Ok, so it had been almost 3 days since we heard anything from Fan Fang and had that last meeting about our A-bomb contracts. So we decide to go find her before we head to lunch, so we walk down to her room and we see here cross the hallway to her assistant’s room. We were lucky because we were prepared for her not to open the door because she’d be “busy” and then she would ask to come find us later… which means we wouldn’t hear from her again.
Anyway, we find her and we ask if there was nay news about our contracts in talking to the investor. We wanted a yes or no answer so that we could give people back home definite answers. We were prepared t tell her that we needed an answer by noon the following day(24 hrs) and that if we didn’t hear anything then we would assume it was a no. So the conversation went a little something like this:
ROB & PHILL:
Hey Fang Fang, how’s it going?
FANG FANG walks briskly across the hall, back to her room.
FANG FANG:
Oh, hi Rob, hi Phill. I’m fine.
ROB & PHILL:
So it’s been a few days since we spoke last and we were just wondering if there was any update on our contracts because we need to start giving solid answers to people back home. Have you spoken with the investor yet?
FANG FANG:
Oh… um… yeah, Rob, my situation is this… I have not spoken to Mr. Chew yet, because I want to present him with all the information first…
FANG FANG keeps talking, repeating herself.
ROB & PHILL:
Yes, we’ve heard all this… We were thinking that we could hear within 24 hours, would that be reasonable?
FANG FANG:
Ok, how about this, if I don’t come to you in 24 hours then you can go home.
ROB & PHILL:
Ok, so we will wait for 24 hours but if we haven’t heard from you then we will assume it is a no, ok?
So she beat us to the punch, which is fine. Anyway, we waited 24 hours and we hadn’t heard anything by noon the next day so at lunch we agreed that it was a “no” on the contracts and we were heading home. We have been told that the negotiation tactic here in China is a “Last Man Standing” tactic where each opponent tries to stall the other one until they give in, so we simple just added a deadline(which does not seem to exist in this production) and made a solid decision(which also does not appear to be anywhere in this production).
The only thing we wanted to do was make sure that we told Sonic, our acting translator, and Wan and Darius, the two guys who worked directly under us in lighting and camera. We felt responsibly to tell them that we were leaving, to respect them enough that they could hear it from us that we were leaving. We wanted to make sure they understood that we were leaving and why we were leaving directly from us so that nothing was lost or mixed up in the miscommunication that seems to have plagued this production.
So we brought Sonic in to translate and we broke the news to Wan and Darius that we were leaving and we hinted at the reason being the lack of progress that we’ve seen here and that we won’t wait around because we have other(better) things to do back in the US. Sonic was shocked, which Rob and I were amazed at because we figured he would have put it together since he was downloading other DP reels for Fang Fang… Wan and Darius and Sonic al understood, they were bummed of course, but they know that we work a lot and have our lives back home.
Anyway, we decide to go to Starbucks and it was kind of rainy so I called Sonic to ask if there was a car available to take us and the Fang Fang gets on his phone and asks to speak to Rob. I only heard Rob’s side of the conversation but basically she was mad that we “went above her” to tell Wan and Darius that we were leaving. She hung up on Rob- so we went up to her room to try and smooth things out because we didn’t want to leave with bad blood.
We knocked on her door and her assistant opens the door and she says “No, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to talk to you…” like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Rob and I played the mellow Californian and tried to explain our side without raising our voices at all. She wouldn’t let us get a word in and yells at us saying things like, “they are my crew, I hired them, they are my responsibility and now I look like a fool because I was going to get everyone together and have a going away party for you and tell them myself why you are leaving!” and on and on…
They she told us to get out and then said, “fine, you don’t leave, I’ll leave!” and she leaves her room and walks around to the producers room and slams the door. Hahaha Now, if she was really going to throw us a party, then why didn’t she tell us not to tell anyone? Plus, I don’t think she is that organized to throw us a good bye party. Our feelings were that nothing would be said to us or anyone until the morning we leave and then, since we have to leave at 6AM to get to Shanghai, nobody would be up anyway. We waned to avoid anyone assuming why we left because we saw a pattern of miscommunication and non-communication and we wanted it to be know why we are leaving and that we are leaving out of our own will. We also wanted people to know that we won’t put up with waiting around and not being told information that we need, so we have no reason or faith in the production to extend or renew our contracts.
Anyway, we finally cornered her later that night and apologized that we offended her and explained that we did not mean to offend her. She said “Ok” and that was it, hahaha she’s still mad at us I guess.
So that is the update. The rest of the crew doesn’t seem to know or show that they know, except for Fang Fang, her other assistant Ja Ja(who has always been quiet and a little cold) and one of the Producers. We do want to say our good byes to everyone, but she might not let us do that, hahahahah. We’ll see.
We ARE coming home on May 12th, as in our original contract
PhillM tip-of-the-day:
Don't forget to order UV Shield to add to all of your gel frames if you have a lot of HMIs, especially if they are older HMIs.
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