mid 2001
A day behind the camera
I had received a call from Jennifer at
Central Casting
regarding available for some stand-in work for a filmed TV pilot for a new series titled
other people.
Even though knowing this meant no on-screen time, I accepted and the night before got the phone number to call for information after 6pm.
She called back to tell me my calltime was 10:30am, which I didn't mind, thinking while unlikely to have any overtime, I would at least get to "sleep in" before busing to set.
Then I called the recording information hotline I learned the location was in San Pedro.
Not the first time I'd been to San Pedro: my first
commercial
and the
Thora Birch
movie
Ghost World
(for which somehow I never did write up a site-page report...),
but the first time I had a working car, the second time I shared a ride with an unreliable person who made us late as she'd refused to accept my suggestion we leave in time to be there on time...
This time thankfully I was on my own, and I got the MTA transit route online,
and I decided to take the previous bus to that of the one mta.net suggested.
It was the same communter bus I used to take when I still worked in
Eagle Rock.
The tranfer bus from downtown LA to San Pedro was twenty minutes late.
I'd not missed it: its scheduled time was 7:24am and I was there at about 6:50am.
It arrived at 7:43 or so, but got me there on its schedule time.
I was on set at 9:23am.
I surprised Allison the AD with whom I checked in, and I pointed out to her I'd prefer to be an hour early than a minute late.
I was, however, too late for catering still serving breakfast
(and I did not know the area enough with which to go and forage).
I met affable actor
Warren Sweeney
for whom I'd be standing in, who was playing the role of Joe Ellis.
They were shooting two scenes, one was a street scene
(earlier of which they'd been shooting),
and the other was a jail scene "we"
(Warren and I)
were doing with the other people series lead
Peta Wilson.
Warren was a pleasant fellow and when he learned I'd bused down, he offered that at the end of the shooting day to get me at least back to the Valley from which I could get a bus to home.
While the crew was filming a street scene a few blocks away, Warren and I relaxed, and he let me use his trailer changing-room in which not only to store my stuff, but in which to relax.
After lunch we still had a lot of time to kill; we were shuttled to the set around 2:30pm: the local court-house.
The seventh floor used to be a holding cell area of sorts.
A small ante-room area between the elevator hallway was made into an interview area with a single table and a pointing-down single light strung high up in the ceiling.
The Denmark born female stand-in Ilisse Gonzales
(her mother was Danish and her father was Spanish),
and I mostly stared at each other while cameras were focused, lights were set, etc., and eventually got comfortable enough to talking
(very)
quietly with each other while we waitied for the crew to be ready for First Team
(the principal performers: Warren as Joe and Peta Wilson as Dr. Harriet Stone).
Eventually they were changing cameras enough that Elisse and I were hopping up and down.
At one point Elisse vacated her seat as the Peta at one point wanted to sit down on her own while going over her lines, while I was still at the table.
She looked at me in mock surprise.
"How you've changed!" she exclaimed with surprised amusement, as I was not Warren.
"Yeah well, a little off the top and that'll happen," I replied pleasantly.
"What's your name?" she asked with that fabulous voice, extending her hand.
"Geoffrey," I told her, accepting her handshake.
"Pete," she introduced herself, as though I wouldn't otherwise know Peta Wilson...
The scene was very brief but it explained the series premise:
Dr. Harriet Stone explains to jailed prisoner Joe Ellis
that she's a criminologist hired by lawyers when a
[presumably nonviolent-crime]
defendant is about to be sentenced.
Essentially her job is: to the judge she puts a name and character to the otherwise faceless Case Number
(focusing towards leniency such as community service, etc.).
We finally finished at 7pm; with all the camera moves and angles I figured it should make for a dynamic li'l scene.
Towards and into the last hour Peta and director
Michael Watkins
began to get way punchy
(thankfully in a good way).
A few times humourous he decided to poke fun at me a few times, at one point jokingly accusing me of Making Too Much Noise
(when waiting to be needed, I'd be standing silently),
and later claiming my having
"been a f__king problem from the get go...!"
He burst into laughter when it took me a second to play along
(what with the fact most likely I appeared to him as a deer in headlights at such an unexpected declaration).
When we wrapped he quite warmly thanked me.
7:30pm was our official wrap time as we had to go back to the production base.
The ride home was better than we expected, considering there was a major snag on the highway
(the radio traffic report told us all about it... after we got stuck).
Fortunately local streets weren't clogged and we got up to the 101 without much trouble at all.
Warren dropped me at Ventura and Vineland from which the #150 bus got me to Van Nuys where I had time to check my
rental box
before catching the #233 north to Sherman Way where, to my surprise, the normally reliable-to-be-unreliable #163 arrived but a mere few minutes later to get me to home..
Although the series was never picked up, the pilot did air at least once and I was able to view it.
Peta Wilson |