Rocky Carroll: A Day in the Life of NCIS
Greetings all,
Thanks again for all of your responses and kind words. I'm glad that some of you feel that Vance has made an impact on the show. Everyone connected to the show is ecstatic over the way the season is going, so far.
A lot of your comments/questions seem to be directed toward the day-to-day business of the show. So, to use the title of the Beatles song, I'll tell you a bit about " A Day In The Life" on NCIS.
After five seasons, the NCIS team has the business of making an episode down to a science. As the new guy, I'm amazed at the precision of this cast/crew.
I'll answer Erin Lee's question first: It takes nine business days to film one episode of NCIS. On the ninth day, we begin filming the next episode. So, I've had to get used to working on two different episodes at the same time. Day 9/Day 1 is actually a lot of fun for me. It reminds me a bit of my Summerstock days, while I was still an acting student in St. Louis. (A quick hello to Jane Stein. Thanks for the message ... been a long time since Webster College.)
In Summerstock, we would rehearse a play during the day, and perform another show in the evening. After the show, we'd help change over the set for another show to be perfomed the next day. Insane! I forgot to mention that a few days before the end of an episode, the cast, producers, director and writers get together in a conference room, have lunch and do a read-through of the next script. This is my favorite ritual. Coming from the theatre, I'm accustomed to this practice. Unfortunately, it's not a common practice on other shows. There are episodes where I may not have scenes with some of the other cast members and the read-through is the one time that we may all be together. Lots of hugs, handshakes, chit-chatting... etc;. I get to sit at this big table with all of the key players on NCIS and read the script. I absolutely love it.
It also a huge help for the writers. Imagine writing a song and never hearing anyone sing it. You know in your heart it's a good song, but you have to hear what it sounds like before going into a studio to record it, right?
The average day of shooting is in the 12- to 14-hour range. That was not always the case. The days were much longer in the early seasons ("sorry" I wasn't there for that). Mark Harmon has shared some of the war stories of Seasons 1 and 2 with me. Let's just say, I'm glad to be here, now.
Of course, some scenes take much longer to shoot than others. If we're shooting a two-person scene (Gibbbs in Vance's office, for instance), we are only shooting the points of view (POVs) of two characters. We'll shoot a master shot, close-ups of both actors, etc;. It takes time to reposition cameras and lighting for each POV.
So imagine the time and effort needed to shoot a scene that involves Gibbs, Ziva, Tony, Abby, McGee, Ducky and yours truly.
Well, duty calls.... I have to sign off for now. I'll be happy to continue on this topic if anyone's interested.
Oh, to Jonih59: Thanks for correcting me, sorry I had your gender wrong. You said to think of "Joni Mitchell." I've never heard of her, is she famous?
Just kidding - think I'll listen to Joni's Court and Spark album after I finish this entry.
til next time,
Rocky Carroll
