Sunday April 05, 2012
Booked
On Facebook I came across a post seeking background for an AFI film with the title The Painting. Apart from the standard copy, credit, all-day crafty; additional compensation for the two-day call would also include two professional head shots (a professional photographer would be on set).
With an apparent fast production turnaround, the film is to be screened May second and third "with 140 producers and directors," though no specific clarification if that meant a hundred and forty actual Working Industry Producers and Directors, or "just" AFI producer and director film-making students...
An email was provided and I submitted. Very soon the same evening I received a reply from Hamzah Saman, CEO of Arab American Casting (as well as being a SAG-AFTRA actor), thanking me for submitting and confirming my being booked, that he would keep me updated, and he suggested I register at Arab American Casting, though the site was having a Fatal Memory issue, so I figured I'd have to try again in a day or three (I did notify him of the problem, and provided the bug report for his webmaster, if someone else is handling the site).
I went to and LIKEd their Facebook page, as well as politely Followed their Twitter account.
The shoot was scheduled for Sunday and Monday April 15 and 16; it would be upscale, and while in my submission email I asked if this means "just" a suit, or a tuxedo, Hamzah did not address that. I decided that that meant that that would be addressed in the kept "updated" aspect.

Saturday April 14, 2011
Upgrade
Project producer Cindy Li emailed out the callsheet (as an Excel spreadsheet as opposed to a .pdf file), which gave a noon calltime, but her accompanying email clarified actors' calltimes was 12:30pm. I emailed back to confirm and tongue-in-cheekingly pointing out that my name on the callsheet, "Gefforey," was an all-new misspelling of my name. Cindy preplied, letting me know it was corrected.
I got a call from the project's second AD Brendan Geraghty, indicating that one of the principals had dropped from the project, and asked whether I might be interested in the role of Elder Man (even before he said it, having read the script, I knew the role had a few lines). Understandably I agreed, and as I did not have my computer on and its booting up time isn't exactly stellar, I couldn't just leap to the file from when Cindy emailed it out to everyone. Brendan suggesting re-emailing it. Amusingly but thankfully, Brendan's email confirming my doing the role to which I replied to confirm, actually lacked the attached script, the copy of which I already had, so I had his email without it taking up a lot of Inbox space.
Still mispronouncing my name, Brendan called back again to make sure I was aware of the calltime change from 2pm to 12:30pm. I politely pointed out my name being pronounced Jeffrey, not Joffrey.
Literally only a few minutes before I went to log onto Skype for my weekly live online radio show, I got a call from the project's wardrobe designer. Not overly having many options, I endevoured to describe the outfit I tend to wear in student films that passes for pretentious as well as scholarly... or at least, academic perhaps.
The callsheet stressed to have lunch before the shoot, but that dinner would be provided; I figured I'd just eat at Wendys before heading downtown. I also noticed on the callsheet that the film was being directed by Ashley Monti, not Hamzah Saman, who previously I thought was the film's director. In fact, he name appeared nowhere on the callsheet, but then, it didn't list wardrobe either.

Sunday April 15, 2012
Shoot Day 1
I arrived at the Terrell Moore Gallery location at about 1:45am for my 12:30pm calltime.
This was a mistake.
By 2:45pm they were about ready to start shooting, and it was not until about 5pm+ that some of us hanging out were brought to set.
To a great extent, for a student film, this was something of a grueling day for some. When it was learned we could go as late as midnight, and a rumour of maybe 1am, some of the actors began to revolt, some of whom declared their intent not to return the next day and/or a paying gig having come up. One actress had a morning fitting to which she'd have to go, and as she'd been originally promised a 10pm-out, she left around that time. Being nearly 10pm in downtown LA, and with parking being a few blocks away, she was shuttled there for her saftey.
At least when I wasn't chatting with someone, I did finish reading Terry Goodkind's fourteenth book in his brilliant Sword of Truth series, The Omen Machine.
I met Brendan, indicating there were two Brendan Geraghtys on imdb, and he confirmed my suspicion that neither one of them was he.
During the day I chatted with producer-student Sabrina Cooper, who for this production was handling craft services (thankfully, as she had on hand snacks that held me over as, the production bafflingly chose Thai food as the catered dinner, I was therefore Officially un-fed, and I had crafty with which to eat); Sabrina was a fellow fan of True Blood and proper vampires in general. Being from Louisiana and interested in vampires, it was not surprising she was mutual friends with Lord Chaz of Bite Me! Vampire Radio and well-publicized New Orleans ghost-tours.
I also befriended friendly actress Allison Stover who Facebook-friended me, and sadly was not available to return on Monday.
I'd met producer Cindy Li and director Ashley,, and my main bit was shot after about eleven hours, at the very tail end of the night (why does this tend to "always" be the case...?), in which I, along with three gallery matrons (e.g., also supporting roles with lines), admire the title-role'd Painting in the gallery.
We wrapped at 12:07am. Earlier, around 7 or 8pm or so, 2nd 2nd AD Zach Hall, had asked who might be able to stay That Late (to midnight); I accepted, but stressed by that time I would need a ride back to Hollywood. As Zach is domiciled in Glendale, he immediately agreed to drive me home, and at the end of the night hastened to get done his paperwork. As the very pleasant 1st AD Jaddod Conception was thanking me for the day, I half-joked for him to release Zach so he could drive me home, instantaneously at which Zach was released.
We walked the few streets over to the parking lot, not bothering to wait around to be shuttled over, and while the affable Zach got me back by about 12:35am, he and I compared in-retrospect-amusing Bad Roommate stories, among other anecdotes.
We'd been told to our horror that calltime again would be 12:30pm, but automatically checking my email before turning in, Cindy had notified us all it was changed to 1:30pm (on the callsheet my name still misspelled as Gefforey); replied to my tongue-in-cheek email pointing out it had not been corrected yet, she assured me in the film's end credits my name would accurately be spelled correctly.

Monday April 16, 2012
Location issues
Fortunately before I had to head out to the second day of shooting, Zach gave me a call to notify me that the gallery is having some issues with the production, so the short is now On Hold until they find another venue in which to shoot. This also strongly implied everything so far filmed has to be reshot; Zach assured me I'd be called when they were ready with a New Place.
Fortunately, he called back a short time later than Everything Was Back On, and that my calltime was pushed an hour and a half. When I pointed out the callsheet for today said 1:30pm, we realized he was operating under it having been 12:30pm, so it was actually 2pm calltime.
Cindy email-blasted the notice about production being Back On, and that calltimes were 30 minutes after our callsheet calltime, confirming the 2pm calltime. Interestingly enough, this was a follow-up email to one I had not received in which the On Hold had been sent (as text from the previous email was included in this one); had Zach not called, I'd have been unaware of it (had the production not been back on).
The Blue Line would arrive at 2pm, which connects directly with a small walkway to the gallery, so I chose that one, to arrive "spot on time" for once as opposed to Very Early, aware that timewise, such would have been counterproductive.
Branden called to re-confirm, and completely understood my arriving at 2pm or a few minutes after; as it was, predictably, we didn't get before the camera until 3pm.
Today went a bit smoother, relatively. There was a drunkard who wasn't actually part of the production, but he knew people of the production, and it appeared he may have somehow been associated with the gallery. He was one of those unpredictable drunks; one wasn't sure if he was just obvoxiously loud or could turn violent, considering his frequent shouting, sudden explitive outbursts.
Today I was prepared; when the same Thai food was provided "as lunch," I had brought with me peanut butter sandwiches I'd made at home. I'm not really faulting them; I'm sure from a cost-effective standpoint it was practical, despite still being Thai food.
We finally wrapped at 10pm. Alex the photographer, took a photo of me with Ashley in front of the "title role" of the Painting. To my knowledge no one really did the Two Headshot deal. I just made it over a few blocks to the single bus to get me back, as opposed to two trains and either the same bus or a few blocks' walk.

Saturday April 28, 2012
ADR
Western was being re-asphalted, making traffic a nightmare. Fortunately for me, I was on foot, so I arrived at the SDAC building at AFI for my 10am ADR calltime at 9:40am. Ashley came in after a few moments, conveying they were setting up, so I remained in the lobby waiting area for a few minutes while two of the other scheduled principals arrived. Ashley returned and escorted me to a small permanent trailer next to the main SDAC building.
Unlike the LA Film School or USC, I was surprised that for the American Film Institute, this was not exactly high-end, almost like someone's make-shift sound-studio in a garage, but I was assured it was soundproof (the door being open and blocked with a blanket notwithstanding).
Unlike ADR I've previously done, here was just a laptop with the edited, pre-colour corrected footage of my scene. Normally I wear a headset to hear the voice, but this time her sound guy wore it, while I lip-synced the line after hearing and repeating it a few times. Thankfully I'm really good with audio, so I was able to match up the line with only two or three repeats, and I was done.
Thanking me again, Ashley indicated the film would be screening Friday May fourth.
As per the advice of my friend Bobby Reed, before leaving campus I went over to where ongoing film students have mail-slots, and into each director and producers' mail-slot I added my calling card.