In this crazy business, you’re going to end up travelling for work. It’s as certain as Murphy’s Law or the phrase “It’s perfect” being followed by “Let’s do it again.” (As I write this, some of my coworkers are prepping for a schlep down to New Mexico to finish our current project.) If you’re lucky when you travel, you’ll have a one-night stay in clean and completely forgettable accommodations. If you’re unlucky, you may end up with bedbugs, a lifelong vendetta against a hotel chain, or brain surgery. (I’ll get to that.)
(Ah, yes. The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. Never been, but I hear it’s nice in the summer. via: http://stephenking.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_Overlook_Hotel.jpg)
The “Quality” Inn
The second feature film I worked on set up shop in a Quality Inn. We rented roughly an entire floor for the crew to stay in and jury-rigged two rooms into an office. Productions will often rent designated office space in hotels (rooms with extra phone lines, printers, and a higher desk to bed ratio than 1), but you can only do that if you use a hotel that has office space to rent. (Something you should consider if you plan on being there for fifteen weeks…) Even as I was making the necessary renovations to our office, something about our hotel choice didn’t sit right.
For example, while waiting in the lobby for crewmembers to arrive, I noticed that a lot of people would come off the street to use the lobby bathroom… at the same time. Then there was the problem that the hotel was managed by Indians (from India), but the cleaning and maintenance staff were Hispanic. I realize this sounds racist, but it’s not really a recipe for success if your management and staff can only communicate with each through a shared, tenuous grasp of English. A minor request like, “Could we please get a second phone for the office, and, for the love of God, please fix the leaking sink,” would result in them replacing the phone (but not giving us a second one) and telling me there was nothing wrong with the toilet.
But production soldiered on and we made the necessary adjustments on our own. We removed all of the pictures to put up schedules, hangers for file folders, and dry erase boards. We disassembled the furniture and packed it into the closet. And we drilled through the walls to pull in that second phone line from the room next door. (This is what happens when you give creative people problems, free time, and power tools.)
The hotel did get its revenge. About ten weeks into the shoot, it became infested with bedbugs. Granted, this can happen anywhere, but as you can guess, the Quality Inn didn’t do the best of jobs handling the situation. First they denied it. Then they shuffled our rooms around much like the Catholic Church trying to hide a pedophile. And much like the Catholic Church, things didn’t work out great.
When we wrapped, the wardrobe stylist, who by this point had witnessed the rise and fall of several bed bug civilizations in the cast’s clothing, decided to just walk away and let the hotel deal with it. The baffled cleaning ladies dutifully threw the remnants of our film’s wardrobe into the trash. (It was a horror film, and frankly, torn bloody cheerleader outfits are not something you want to be seen carrying around.) For some reason, the staff thought this would be our procedure for checking out of all of our rooms. Two days later, when our poor production assistants were wrapping the set, the cleaning staff decided to empty out their rooms. They took fifteen weeks of accumulated living detritus (clothes, personal items, food, film equipment) and unceremoniously threw them in the dumpster. (They did pilfer some of the less bedbug prone merchandise like a rather nice poker set that only miraculously re-appeared in the break room after much cajoling and arguing in multiple languages.)
I did however get the last laugh. I was the last production person to leave the hotel and passed by our ramshackle office just as the hotel manager was opening the door. He had a look that was equal parts dread and disbelief, like some archeologist who had just pried open a newly discovered sarcophagus to exhume the discovery of his lifetime only to find it piled nipples deep with fifteen weeks of unspeakable film production horrors. I will cherish that look until the day I die.
(The Grand Budapest: too much drama for me. via: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/moviesandtv/columns/moviebob/11111-Is-The-Grand-Budapest-Hotel-Wes-Anderson-s-Best-Film-Yet)
Staybridge
On that same film, the producers quickly realized that they couldn’t keep our talent in the same hotel. Contractually, they weren’t allowed. Fortunately, even though we were filming eight miles west of west bumblefrack, there was a four star hotel within thirty minutes of the set. Unfortunately, they drew their staff from the same pessimal talent pool as the Quality Inn. Despite our block of rooms (which we wanted to keep and simply refresh when one actor left and another arrived) the staff decided to release one of our rooms when an actor checked out. That left me in the unenviable position of having to find another four-star hotel within the same hemisphere as our location.
I ended up in customer service hell, listening to prerecorded messages and repeating account numbers until I had apparently shouted enough profanity to merit live human intervention. The operator first recommended a cheaper hotel that was managed by the same parent company. It was only a few miles further away. I explained to him that I was contractually obligated to secure a four or five star hotel for my client to which he cheerfully replied, “Oh, we’ll we don’t use a star rating system, we use diamonds.”
“All right, how many diamonds is it?”
“Seven.”
“Oh. Out of how many?”
“Ten.” Granted, he was not being graded on this exchange, but I wish to God he had been because that would come out to a D-.
He does get an “A” for effort, though, because he then tried to find me something that was at least eight diamonds (which is apparently equivalent to four stars) and triumphantly told me that there were some available rooms in “Reeding.” I could be wrong, but I am fairly confident that Reading, PA is named after Reading, England and despite its misleading spelling is pronounced “Redding” across the globe. For my own amusement, I asked where he was located.
“Texas.”
So much for local service. We ended up shuttling the actor back and forth from New York.
Ace
More recently I stayed in the world’s most pretentious hipster hotel. The furniture was made out of repurposed wooden pallets, the wall fixtures were bare copper piping, and the room numbers were filthy plastic lamps that looked like they had been salvaged from a fleet of 70s era taxi roofs.
(Welcome home!)
It gave the overall impression of crashing on a friend’s couch in a shitty, walk-up apartment. I would know because I’ve done it. (No offense, James.) The pretense was so complete, I genuinely thought they were pumping in artificial city noise. It sounded like my room was directly above a subway station, below a construction site, and wedged between a kitchen and a brothel. It wasn’t (at least I don’t believe so), but the hotel had somehow managed to find the least sound dampening material know to man.
The real coup de grace, however, was that several of the walls were painted black. Seriously. Here’s a picture of my room with all of the lights on.
It could have been helpful, since we were doing night shoots, but a friend of mine got up in the middle of the day to pee, walked into one of the walls, and gave himself a concussion. He later required brain surgery. No I am not making that up. You can look for my review here or just read it here.
W
Then there was the ultra-modern “W” in D.C. (Seriously, are kindergarteners naming these places?) This is the kind of place that is so chic that it takes you twenty minutes to figure out how to turn the light on. The evening I checked in, I had been working for fourteen hours in the rain and just driven an hour and a half to the hotel. I boarded the elevator with my luggage including a pillow.
Some bros got on after me. They were headed to a party on one of the upper floors, one of those those yuppy gatherings that is equal parts networking and mating ritual. Joking around, they asked why I was carrying the pillow. I think I said something to the effect of, “Because I have a knife on me and if you say anything else, I’m the only one leaving this elevator alive.” The rest of the ride was tense, but silent.
I also had to do battle with the bathroom, which was something I thought humanity had more or less conquered about fifty years ago. The newest rendition of the toilet, however, has no tank, so you have no place to set your phone, glasses, or shower beer. The massive, minimalist, walk-in shower was impressive as well, but also lacked any place to set your beer… or soap… or towel. That latter issue required you to either hang your towel over the door (getting your towel soaking wet) or leave your towel at the sink (getting everything else wet as you went to retrieve your towel).
(Goooodlfinger… via: https://fontainebleau.com)
But Wait! There’s More…
Then there was the time I couldn’t sleep because of how loud the HVAC was. I took the vent off of the wall and shoved a pillow in it. Or the creepily friendly hotel manager who repeatedly invited me into his office to chat about gladiator movies. While it’s never happened to me personally, a handful of my coworkers have returned to the hotel after working fifteen hours and opened their doors only to find that the hotel has somehow rented their rooms to someone else and not bothered to tell them or deactivate their room keys. And in perhaps the ultimate absurdity, who can forget the time someone literally took a dump outside the production manger’s door? (No, it wasn’t an irate crewmember.)
So what do I look for in hotel? Cleanliness. For the love of God, I can sleep in the bathtub, just make it clean. In the first world, water and electricity are (I hope) a given. Refrigerators are nice and ranges can be a fun perk if you’ll be there for a few days. Location is also very important. Proximity to set is nice, but proximity to a bar and some dinner options is more important. Hotel bars can work, as long as the food is decent and not too expensive. If your crew has to drive forty-five minutes for dinner every night, it will be abundantly clear at call time.
For your own sanity, throw earplugs and a sleep mask in your travel bag. Even the best hotel can have noisy neighbors. And personally, I’ve found that while it is a pain to drag the slippers, contour pillow, and chia pet along for a shoot, those little touches of home can make a surprisingly big difference after a brutal shoot day.
Finally, no sharing! Sharing rooms is one of those red flags that should make you wary about working with a company. It’s a sign that they’ll be pinching pennies and cutting corners every step of the way. And do you really want to deal with that after listening to the producer’s nephew snore all night?
While it’s true that working out of a hotel can be a pain, it’s also a fun to work in and explore new cities. Get the all you can eat crabs in Baltimore, check out Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and try the edibles in Colorado. But no matter what happens when you travel for work, you’re going to end up with some interesting stories.
Vargoing 
