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Thursday December 14, 2000
Interview/Wardrobe
As the interview was at 10am, and in Culver City, I had to take buses from 7am to get there on time.
Initially I merely wanted to be early.
Thank goodness for that: my transfer bus never showed up.
I caught another bus that went Close Enough and walked the rest of the way.
The "interview" aspect comprised filling out paperwork
(with which to get paid for showing up),
and a poloroid of me in the outfit.
When Joni called later to confirm I was booked, when she learned I had no car, she was quite helpful in trying to find me a ride.
I had already found the bus route, despite requiring quite a hike to the crew parking lot from which shuttle would take me to set
(6.5 miles).
Joni gave me the name and number of someone "nearby," but apart from his being farther west for it to be conventient, he was extremely uncomfortable meeting someone new and/or being helpful to someone with whom he'd soon be working.
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Friday December 15, 2000
Shoot
With the theft of my bicycle a few days earlier, once the bus route got me as close as possible
(the 6.5 miles away),
the rest of the way to the crew-parking shuttle would be on foot.
I had to leave on a 5am bus and get to Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Mulholland at about 6:30am and then begin my hike to get there by 9am.
The bus got me to Sherman Way and Topanga Canyon Boulevard at 5:30am; the temperature was 39°.
When a different bus came first that would take me at least to Ventura Boulevard, I took it, arriving at Ventura at 5:53am and I began my hike the 6.5 miles to crew parking
(relatively close to the Will Geer Botanical Gardens).
The bus for which after another 25 minutes I could have waited in the cold did pass me just as I neared Mulholland.
Around 7:45am a nameless Good Samaritan pulled over and gave me a lift.
I was not even hitch-hiking
(although the thought had begun to cross my mind).
The fellow was talking a lot
(being a step or two from being an actual Bible Thumper, talking at least about the fascinating
Fortean-esque
phenominon in Florida
[of which I was unaware],
in huge front glass panels of a building of which has appeared a hologram-like colourful sillouette of the Christian goddess the Virgin Mary).
His talking has us actually miss turning into the crew lot, and he was still nice enough to turn around and drive me back the half or so mile, despite my being even way earlier from the lift.
I was shuttled to the main lot and arrived for my 9:00am call at 7:00am.
I was able to get a substantial and hot breakfast at least, considering in the mountains the temperature had to be 33°.
When it comes to working on movies, I'd rather be to call two hours early than be two minutes late.
The shoot for The Animal was brief (as least my part).
Apparently the rest of the crew's schedule was all day and would go well into that night.
The li'l scene on which we worked turned out to be "only" Adam Sandler's cameo in the Rob Schneider film.
Sandler pops up within a lynch mob (Norm McDonald has a similar cameo in another couple of scenes with either the same mob or a different aspect of the mob).
Two of our mob guys were used in that scene.
We were shuttled to the set around 11:15am or so.
At any rate, I was placed right next to Sandler at his right so being a shot wide enough to encompass Sandler centered and the two guys to my right, there would be no missing me.
They let me wear my own green NATO jacket and green flannel shirt.
Wardrobe loved my badger hat, but before camera rolled it got vetoed and so
(as I retained my glasses),
I'd still be even more recognizable.
As a weapon I was given a
(rubber-ended) pick-axe.
It turned out Rob Schneider is co-writer as well as the lead.
Ad the shot was being set up, he brought over to me a make-up girl so as to have covered the shine on my forehead.
btw, Adam Sandler's friendly dog "Meatball" was at location
(not used in the scene)
and is the same British Bulldog they used in Sandler's
Little Nicky
on which I also worked.
Wrapping at 1:00pm, I got a ride
(all the way)
home from the same fellow who was too uncomfortable giving me a ride there.
With the rest of the day available to me, and it still being its opening day, I was able to go to see the then-new comedy
Dude, Where's My Car?
that previous summer on which I'd worked
(and in which I am
quite visible)...
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Thursday December 28, 2000
Recalled
Joni called on December 20th or so to inform me I would in fact be needed again, December 28th.
Fortunately I was nearing the end of my three week house-sitting stint for some friends, each such during which I have access to their conveyance, so now I had transport.
The call-time was 6:18am at the Country Club off Route 2 north heading up into the Angeles Mountains.
As my friends live at the Burbank/Glendale border, I awoke early and walked their dog Yeller, then headed up.
Twice a year at the time my friends and I went camping in the Angeles Mountains so I knew easily how to get there, but forgot "how close" is that early area of the "highway."
I got there over an hour early.
There were shuttle buses to bring us to set/location.
I snoozed aboard the one scheduled for the 6:18am departure, but at the last minute as there was Still A Seat Left on the shuttle leaving previously to that one, I volunteered for it.
Again snoozing the hour it took us to arrive
(left at 6:55am),
we arrived at Chalton campsite at 7:05am).
It was utterly freezing, but knowing the area I was already wearing thermal underwear.
It didn't help much.
Tall propane heat-blasters were used and as though a campfire, each one had several people hanging about them.
After the good hot breakfast
(for myself as always, scrambled eggs, bacon),
we were shuttled to the location
(turning out to be so close to the base-camp area that it was walkable).
From props I retrieved the same rubber pick-axe I had carried at the previous shoot.
We then hung around for some time, munching from the craft services table
(and often standing around the desperately needed heaters).
The first scene shot was of blood-hounds and their handlers seeking Rob Schneider's character.
It took numerous takes as they were directed to be "chaotic," but this was too vague a description without actual direction.
The sheer "randomness" of it was too chaotic and as even chaos has to have a pattern with which to be best "viewed" on screen, it wasn't quite working.
The "motivation" for the scene was the that dogs were coming across as uncooperative, and just running from tree to tree.
On set, Rob Schneider comes across as giving no indication of being a friendly individual, but I felt this mostly likely was due to his very professional attitude.
Based on what I observed, he was far more interested in Getting The Film Made and Getting It Made Right than in having fun with or doing it.
Eventually some of the mob was used with which to run about searching Schneider.
Then Schnedier was filmed in the same area
(in clearly what wpi;d be the sequence before the dogs),
running from tree to tree and urinating on each
(a small bladder was under his shirt; after each take they had people literally signified as "tree dryers").
Then shot was the scene of the arrival of the mob with the blood hounds in pick-up trucks.
I was placed in the passenger cab of the 1961 Cheverolet green pick-up truck.
I am wearing the same green NATO jacket I wore for the previous shoot, with my pick-axe.
I still wore my glasses, and as later in the day would prove, good thing too...
We broke for lunch "on time," although they almost neglected to tell us we'd been broken for lunch.
Whilst waiting for the lunch, I fell in with a pleasant fellow named
George Janek
(who, it also later turned out, at the time owned and ran a since-defunct calling service called Rapid Casting).
George and I spent much of the day finding out we had startlingly similar tastes and interests in cinema
(knowing esoteric "little known" films [Strange Brew, et al],
as well as using the same catch-phrases from them that I use...),
comedy
(Monty Python, even the Goodies, etc.),
politics,
income tax
(George was aware of the limited nature thereof but seemed thrilled to know my own seemingly substantial amount of knowledge on the subject),
the distinction between rules and laws,
etc.
Eventually after lunch, we were brought Near where we'd be filming next, although not used for some time.
Finally we were to run through a tree filled area between the roads
(more like a peninsula as the road actually curved around the little area).
One shot was done with a steadi-cam on an ATV, then a later shot with a static on-a-tripod camera around which we were to run, seeking Schneider's character.
As the day wore on, the sun bgean to go and while there was "ample" light, it made the run more difficult as there were li'l stiff tree roots sticking up over which one could easily trip.
Thaankfully with my glasses I had a better chance of missing them.
As we were off to the side later (and George and my conversation continued and we began to draw the interest of others of the mob),
they filmed Schneider running the same route "before us," and shots of the local police in the film also searching for him.
We broke and were signed out at 6:18pm.
Receiving no second meal, we deduced we'd be getting a
meal penalty bump.
As it was, we had some good overtime and a mileage bump.
We actually arrived back at the country club and our conveyances by 6:05pm.
I even made it back to Burbank in time to walk Yeller and catch the 7:00pm airing of Babylon 5.
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Saturday June 02, 2001
Screening
I saw The Animal.
While the feature was very amusing and entertaining and even funnier than I anticipated, I found they'd completely omitted pretty much every shot on which I and the rest of us had worked.
The pick-up truck arrivals were omitted, as was our running through the woods
(although the shot of Rob Schneider running the same route remained).
With Adam Sandler's cameo, it was a straight-on close up only of him: but of no one around him.
I cannot even fathom why they had the single shot filmed in the middle of nowhere
(the Topanga Canyon day),
when all one sees in the shot is Adam Sandler's face and a blurry unfocused background; it looked like a hastily filmed insert shot done in someone's backyard.
At the time I felt, at least people who've seen the week-previously released
Pearl Harbor,
released the week before, were easily able to spot me as the Dental Patient...
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Wednesday October 15, 2008
Bit more of me than I thought
The Netflixed DVD arrived.
The deleted scenes are not viewer friendly: they are situated "within" the film, accessable by an icon ironically called Badger Milk.
One has to enable this function before beginning the film, and then watch the film that way.
If you want to watch the film, ignore the icon.
To see a deleted scene that would have been around that part of the film, click on the icon, and that deleted scene comes up after a quick intro by Rob Schneider and the co-writer.
There is no Bonus Section that simply is that of the Deleted Scenes on their own.
Either way, there are no additional scenes of the mob, though the aforementioned pissing scene I saw being shot is viewable.
During the final confrontation, the DVD does show more than the theatrical version did.
On the DVD my shoulder and a bit of my head is actually visible next to Adam Sandler.
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