there." My producer was debating making a bigger push to get us a table, doing what producers do, but we decided a little walk would do us good. They let us back in the hotel after a few minutes and when i get to my room, the attached announcement is being broadcast...

We're shooting today and flying back tomorrow,  next time I gotta go to Florida for work i'm demanding hazard pay!  

That's all for now gang, I gotta tell a fuckin quarterback how to hold a sandwich. Such is my life. 

Peace be with you,

T