All nighters and an average week on the Star Princess

There was a lot of drinking on the Star, I mean after barely surviving Spring Break in Mexico on the Sapphire I thought Alaska again would be easier on my liver. What I didn't take into account was that I was working my arse off on the Sapphire whereas on the Star the amount I had to film was much less and we had a much stronger photo team with great management in Cassie, JP & Lara the South Africian Mafia.

The key was that because I couldn't film ashore I was on permanement night shoots as 'Chad' would film in all 3 Alaskan ports so he'd be off at night and we'd double shoot Tracy Arm scenic cruising with me overseeing the edit until I was happy that 'Chad' could do the edit. As I was used to doing ship events and was good friends with the cruise staff Nicole, Chantal, Melissa, Boogie, Ceri, Eric & CD Lee I enjoyed shooting the events and I knew that a quick turnaround on the edit and having them playing when people woke up the next morning would increase sales as the PAX would stop and stare and go 'wow, that was just last night'.

This also meant I became a vampire of sorts for many months, I'd film the evening theme nights and formal parties, head to the bar while the footage copied over and then head back to edit till around 3 or 4 in the morning. More often than not as I'd wander back to the cabin they'd still be cabin/corrdior parties going on as someone had made the terible mistake of putting the Spa and Photogs in the same shared area, so there was a party almost everynight!

One more than one occasion I'd stagger back to my cabin from work as the photogs were getting up to shoot gangway in the mornings, yes I could have been quicker but also you needed to go to the bar and decompress a little bit as I'd be running around all over the place at some of these parties I'd also grab a shower, change into my own clothes, go to the bar to grab some drinks and head back to edit. If I found myself flagging a little mosh around the video room to some Rage Against The Machine & Metallica would get the juices flowing again, along with a few pints of double strength rock star/ monster and an inordinate amount of jellybeans to complete the sugar rush.

Now on ships you are contracted to work 13 hours every day with no days off for your whole 6-9 month contract and as a junior videograhper your scheduling is at the whim of your senior videog. I'd worked with some great and some not so great seniors so far in regards to the fairness of the schedule, I tried to apply what I learned from Travis Dixon on the Sun which was that the junior and senior divided shooting and editing responsabilities equally and you would rotate the events each cruise so you didn't get stuck filming the same things every week. In theory this is great but unfortunately we couldn't do that on the Star due to the Alaska rule.

An average week would look something like this, sailaway party from Seattle was simple enough, 'Chad' would grab some quick scenery shots which I'd later intercut with the cruise staffs sailaway party and raffle where we'd give away a free copy of the Reflections DVD and we'd get introduced to all the PAX by the cruise staff. We'd take turns in who was responsible for this edit and the next day would be the first formal night which was usually fairly busy. In the morning there would usually be a martini demo around midday to film and ice carving on the upper deck, both simple shoots and edits that I'd rotate each week. In the evening there was the captains welcome party / champagne waterfall and unfortunately we were still at the point where we had to film everyone who went up to pour champagne and get their picture taken so we could then say 'look for yourself on the video!' with the hope that they'd buy it after seeinng themselves for only a few seconds. I'd get 'Chad' to film the captains speeches and the second they were down he'd leave and capture the footage for me, I would leave as soon as the last person had poured the last drop of $2 shampoo as we called it.

We'd then head for dinner as you had to be in your formal gear to go the buffet on those nights so that as soon as I'd ate, I could get changed before I went back to edit. I'd often cut to the beat of the music when editing where I could but the Captains welcome party was so boring, that I would find the longest jazzy cocktail generic piece of music I could find and then blast Metallica through the speakers, many a time someone has walked into the video room and thought I was adding Metallica to the formal night party! When you are cutting between 200-300 people for only a few seconds there is no way the music is going to match each cut so it meant I didn't need to listen to generic track while I was editing. I'd usually get done around 11pm/midnight and what took the longest back then was the rendering out of the video, this meant you'd be sat waiting for over an hour most times before you could then burn the DVD's that you then needed to take around the ship to the Princess Theatre, Comms centre and the Photo Gallery.

The Princess Theatre would play the updated DVD during the next mornings tour dispatch to a captive audience, comms would play the new DVD from around 7a.m on our Reflections TV channel in the passeners staterooms and most times whenever I finished the edit I'd take it straight to the photo gallery as we controlled the TV's there so that would almost be like our premiere area for new edits and I'd always stand there and watch the new edits on the big screen to make sure I hadn't made any mistakes!

We then had 2 port days in a row that Ketchikan, Skagway before a half day of scenic cruising Tracy Arm before we got into Juneau around 2pm.

I would be off in all the ports of all which meant I should have gone on excursions and explored, instead when I did manage to rouse myself from my late nights working and/or hangovers it was usually breakfast/lunch somewhere and then straight into whatever local bar was around!

On port days I woudn't even have to go to the video room until arounds 8/9pm so I'd leave 'Chad' to his edits and expect him to be done by the time I needed to edit around 11pm each night. It was usually Ketchikan night and Dancing Through The Decades/50s sock hop that would begin the busiest period I had in the cruise.

Dancing through the decades was easily the best onboard event we had and I knew that if I had it up for the next morning for when the PAX were milling around the ship before the scenic cruising began it would get more sales, this meant I would begin filming around 9.30/10pm and finish shooting just before midnight, back to capture the footage then onto the bar for refreshments and I'd have the edit done and daily dubs delievered by 4a,m.

The issue we had was that 'Chad' would be filming in Juneau later in the day but also scenic cruising was a two person shoot and it took 5-6 hours to travel through Tracy Arm. Unfortunately unlike Glacier Bay, Tracy Arm was fairly dull as many times we coudn't make it up the passage to see the glacier like we did on the Coral, although the scenery was stunning it didn't have that wow factor for me that Glacier Bay did.

However it did have us passing the ship I was almost transhipped to the Golden Princess very close each cruise so I made that the focal point of the edit. I'd usually have an hour spare after finishing my DTTD edit but then it was time to start filming the scenic cruising at Tracy Arm and with no sleep I'd go straight into the next day and film from around 6-9am when 'Chad' would come and replace me. I'd capture the footage, get breakfast and then grab 2 hours sleep before starting the edit and then I'd replace Chad for the last few hours while he went and added his footage to the project and got ready for his tour that afternoon.

I'd be getting my 2nd wind by now and I'd crack out the edit as quickly as possible and when we docked at 2pm I'd usually be off the ship with the edit done by 4pm at the latest then it was straight to the Viking!

The one big bonus of pulling an all nighter once a week was that I stumbled back onboard on Juneau night I didn't have to work until 10pm filming Country & Western hoedown the next night in Skagway, so yes almost a full 24 hours off, of course as the months went by I realised that killing myself midcruise was not always the best idea but the crew bar scene on the Star was too good to miss.

The following day was our last formal night and sea day which meant a late night formal party in the atrium which didn't start till 11pm and would usually finish around 12.30/1a.m. This was another all nighter as the final day was part sea day and port day as we'd arrive in Victoria, Canada every saturday night between 4/5pm and leave at midnight as it was not far to Seattle where we start all over again on Sunday. This meant around 1a.m I'd have to edit the formal party straight away and then I'd master and burn the final DVD, then make enough copies to start the last day. I'd get done around 4/5a.m and make sure we had enough DVD's to cover all the pre-order forms and then I'd get a few hours sleep. 'Chad' would get up early to take all the DVD's to the photo gallery where he'd take the first shift handing out the pre-orders and he'd only wake me if we began to run low, i'd replace him around 1pm till 5pm when we docked and then I'd make sure that all the remaining pre-orders had been delivered and enough spare copies were left for any last minute impluse buys and then we'd head out and eat great food, spend way too much on booze before capping the night off for a rager in the ward room, corrdior party before spending most of sunday sleeping it off before starting it all over again!

On the next cruise diaries - Elevator Idol and Fruit Loops! Filming for the Morning Show!