|
Wednesday May 21, 2008
Shoot
I checked my voice mail to learn one of my favourite casting directors was working this film, tomorrow being its second day of production.
My calling service told me I was to be a Bar Patron, and provided me with the 6pm+ hotline number, which I called Just To Hear what might be on there.
I learned merely that Wednesday the 21st was the first day of filming and it's set in a small town in Oregon.
I knew if crew parking was the same place on my shoot date as it was for its first, I would have probably little problem getting there via the MTA.
But on Monday Johnny had told me they were expecting from me "a five o'clock shadow"
(which to me meant being barely readable: the end of a day's work),
so the previous night I shaved, so to go through Wednesday and to Thursday morning looking a little scruffy.
Had I know the Oregon frame of reference, I might not have needed to shave at all; they probably would want me even scruffier.
I arrived for my 3pm calltime by 2:40pm.
The location was one at the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles, several of such at which I've worked.
While most have been near the 6th street bridge, this one actually was below the 6th street bridge.
Also playing one of the bar patrons was
Dick Post, who I met and with whom I worked on
Miss Guided.
We eventually learned
the film is a comedy,
written and directed by
Michael Samonek,
and
that the lead for this film was
Brandon Routh
(of
Superman Returns,
as well as, eventually,
DC's Legends of Tomorrow,),
and we were told that this was Day Two of their shooting schedule.
As we began to suspect after being there a short time, their lunch/dinner was served before we were even needed on set.
In the morning they'd filmed one or more boxing gym scenes.
(Remember that I do not believe in providing storyline spoilers myself [such generally becoming readily available eventually Elsewhere notwithstanding], I only convey indications of where I can be seen.)
I play a regular patron of a bar into which
Brandon's character Scott enters, soon speaking with a character named Hector
(Michael Cornacchia).
Also on hand as half of a Happy Couple
(entering the bar with Hector),
was
Martin Scott Pierron,
a friendly and gregarious young actor who also does
headshot photography.
Facing the bar from the door,
Dick Post is at the far left of the bar, while I sit to the far right at a small table with an elderly gentleman.
He and I nurse our drinks for when the camera includes us in frame, and 1st AD
Brian O'Sullivan
clarified to us how visible we were
(and when).
Keeping the crew through their paces while retaining a relatively light atmosphere, Brian was a pretty cool AD (he also was an AD on
Lower Learning,
on which Dick and I had worked).
At one point Brian had a song stuck in his head, but couldn't remember one of the words bridging a lyric; realizing what song over which he was struggling, I simply said the line, "The first time ever I saw your face," to which he gratefully realized the word
ever
was the word he could not recall.
At first they filled the tavern with smoke for haze, but after 20 minutes it was decided it either wasn't practical or it didn't work for the lighting or frame composition or such, and they stopped using it.
Thanfully we were inside when they first began to use it, and until they chose not to use it any longer, so that went onto the voucher.
There are several scenes we shot for the bar set, and in the majority of them I felt I might be visible just beyond the principals, though most likely very soft-focused.
As the evening wore on, the air on the set eventually got very very close, hot and stuffy, to the point I began not merely to drowse but slightly visibly hallucinate.
I began to see peculiar moving shadows on the floor and wondered if they were using ceiling fans.
On looking up and seeing none, I then realized I had been phasing out a bit
(unless, of course, in my heat-induced slightly altered state of consciousness, for all I know I might have been seeing
aspects of ghosts...).
As it was, I managed to keep from actually falling asleep completely while on set, but didn't hesitate getting outside in the very pleasant cool night air whenever we were asked to step out.
Those of us on our side of the bar were wrapped at 11:45pm.
|
