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Thursday, May 03, 2007
I've been around the block a few times...
So on Tuesday (thankfully while still at work), my calling service informed me I was booked the next day/Wednesday on the new feature comedy Made of Honor, starring Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan. I would be playing a taxi driver.
That evening the recorded hotline provided the wardrobe for the various catagories, and respective calltimes.
I got to my 7am calltime by about 6:20am, only having to catch the Sunset Boulevard bus to the background parking area, from which people-mover shuttles brought us to the location on Vermont, right by the Los Feliz 3 theatre I enjoy frequenting.
I signed in and got my voucher, and while those with a slightly earlier calltime were told to wait for wardrobe, as I was tremendously early I was allowed to retrieve my nice hot breakfast.
In fact, by the time I was done eating, wardrobe had arrived and was looking over people's outfits and options.
I got onto the line and was deemed Fine With What [I] Had On, so my brought-along options, as generally is the case, was unneeded.
6:59am and I was already done with breakfast and wardrobe [g].
Using a cafe at the corner of Vermont and Melbourne, the street had been modified to become lower Manhattan: Bleecker Street, to be preCise.
Apparently there were moments that civilian traffic could be locked down, but most of the time they were allowed to drive by.
We had several background with cars, and about eight or ten taxicabs modified into NYC cabs picture cars.
The first I chose had a radio, but a stationary seat and its previous owner clearly was a basketball player.
I had to get another with an adjustable seat, despite its radio not working.
All the carw were wrangled by "Captain" Kirk [Rogers]: a very friendly guy whose vocal tone and mannerisms reminded me of Jason Connell.
The majority of us were given walkie-talkies with which to get directions and when to move on Action, et al.
At first I was positioned to come south from the post office, but after a take or two, they had me stopping opposite the cafe, to look for a fare that wasn't there, and then depart.
This shifted to my actually picking up a fare, but the scene would cut before I'd have to move, so he could just get out as I went around the block to reset for my starting position.
There were enough cabs to recycle through the shot/s, so if someone wasn't back at [Position] One, there were cabs still there, going by.
During one of our Not Needed Times, when we were parked at the Christian Science Church parking lot right there, eagle-eyed Rich Levier remembered me from working with me on Wild Wild West about eight and a half years ago.
During the day we discussed Star Wars and such; as I had the walkie-talkie and Kirk pretty much had me as a Cab #1 of sorts for one of the two groups of cabs, one of my responses (to Kirk relaying an estimated time for us to be ready to return and get back to going around the block), was a deliberate paraphrase: "Copy that: we'll hold up here and wait for your signal to start our run..."
Rich immediately knew to what I was referring.
One problem with a Large Call is the oft-time problem of the Problem Backgrounder.
I came across one at lunch.
Realizing there were two lunch lines, one for SAG and one for non-SAG, I wanted to clarify in which line I was.
I tend to ask Really Simple Questions, and I confess I can get a little irritated when someone returns a merely muddled and/or willfully evasive response which would not help me nor outright answer my inquiry.
"Is this the SAG line or the non-SAG line?" I ask, simply enough.
I cannot even recall his response, but it was not the answer to my question.
I tried again, even simpler: "Are you SAG or non-SAG?"
One choice or the other, how could I go wrong?
With this guy, apparently.
"Well, I dunno..." he began, unhelpfully.
"You don't know if you're SAG?" I joked, unable to resist MSTie'ing his evasive responses which were starting to annoy me.
"Well if you're gonna keep interupting..." he said, wasting more of my time I could never get back.
"It's a simple Yes or No question!" I said, a bit snappily.
He went into complete Dickweed Mode and pompously replied, "Well, now I don't even want to tell you..."
I was already bolting for the door, to see if the line was outside, or an AD who could answer my question properly.
On the proprer SAG food line, I relayed all this to Rich, who with amusement (most likely accurately), deduced the guy probably was SAG... and (wrongly) working on a non-SAG voucher...
I lost count how often we went around the local streets so as to pass through the shots done throughout the day.
Ironically, we were to obey the traffic laws, so often we had to wait for lights.
I had already found a short cut or two, thanks to alleys, and could get Back To One rather quickly, but while waiting to turn north onto Vermont, the side-street light would go red just as the take would start, leaving me unable to turn.
On the walkie, Kirk would have me inch up into the crosswalk, as at least they had control over that.
The light would change to green and off I'd go as they'd yell Cut or such.
Throughout the day Kirk kept his picture-car drivers in good spirits, continually giving us compliments and even when giving directions always did so with sincere respect.
With one of the very last takes they did, I was at the crosswalk, but being told via walkie-talkie to inch forward again.
The setting sun was now brightly right in my eyes.
Suddenly a couple enter the crosswalk, and effectively block my path.
And they just stand there, lookin'at me.
I politely but firmly gesture they should go either across or back the way they came, and the guy raises his hand, as though either waving or making the vaguest gesture to hail me, but standing at the very front of a taxi in the street may not be the safest way to hail a taxi.
Finally the two meander back to the production side, as I picked up the walkie-talkie to report: "Kirk, two pedestrians just blocked me from making the turn."
A crew member leaned to my open passenger window and told me, "That's because they were our Hero Actors."
So apparently, had I not seen them get in my way, I could have banged my taxi into Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan...
d'oh...
At the end of the day I asked Kirk if it was the film's first week, it having such a nearly bare IMDB entry.
Kirk told me it was Day One of fifty.
Earlier, around 5:30pm'ish, we learned that we would be losing our cab-holding parking lot in about an hour.
"That's not very church'y of them," I quipped.
Kirk came to the lot as another, new girl, made my exact same comment [bg]...!
Kirk had me use the nearby alley as a "staging area," and we headed over, only to find it lead into a tiny parking lot at which valets for a restaurant found their lot being overwhelmed with vehicles.
I'd gotten in early and had a good, facing-out spot, but others found themselves almost blocked in immediately.
In my turning around, I did notice another side alley, which later when I had to come back to the Staging Area Alley, I used with which to get back to my parking spot along the curb.
We had been told much earlier from Kirk that we'd be there "pretty much until it got dark," which is always okay by me; we got some beaucoup overtime, a nice mileage bump, a good meal, etc., and were wrapped at 7:3pm.
One drawback was they only really had the one people-mover shuttle, having a batch of us waiting around.
Rich had already offered to drive me home, but we had to get to his car back at background parking.
Technically we could have walked it: I'd walked the same distance, twice, the previous Saturday when I considered seeing The Hoax and Grindhouse back to back, at the Los Felix 3 and then at the Vista.
I'd found I'd done it backwards and did not do so: had I bought a 4:20 ticket at Los Feliz for Hoax, the matinee price would have held, as it does until 6pm.
The Vista I learned (to which I walked to buy its 4:30pm ticket for Grindhouse), the Vista has a single matinee: first showing only.
D'oh! So I walked back to Los Feliz 3 and only saw the very entertaining The Hoax.
Despite the "easy" walk, Rich decided to wait, which was fine: we would have been maybe 95% of the way there before the next shuttle had brought the next batch of people.
Had I been on my own, I would have just walked down to Hollywood Boulevard (if there was no 180 or 181 in sight), and caught the 217 bus west.
As it was, meanwhile Dickweed-Lunchtime guy (I'm presuming it was the same guy as I'd hate to think there were two such unprofessionals on this shoot), was waiting for the same second shuttle.
He was already whining like a three year old when the previous shuttle wouldn't let him on board as all the seats were taken and it's not a public bus.
So he starts declaring they should give us a new Out Time, as the out time usually reflects the time to get back to one's car.
I pick my battles: a five minute difference won't reap me massive amounts added to the earnings.
So the Dickweed goes back inside.
The shuttle arrives and fills up.
Dickweed returns and insists the shuttle wait for three more people (who he had enrolled to go in to have their Out Times changed).
The driver camethisclose to just closing the door in the jerk's face (as he wasn't getting on board, begging the driver to wait), but the driver, to the annoyance of all on board, did wait, and they came along.
At least wile we were waiting, we got to see some photographer trying to take (I presume), Patrick Dempsey's photo, as the actor drove his convertible onto the street to leave.
A "security guard" (the sort who wears his cap like a rapper, but mainly it just makes him look like he's mentally challenged and/or drunk), kept leaping like a basketball player to block the shot, so to speak.
Amusingly, the persistant photographer was doing his own leaping, and once Dempsey was on the street (fair game), the guy ran to get another try, but the drunk-looking "security guard" chased him!
Gods! Once out of the parking lot, the guard lost ALL jurisdiction, real or imagined, over preventing the photographer from getting a shot! Now true, Dempsey could have turned left to avoid being stopped at the light, but he didn't.
We could not see what went on after the two ran away.
All I could think was how quickly one becomes drunk with power: give a rapper wanna-be a baseball cap and a wind-breaker, both of which have the word Security printed in white letters, and he thinks he's got authority over the public in public places...
The photographer did not trespass: he had every right to take a photo once Dempsey was on a public street.
So anyway, Dickweed "actor" proudly announced that they Took Their Names (eg, did not actually change their vouchers).
I'm hoping the list of names gets back to Central that those three or four are Troublemakers, and stop being used where professionals are required.
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