Cruise Ship Diaries Part 16

After the shitshow that was the Christmas cruise the new year one was slightly better, as I'd also got that shot of adrenaline where I'd received my signing off date. This is the day that you get to go home and as I'd become disillusioned and completely burnt out seeing that light at the end of the tunnel helps get you over the finish line.

The party on new years eve was really good and split between the older guests who couldn't handle the Caribbean heat that were congregated in the atrium with the younger guests who just wanted to party with the band on the open deck. Guess which party I got to cover?

Yeah, running around like a manic on the open deck sweating through my tux of course I was given the outdoor shoot but the key difference between xmas and new year was that I was determined to enjoy the night as my senior was doing the edit the next day. That meant as usual starting off drinking at 6pm and not really stopping all night, so I was pretty buzzed by the time I had to film.

We always joke on ship that the entertainment / cruise staff have to be social alcoholics as their job is to get people to the events and make sure they enjoy themselves, this means being a larger than life personality 24/7 which can be mentally draining so for most of us a few drinks gets you to the stage you need to be to put on that type of persona for the guests.

It was the same for me filming the events, you cannot meekly stand to the side with the camera you need to run up to people and stick the camera in their face! One of my go to lines was ' hey folks give us a smile and wave and you'll be on the cruise DVD, if you don't you'll still be on there but you'll be the only person not smiling'. 90% of the time this line would work and they'd either wave/smile/ react in some way, it was only occasionally that you'd be met with a stony face or told to fuck off.

I made a quick run down to the office to change tapes/batteries and set the first batch of footage to capture and took a look through the atrium which was now a ghost town. Down to the crew bar for a quick drink with the team and then back to film for another hour, although the band had finished the cruise staff were still keeping the party going.

So far so good right...except I may have forgotten to mention that in about 2 hours I had to go and shoot the FUCKING PANAMA CANAL on new years day! My senior & Raj were down to film the helicopter shoot and I was shooting the locks with Moon & Val, a nice couple who'd been working on ships for years and had grown out of the bar phase which meant they were massively sober compared to the rest of us.

It's now 4.30a.m and I've had a cold shower, packed my bag with energy bars, water and gatorade and was fighting to stay awake down at the deck 4 gunport as we waited to descend the ladder onto the pilot boat. There was scenes of carnage everywhere, one of the photogs was still drinking while others simply laid on the floor groaning.

This was defintely not the best time to meet the new Captain an Italian ex-military guy whose name escapes me, but the chatter onboard was that he had a zero tolerance attitude to drinking and he would randomly breathlise people leaving the crew bar. None of this happened but the threat of his reputation made the bar a much quieter place for a few weeks, the photo team made a great first impression as we laid on the floor drunk and stinking!

It was actually a blessing working with Moon & Val, as they were one of the 'good' couples I've worked with on ships, they were friendly, professional and it was always a simple shoot with them leading the way.

What idiot thought that transiting the Canal on new years day would be a good idea though? It is supposed to be the highlight of most passengers cruise but when we went to shoot, there was barely anyone on the open decks as everyone was still sleeping off their hangovers and the decks were empty!

By this stage as we'd done it once before (thanks Morne!) we headed into Panama City to go shopping after the shoot, me and Val bravely tried the street meat and we went to a massive mall where everything was 70% cheaper than the UK. Brand new trainers, football shirts, and just clothes in general, this one shopping trip filled my wardrobe for about 2 years!

The day had been as painless as could be considering the amount of alcohol and lack of sleep from the night before and I was contently sitting in the terminal eating way too much pizza waiting for the ship before I could finally grab some sleep.

While in the terminal thinking how much of a struggle the day had been for me I wondered how the helicopter team had got on and I was massively thankful I wasn't hanging out of that toy death trap with todays hangover, although I could have probably added 'projectile vomited from a helicopter into the Panama Canal' to the bucket list!

I got back to the video room and there was no sign of my senior or any sign that anyone had been in the room since I left at 4a.m that morning. I was fully expecting to not be able to get into the office as we only had one editing system and would have to take it in turns for when we edited, as a junior for me it meant whenever my senior was not there. I paged her and rang her cabin but didn't get any response, so I called the photo lab and found out that helicopter shoot didn't happen because it was new years day so I got hold of Raj who said they just went to the terminal and waited for the ship.

I figured that my seniors hangover was far worse than mine and at least she was still onboard, so despite feeling like hammered shit myself I had some bonus editing time! I set my Canal footage to capture, showered, ate and power napped for an hour and spent the next 3 hours editing a nice simple Panama edit. My senior was due to film Country night at 10pm and around 10 minutes before there was still no sign of her, again called / paged no response.

As the event started the Cruise director Ron Goodman popped his head into the video room and asked if we were filming the event? I replied yes 'the other videogs supposed to be filming it, but I've not been able to get hold of her' Dan from the cruise staff walked in and said 'we'll I just saw her in the bar 10 minutes ago'. I was not happy and although we are a revenue department and it is up to the senior videog / photo manager to decide what events we film when you get a reasonable request from the Cruise director you generally don't say no.

'No probelms, I'll film it' I replied, grabbed my kit and kissed goodbye to the next few hours again while I covered someone elses event. Afterwards it was getting on for midnight but first I had to finish todays Panama edit which took me till 1a.m. With Panama done I went to the bar, stocked up on beers in my trusty backpack and asked if anyone had seen my senior? The general consensus was that she'd been too drunk to work earlier and decided to hide in her cabin until she sobered up.

I updated the daily dubs and put the new Panama edit up, left the country night footage to capture and went to bed, as once again I had to be up in about 4 hours for a full day tour in Limon.

The next day there was an almighty argument between me and my senior, rather than thank me for covering them when we were about to miss an event the previous night, I instead got a bollocking! Firstly, for putting up the Panama Canal edit before the new years eve edit she was due to complete as people will wonder where is the new years footage? I called bullshit on this and said if you didn't do the helicoper shoot then once you got back onboard you should have been working on the edit, as you were not I went in and got on with my work. I also called bullshit on the excuse for not filming country night,'I decided not to film, and now you've given me more work to do', despite us filming country night every cruise up to that point of my contract.

In hindsight I try and put myself in her position, there is a lot of stress to deal with usually as senior videographer and your responsible for video quailty and revenue targets being met. Everyone I'd worked with so far had drummed it into me that turning around the edits as quickly as possible was the prioriy so that PAX see it and go 'wow, that was just last night' and then they buy the DVD.

The thing is our sales were good, Kat was one of the most laid back managers you could have and photo team morale was good onboard. I think my senior was on her 3rd or 4th contract and was simply burnt out by the job, she loved ship life but I don't think she loved the job. For me as a determined to make a good impression and show what I could do junior, working with someone who I thought was going through the motions meant we were always going to clash. She did push me to learn new skills when she first came onboard but she was entrenched in the 'old school' way of the Reflections DVD which was about getting as many people on the DVD as possible, even at the expense of a good video. I felt the schedule wasn't fair and that as the junior I would always get the shit end of the stick and that I was putting more effort into my shooting and editing. From her point of view I suppose I was arrogant and always trying to show her up by proving I was better.

From that incident onwards we would rarely be in the same room at the same time and our working relationship was at best cordial, still I was coming into the last few months of my contract and I'd survived so far.

In the next cruise diaries a port special on Jamaica.