When Hollywood Calls

Or

“What About My Day Job?”

When my mom (Marie Hodges Kauffman, The “Flamin’ Dame”) and I dragged my wife (Noreen) into the murky world of a candles business (Gatehouse Candles) last year, little did we realize how much of an impact it would have on all aspects of our life.

It has become hard to look at a piece of fruit or an antique vase without thinking, “We can make a candle out of that!” Worse, since Noreen is working on making the “fake foods”, it is getting hard to know what is edible and what is wax around the house. In fact, we have taken to labeling the questionable real foods with stickers that say, “Eat Me!” Still, our children can often be seen poking “food” to be sure it is edible…”once burned twice shy”.

Another hard thing to get used to is the long line of delivery trucks coming and going all day long. Inbound and outbound boxes now monopolize prime living space and packing tape has become a valued commodity. The only benefit so far is that I have developed the ability to judge the weight of a box, within a few ounces, just by the amount my back hurts from lifting it.

The list of changes is almost endless and we are adapting, but nothing could have prepared us for the call that came in one Tuesday night at 7:00 PM. The conversation went something like this:

Me, “Hello?”

Caller, “Do you make custom candles?”

Me, “Yes, let me pass you to my wife, Noreen”

Noreen, “Hello, how can I help you?”

Some time passes, Noreen looks pale and says things like, “OH!…….No, really?…….Wow!….”.

She starts pacing around the office, saying, “Go on…….uh hu……yes….yes…….Ok, do you have our web site?…….good…..I’ll wait for your email”.

Noreen hangs up the phone and says, “Can you take tomorrow off?”

Now, it should be mentioned that I have a “Day Job”. You know, the one that pays the bills, keeps us fed (real food, not wax), and funds “The Business”. It is a good job with a lot of responsibilities.

"No”, I replied, “I have a lot going on in my Day Job.”  

It turns out that caller was an agent for a major Hollywood Studio. They were in a bit of bind because they needed 150 candles shipped to London, UK by the following Monday (a mere 6 days away) for the UK opening of a movie release. Do you remember that I mentioned that the caller asked if we make, “custom candles”? They sent us pictures by email of what they wanted. We were delighted because they sent us pictures of an actual candle. It was a very detailed candle, with the name of the movie integrated into the side. This is great, we can do this…we are mold makers…we are candle makers… a little tight with the time frames, but still doable! We called the Agent back. The conversation went like this (on speaker phone this time):

Noreen, “We have looked over the pictures, we should be able to do this for you.”

Agent, “Great, when can you ship?”

Me, “Well, we will need the candle sent to us so we can make a few master molds.”

Agent, “What candle?”

Noreen, “The one in the picture you sent.”

Agent, “Oh…..we don’t have it anymore.”

Me, “No candle?”

Agent, “No candle.”

Me, “What happened to the candle?”

Agent, “Um….one of our other candle makers took it.”

Noreen, “Your other candle makers? How many do you have?”

Agent, “You are our third attempt.”, then quickly, ”Can you do it? Can you show us a prototype? How much will you charge us?”

Noreen, “We will get back to you.”

OK, now we had a problem. Actually we had several problems; no candle to make a mold from, no materials on hand to make the prototype, no idea if we could produce that many candles in such a short time, and no idea how much to charge for the job.

We decided to tackle the last problem first; perhaps they wouldn’t want the candles if the price was too high! We decided to charge retail price (US dollars) for the finished candles to compensate for the rush job, our standard custom mold making fee (x 1.5 since two designs were needed for the master mold), and a packaging fee. It was “a lot of money”. Noreen called them back and gave them the number. They said they would get back to us. OK, we scared them away…no more problems! Then the doubt set in…

We decided to call mom to see if she had any ideas about problem three, how to knock out 150 medium size candles with, perhaps, 3 master molds. Marie had a really good idea about pouring them as “Hurricanes” and filling them later in the process. Hum…we could make 150 candles in the required time, if we could make a small number of molds.

We decided to address the second problem, “just in case”. Now it’s late, about 8:00 PM. The sidewalks are rolled up after 6:00 PM in our area. Where could we get modeling supplies to make a prototype this late at night? Simple…Noreen remembered that while the local art supply store might close at 6:00 PM, they give classes at night and sell to students up to 8:30 PM. Great. Load the kids into car and head off to the store. One and a half hours later (an hour past the kid’s bed time on a school night) and $150.00 (US) later, we had the supplies needed to make the prototype. Noreen decides to sculpt the prototype right then and there, “just to see what it looks like”. I remind her that we didn’t have a commitment from the Movie Studio and said it was a waste of her time. It was 11:30 PM, and I wanted to go to bed because I had to get up early the next morning for my “Day Job”.  Then I made the mistake of checking the business email. A message came in from the Agent with the text, “Let’s go with it!”. Apparently “a lot of money” for someone in Pennsylvania is not “a lot of money” for someone in Hollywood. Aaarrrrrrgggghhhh!

Now Noreen was insistent that I stay up and help her make the first mold (admittedly, much easier with two sets of hands). “What about my Day Job?”, I ask. She just glares. It was 3:00 AM when we finished.

Next Month, Part 2