I Am The Production Accountant On This Viking TV Documentary And You’re Using Too Much Blood!
The producers of this Viking documentary have brought to my attention that if we are to continue producing a show that is mostly about the bludgeoning, mutilating and disemboweling of the inhabitants of England in the 800s A.D., we will need to control our prop blood expenses.
It took more than 40 different chemical configurations before our reality-obsessed director decided on blood that was the color and consistency of minimally emulsified cherry Jell-O. So I will not splatter one more cup of Aunt Flo’s Visit against a wall in the name of creative genius if you’re just going to treat this like Nightmare on Elm Street which, by the way, only used 500 gallons of blood!
No one should have a taste for this blood even if it is made of golden syrup, red food dye, water and a little Kaopectate. That includes our craft services department who, I understand, have been trying to make Red Vines out of the mixture. Real Vikings did not drink blood. Or eat Red Vines. Just know that if you’re consuming it, that probably explains the constipated feeling you’re having.
Also, splattering it around like a Jackson Pollock painting is creating a blood feud between departments! When you splash blood on the field of battle, that’s set decoration. When you smear it all over yourselves, that’s the costume department. When you decide to hold it in a bowl and drink from it, that’s props. Or a Q-Anon approved disease treatment. Know your blood type!
Why the director let you guys have real weapons is beyond me. But now I understand our fully-staffed First Aid tent. Some of you are, quite literally, ‘missing your marks’ and now a few limbs. While I appreciate your dedication to authenticity, it’s making our battlefields look like the aftermath of Carrie’s prom which used one thousand gallons of blood, in case anyone is interested!
Also, according to what our script supervisor tells me, not every wound is an amputation! Even if it is, the average human takes between 5-15 minutes to bleed out. Do any of you have ‘above the title’ billing? No, no you do not! None of you will be on screen long enough to require massive amounts of prop blood when our film editor gets ahold of the footage, trust me.
Those of you falling from a horse, the castle parapet, shot with an arrow, hung, bitten by snakes, burned, doused with flaming oil, drowned, keel-hauled, crushed under rocks, run over by a wagon, trampled, poisoned, strangled or expiring from plague will need very little, if any, blood. Again, we’re not doing Tarantino, people!
The last time I saw this much blood was in that elevator at the Overlook Hotel. That scene took a year to plan, three takes and 3,000 gallons of blood! All I remember is the Art Director screaming “My God, we’re all going to drown!” right before the huge wall of blood swept him down the corridor, screaming. He hasn’t worked on another film since.
Once the vampires at HBO start filming those Game of Thrones spin-offs, blood is going to be in short supply and it won’t be long before our show, quite literally, ‘bleeds out.’ Which will leave me no choice but to go for the jugular. And you all know what that means: Employee blood drive!