The rest of the afternoon went very fast, afterall. I was called in to help with a periscope and football shot. Were we where trying to make it look like a football bounced off a periscope. Not easy. I also played in the puppet shop some, trying to make the Mayor’s half-body legs walk.

After work everyone went to Magnus’s house for a party and then to a concert. The interesting thing about Iceland is that things go pretty late. The party started about 9:30, and the concert was at midnight. It was a band, Studmenn that was hugely popular at one time, and have been around for twenty years or so. One of the men in it has been voted sexiest man in Iceland for eight years running. They are a dance band, so the concert experience was not a music hall. It was a converted gymnasium, with a lot of open floor space for people to jump, gyrating, up and down. Don’t get me wrong, there was a real sound system and stage, but it’s not really my scene. I’m glad I went, but I’ll ask more carefully what someone means when they say ‘concert’ next time.

We left at the interval at two a.m.

I feel a bit cheated. We’re working on Saturday because everyone got an extra day off the week before I got here. There’s something not fair about that. On the other hand I spent more time in front of the camera this morning than I have since I got here. I was on set almost continously before lunch.

The first bit was pushing Sarah in on a rolly-cart because the shot was too low for her to move herself without her knees showing. So, that was really puppeteer manipulation, rather than puppet manipulation. Still fun to be working.

The next shot I did live hands for Sarah as she worked Trixie. We had to come in carrying a cable, give a thumbs up, turn up the volume on a turntable, have a bit of dialogue and dance. Because of a turn that we had to do, there was a moment where I was blind (couldn’t see a tv monitor). It’s funny, because on stage that would have been no issue, but with television puppetry I’m not manipulating the puppet on my hand so much as I am moving the image on the screen. So, it doesn’t matter if my muscle memory tells me where something is; it can still look wrong on screen.

After lunch has been a different story. We’ve been doing our usual waiting routine.