Northwest Authoress

Blog change

2008-06-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone. So, I've decided to switch to a different blog site. My new blog's at: http://shawnabuchanan.wordpress.com/ Might want to change your bookmarks.

Kittens!

2008-04-13T22:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, so I got a couple kittens. Got them over a week ago, actually, so they're about eight and a half weeks old now. Their names are Lorcan and Lysander, and anyone who can guess where I got the names without looking it up gets extra-special-bonus points.

As you can imagine, they're keeping me pretty busy. Otherwise, things are pretty normal. I'm working my way through Throne of Jade, the second in a series of fantasy novels by Naomi Novik. Quite good, actually. Dragon-riders fighting Napoleon. Pretty unique, and well-written. Yep, that's about it for now.

There's no place like it

2007-09-21T09:07:00.000-07:00

I have been in a bit of a slump of late. I haven’t been out of the house to do anything besides work and run errands for at least a few weeks and things have been pretty boring, all considered. So, Tuesday night I just thought, darn it, I wanna be on “House”. So, on Wednesday, I was. What’s funny is that I’m only slightly exaggerating how easy it was.

The unfortunate thing was that I got off work a little after two a.m. and my call time was at nine. So, I went home, took a shower, ate, puttered around on the computer a bit, got ready, and left. I left at 6:30 so as to be there early, especially given morning traffic in L.A. Which was a good thing, because by the time I drove the 13 or so miles into L.A. (which took over 45 minutes), parked, put my makeup on, waited for the shuttle, rode the shuttle over to Fox studios, got past security, and walked to Stage 15, I pretty much had time to meet the people that were there and be friendly for a few minutes before we were being called to check in.

Walking from the gate to the stage, I walked through a fake street complete with fake shops and what looked like a fake bar, where several people and a large machine seemed to be creating some other bit of setwork. As I wandered in the direction that security guy at the gate had told me, I got a friendly greeting from one person, and a quite obviously gay fellow noticed my lost-looking-ness and pointed me more specifically to the right building.

I saw another extra standing outside and he told me that there was a place to sit inside. So, I went in, walking through the corridor created by the wall of the soundstage and the bare wooden backs of the set doors, occasionally catching glimpses of tile hospital floors and doors labeled “Exam Room” which humorously led nowhere (or, in at least one instance, into the extras holding area).

The holding area was at the end of the building and around the corner a bit, in what was some sort of false exterior. There were brick-looking walls which had fake ivy hung along it, a stone-looking bench on the side opposite the building, and a woodsy exterior backdrop hung behind that. The main area was like the outside of the hospital, with a sort of enclosure with benches and such. Big glass windows and doors gave us a good view of a big interior set. I think it was where the clinic part was, or the lobby for the clinic. I’m not sure.

When I arrived, there were four other people sitting there. One of them, a middle-aged black man named Glen, immediately assured me that I was in the right place (clearly also noticing my lost and confused expression) and introduced me to the other three. From this and his casual demeanor I gathered that he had been on this show fairly often, so I asked if they were regulars, which he confirmed. He was very friendly and greeted some of the other extras with hugs as they arrived. There was also a woman around my age named Francis, as well as two men whose names I can’t remember. After that, it was hard to tell who all the other regular extras were, but there seemed to be several.

Soon the guy in charge of us came in, very down-to-business. He was short and wore sunglasses the whole time so that even when he was looking in my direction, I couldn’t tell if he was actually looking at me. As he made his announcements, the first thing he said was to remind us that “House” is an Emmy winning show and that that’s because of their high standards. He told us when it was on and said that it was watched by 4.2 million people every week (I believe that was the number) and that we would have 4.2 million people watching us, which made me smile, because of course they aren’t going to be watching us. Background actors are not meant to be noticed, provided we do our jobs right. Then he laid down some ground rules, such as: don’t move the cameras, don’t plug any electronic devices in on set, don’t go into Hugh’s trailer and ask him to speak to your wife on the phone. I was nearly laughing at all these, because who would be stupid enough to do such things, or why would one need or want to? But Glen was laughing, too, because, he said, all of those things had happened. He wouldn’t expound on that except to say that someone had plugged their laptop in, it surged and got fried, and they tried to sue the studio, so they couldn’t have any working outlets on set or something.

Soon after, we got our vouchers, then got sent to wardrobe. I followed Francis, as I didn’t know where the wardrobe trailer was, and she was nice about letting me. I had brought some changes of clothes just to be safe (because they say we’re supposed to bring at least two options) but I knew I was going to be a nurse and they would dress me in scrubs, so it was pretty pointless. So, the wardrobe lady gave me some scrubs to wear and I went and changed in the bathroom, then returned to holding. Not long after, they sent us to props, where we stood around waiting for some time for the props guy to show up. When he did, I just got handed a plastic bag with a stethoscope, pen, one of those little flashlight thingies they use to look in people’s eyes, a radiation monitor, and two ID badges. I couldn’t quite figure out why I would need two ID badges, so I just picked the one that looked the most appropriate.

We all went back and waited in holding some more, where we all sat and talked. There was a great deal of amused chatter about something that had happened the day before, when a male extra who had been told he would be playing a patient was told to sit on a table and put his feet up in stirrups. He was, obviously, quite surprised by the stirrups, and the people were like, “Oh, they didn’t tell you? You’re having a testicle removed.” Evidently he took it in stride, though, even when he was informed that the show “Extra” was also there and filming, as well.

I was sitting on a wooden bench in a group with some other people in chairs. One was a middle-aged woman who plays the head nurse. She certainly seemed to know a lot and I wondered if she was an actual nurse (a lot of times they’ll have someone who’s an R.N. on set in a small role like that, in case there are technical questions). There was also a black woman and a woman with dyed red hair (which looked like it was originally brunette), both of whom seemed about in their thirties. The conversation was...rather serious. Most of it seemed to revolve around cancer, baldness, and wigs. At one point, the red-haired woman complained about her knee and brought out a brace and I said, “Oh, is something wrong with your knee?” She just said yes, but didn’t elaborate. Considering they had just been discussing cancer, I was afraid to pursue that topic any further. As I asked the older lady some questions about my appearance, I noticed some differences between this show and others that I’ve worked on. I mentioned how the people on “Monk” had fixed my hair for me when it was frizzy and she said, “Oh, they would have just sent you home.” They do seem to be very focused and professional on this show, as one of the extras told me (to be precise, the exact word she used was “anal”). But I was quite glad for my investment in a straightening iron several weeks ago. It helps to tame my nigh on Hermione-esque look and helps me achieve, if not a Fleur, then at least a Ginny, whereas on my best days without it, the most I can hope for is a Luna.

Finally, we were called and led over two Stage 14, where a little buffet area was laid out with breakfast. We were told we had ten minutes to eat before we were needed on set. Of course, he had previously said in his little speech that ten minutes on this show can mean thirty seconds, and I didn’t really feel like wolfing something down (and I wasn’t really hungry, despite not having eaten in about nine hours), so I just had a sip of water.

Shortly thereafter, we were told to go around the corner to the lobby. So, around the corner I went and found myself in the hospital lobby, where the nurses station sat in the middle (I’m assuming, as it had a sign that said “Nurses Station” on it. I would have guessed “Nurses’ Station” would be more appropriate, but what do I know from hospitals?). A woman was running around, telling all of us where to go, what points to move between, giving us “business”. There was probably 25 or so extras, so it took her a while and she was still running around even as they were setting up the shots. I was told to walk with another woman from near the hallway at one corner to the other corner, hang a left, then proceed down and through the doors at the other end, then to just sort of keep moving around in the back after that (as there were glass walls which could be seen through if the camera pointed that direction).

The woman I was walking with was middle-aged and dressed like a doctor. Her name was Leoni. I asked her how much she’d done this and she said a few years. Sounds like she’s already been with this show since at least the second season, probably the first. Considering the greetings she got from several crew members, who knew her by name (as was true with several of the other regulars; the director talked to the “head nurse” lady by name), that wasn’t too hard to believe. I asked her if her family watches the show and she said that her mother does, though it took her a while to learn how to watch the background and listen to the story. I suggested one almost needs to watch it through once, then watch it again.

While standing around the lobby, I took note of a few amusing things regarding the set. For example, the vertical blinds (at least in some cases; I did not inspect them all) in the large windows between the lobby and individual rooms are not actually normal vertical blinds. Instead of being made of whatever blinds are made of, they’re a sort of stiff mesh, so that, when closed, they don’t so much provide privacy as a minor blockage of light. When looking at the windows from the lobby, one thinks for a moment that one is only seeing a reflection, but soon realizes that no, the inside is just tinted. Also, the lovely water fountains in the glass wall area, which normally you see as panes of textured glass or stone which water flows down, are not glass at all, but also mesh.

As we stood there, I heard something that sounded like a rock falling to the floor, and looked over to see a piece of gum had fallen near the nurses station, presumably having been stuck there some time ago and only released now that it was sufficiently hard and dry. Kind of gross, actually. No one else seemed to notice it, but eventually Leoni just went over and kicked it out of the middle of the floor. In another part of the set, I also saw a fairly sizeable cricket, which no one else appeared to notice, but kind of weirded me out to see.

The most amusing person on set to watch, I almost think, was the DP (Director of Photography). He was this oldish cockney fellow who sort of shuffled around with his face seeming to always point at the floor and everything he said appeared to take great effort. Ever sentence sounded so strained, like he was trying to push it out through vocal chords that weren’t quite up to the task.

Hugh Laurie came out while we were all still getting set up and just sort of stood around, preparing for the scene, looking at sides (miniature script pages of the scene being shot), that sort of thing. He’s really quite tall. Well, taller than actors tend to be, anyway. And it’s a horrible thing to say, but it really does look as if his face is slowly melting off of his skull. But that’s one definition of aging, I suppose. He was never an incredibly handsome man and his long, thin face only exacerbates the effect. Definitely a person whose appeal does not lie in looks alone. Though he’s not, you know, bad looking or anything. But he’s just plain awesome, anyway, so what does that matter? One interesting thing I noticed is that, even between takes, when he was talking to the director and such, he never dropped the accent. Some of the extras were commenting on this earlier, as well. I suppose it helps to stay in character. Sorta surprising, though.

The scene involved House and some other doctor I didn’t recognize having a walk-and-talk, coming down a hallway I couldn’t see, turning past the glass wall area, walking through the lobby, then stopping by the nurses station and talking. I couldn’t hear most of what they were saying, just enough to gather that they were arguing over the results of some boy’s tests (which didn’t seem all that unusual) and at the beginning, before they turn the corner and I’m busy with my very professional walking-from-one-place-to-another, the doctor says something to which House replies, “Absolutely,” then the doctor says something else and House says, “Absolutely not.” Now I’m curious what the other guy was saying.

They were also being followed by a guy with a camera. Apparently, in this episode, someone’s making a documentary at the hospital. After our first take, the director told us all that we should “notice” the camera (which made sense, as it’s not really usual to see a guy with a video camera following doctors around a hospital) and that the first time it looked like we were all just determinedly walking to our destination. I rather liked that it gave us something more to do. I decided that I was a grumpy nurse, that I did not approve of the camera. Over the course of several takes, Leoni and I got our act worked out pretty well. We timed our walk so that we would walk directly in the path of the doctors (and thus, the camera) when it was close enough for us to reasonably see and react to. We would pretend to be making some sort of comments to each other, which would allow me the opportunity to, looking at her, look past her and notice the camera. While she looked at it, then back at me in perplexed way, I carefully scowled disapprovingly at it, then looked at her in an “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I don’t think I much care for it” way, as we continued on our way, she split off and then I walked through the doors.

Watching this room full of people just standing in random positions, then moving as the actors approached, as if they’d been moving all along, quite amused me. It reminded me, yet again, of how fake this all is. In real life, when you walk into a room, people don’t just start going about your business because you walked in. It made me think of something like “The Truman Show” and how funny it would be if that happened, if you found out that whenever you left a room, people stopped putting on the show of being busy and it was only when you entered again that they acted normally, that otherwise everyone was just standing around, waiting with bated breath for you to enter. I made mention of this to Leoni, and how our job could rather be described as “professional mover-about”, to which she agreed. If one were to go to a career day at a child’s school, it could be described very excitingly (“I work in close quarters with famous celebrities on well-known movies and TV shows.”) or very boringly (“I sit around, do nothing, and wait, then walk across a room from one point to another...for twelve hours a day.”). It’s all in perception.

Once while I was walking back to my first position, I saw Hugh looking about with quite a serious expression on his face and I suppose some part inside me took it as a challenge, because a thought flitted through my mind: “I could out-scowl him.” I know Dad doesn’t seem to hold much of my scowling abilities, but I daresay I can conjure up a mean one when I want to. I shall have to get an agent and tell them I want a part on “House” ...anyone unpleasant.

Often when I walked back to my spot, I’d pass Glen, who would start walking girlishly in an obvious attempt to good-naturedly tease me about my walk. Once I asked him, “Are you making fun of the way I walk?” but he didn’t answer. Though one time he did clap me on the shoulder and say how good it was to see a tall woman there (he was fairly tall, himself). There was at least one other tall female extra, but I take his point. Tall actresses are even more scarce than tall actors.

We sat around a while by the mesh waterfalls while they were moving stuff around, setting up to film with the big camera on the dolly and all, and I chatted with this pretty young black woman, a bit younger than me, perhaps, about shows we watch and such. She’s a writer, as well, and was telling me some of the sort of stuff she writes.

Soon they told us to get into our positions, or rather to figure out where we would be when the actors are at a certain point. Leoni and I figured out we had to cheat forward a bit due to the location of the cameras, but we worked it out. While we were standing there waiting, we observed a crew guy who was holding House’s cane, swinging it a bit as it dangled from his hand. I mentioned that I liked the flames at the bottom and she concurred with my amusement at the irony of it, like a turtle with racing stripes. Even at the time I realized how completely pointless our conversation was, but it’s not like there was anything more stimulating to talk about at the time. When that subject grew old, we looked over and noticed the makeup lady touching up Hugh, so we watched that and I remarked how impressive it was that hey could just make a few minor changes, use a brush here and there, add a bit of darkness under the eyes, and it didn’t seem to make any difference at all, except it made all kinds of difference. Later, the hair lady did much the same thing and I smiled in amusement as she delicately brushed small sections of hair back in what seemed an utterly futile manner. Never having been one to know much about either hair or makeup, I suppose I’m a bit impressed and befuddled by the artistry that goes into such things.

As the director (or rather, whoever it was that commands such things, as it seems to rarely be the director, who apparently stays in another room watching monitors most of the time) called the various commands that equated to a countdown to “action”, Hugh looked around, then darted from the room. I listened to the guy get closer to calling “action”, wondering when he’d realize the star was not there any more, and supposed even before anyone said anything that he was looking for his errant cane (which had apparently wandered off by itself whilst no one was looking). Finally, the lady who had told us all where to stand rushed over and handed it to Hugh, who was somewhere behind the glass wall area, and we were ready to go.

And that was it. One little scene. Then it was back to holding. We sat around for a while longer, growing quite hungry as it was around noon by that time. Finding myself to be quite exhausted from not sleeping that night and apparently not getting enough sleep the nights before, I even curled up for a bit of a nap on the bench. I awoke to names being called by the short guy in sunglasses, and a large percentage of our group were taken back to set. Rather bummed to not be going back myself, I looked at the clock to discover it was about 1:00. A bit later, the guy came back and called some more names, but these were people to be sent home because they weren’t needed any more. I wasn’t in this group either, for which I was glad. As I said to one of the other extras after the guy left, I had hoped to get at least one more scene in. I cracked open my copy of Eragon, read about a sentence, and heard my name called. I jumped up, hoping he was going to send me to set. To my disappointment, he said they decided to let one more person go home and for some reason I was it. Now quite bummed, I returned my props and costumes handed in my voucher. The guy may have been quite serious and professional, but at least he was also polite, thanking me and bidding me a good day as I left.

It was probably for the best in the long run, for I was quite thoroughly exhausted and also it allowed me to not miss any work that night which I would have been forced to make up on the weekend. But it left me feeling sort of like I’d gotten an appetizer, then sent home without dinner or dessert. Just a taste...certainly enjoyable, but not really satisfying. I must try to get on that show again.

4.5

2007-08-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

We had an earthquake last night while I was at work. It was weird. For a moment, I thought something had jarred my cubicle until I saw all the ones down the aisle shaking. Didn't last long or do any damage, but it made me get up and go, "What was that?". Even when I walked down the aisle a little ways it still shook. Very weird.

Also, I went ice skating this weekend. Trish invited Erica and I to go with her church group, so we did. Erica wasn't thrilled with it, though, so she just hung back after a brief, four-foot sojourn onto the ice. I was a bit scared at first, having only been ice skating once before, but I caught on after a lap or two. It's like rollerblading, only harder. The trick is to keep your weight primarily on one foot at a time and keep your balance. Still, I managed to get one fall in right before we had to get off. I expected bruising, but was suprised to find very little. I suspect it may be these supplements Mom insists I take.

My ex-roommate Michelle is in town, so we're supposed to hang out today.

Hopefully I can get some interesting pics to put up soon.

Harry Potter

2007-07-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

So, after 2 hours of waiting in line and 22 hours of reading (with occasional breaks to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom), I finished the latest and last Harry Potter book. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but if you've read it, totally call or IM me so we can chat 'cause I have a whole lot more thoughts. But here's the main bits...

Too much of the Golden Trio. Way, way too much. Like, the whole middle half. It totally dragged. WTF was that? Reminded me of the boring parts of The Two Towers, where Frodo, Sam and Gollum are just wandering around grouching at each other. Like I need to read about that much teenage angst.

Not nearly enough Snape, Hogwarts, etc. Seriously, why couldn't she tell us more about that. Or rather, show us!

Two words: body count. I mean, really, was that necessary? I got a headache from crying so much.

On the plus side, there were a few positively hillarious parts, like this line from Hermione (near the beginning): "Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabe and Goyle, Harry." O_o And the kinky H/Hr shippers go crazy. Actually, there are several lines for shippers of hopeless ships. Speaking of which...

1) This book provides so very much fanfic fodder, simply because there is such an incredible amount that is hardly developed or explained at all. An entire book of equal length (and probably a much more interesting one) could be written just from Neville's point of view.

2) This book, in so very many ways, practically WAS fanfic. Lupin's freakout...seemingly random, pointless killings...the eleventh hour reappearance of minor characters we haven't seen for several books...not to mention the entire epilogue, which is pretty much an ending I've read about a dozen times in fanfic already.

Oh, yeah, and not nearly enough of a wrap-up. But like I said, I'd be thrilled to discuss it at length with anyone after they've read it. Let me just add this..."I so called that."

P.S. Just watched Little Miss Sunshine this morning. Very, very good movie. I actually can't think of anything negative to say about that film. It's quite excellent

Ugh

2007-06-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. My throat is killing me. I can barely talk. I'm missing work. I have no sick days, so I'll have to make them up on a weekend. This sucks.

The un-undead

2007-06-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went with my new roommate Trish and some of her friends to work on a shoot for a film that is directed by one of Trish’s friends (or friend’s friends). It’s a horror/sci-fi flick along the lines of those “Sci-Fi Original Pictures” such as “Mansquito”, “Larva”, and “Boa vs. Python”. The title was “Evilution”. From what the director told us, the plot is basically this: there’s some alien substance that is brought back to Earth, found to be dangerous, and destroyed. One of the scientists studying it escapes with a small portion in order to continue research in an old hospital. A junkie breaks in and shoots up with the stuff. He’s infected and the disease spreads. Whatever this disease is, it turns people into some animalistic type of creature that preys on humans. The heroes have to fight these things all through the hospital.

So, we arrived shortly after seven at what is supposedly the most haunted place in LA. It was certainly old and run-down, at least, with wallpaper peeling off the walls, underground tunnels with pipes running through them, and lots and lots of abandoned rooms. A very cool place to shoot a movie, I’d say.

We were sent to wardrobe first, where I was given a hideously 80’s floral top, which I just put on over my clothes. Then was make-up, where a student make-up artist made me all splotchy and veiny. We went outside, where someone else spurted us with some fake blood, which she did by spitting it at us with a straw. When she got my back, she told me to pull my hair out of the way, as she didn’t want to spray it directly on my hair...which will be rather ironically humorous in a moment.

We waited around a bit outside, in the holding area, until a couple guys came out. One gave us the run-down on what we were and what we were going to be doing. We weren’t actually zombies, he informed us, but sort of animalistic creatures who are still trying to get used to these bodies. He was very specific that we were *not* zombies. Just, you know, inhuman creatures that wanted to eat the main characters. Totally different. The other guy had a cup of really thick, gooey fake blood and a thick brush, which he used to apply the blood to various parts of our face. For me, he covered my entire neck and mouth area. He even brushed it directly into my hair. I really think I had the most blood of any of the extras, but it was cool. I didn’t mind it that much. Sure, it was sticky and annoying, but I was having too much fun to care.

We were taken to the set, which for the first bit was the bottom of a staircase. Our job was to run down it, slowly dying from the fog that was going to be around us, until we collapsed dead. This was quite a bit of fun. It was much easier on the first take, when I had to die at the bottom, past a door. Then they decided they wanted all of us farther up, so as we went down, we all just kind of slowly died in a big pile. It was a madhouse. We’re all snarling and acting all animalistic. Someone behind me spit on my arm, but that was only to be expected. Before each take, they had someone coming around to spray our teeth black, and someone else to shove molasses in our mouths, which we were to drool out during the take. It was rather unpleasant and messy, but there was something kind of fun about being able to shamelessly drool all over yourself, not caring if it got on your hair, your clothes, not bothering to wipe it off.

After we got that scene, we went outside to wait a bit more. We sat and chatted for a bit. At one point, one of the actors (Tim or Jim, I think) came and sat at our table, introduced himself, then almost immediately ran off to go do something else. I’m not quite sure what that was about, but it was nice of him to say hi. He had apparently met one of Trish’s friends (Brett) before, though Brett didn’t remember the actor’s name, so he was glad he introduced himself again.

So, we waited a bit more and then the guy came out again. He picked three of us: me, another of Trish’s friends (Joe), and a guy with braces, named whose full name was Diego Diego. He explained to us what we would be doing. In a hallway, the two actors (Tim/Jim and a young Hispanic guy) would run by, then we came around a corner and chased them, then we got a door slammed in our faces and we fought at it trying to get out. I got picked to be the one in front, which made me happy.

The guy that brought us in explained what was going on and talked some while we waited. He said something about one funny scene might be something like if he came up and kissed me and then turned into a not-a-zombie, which I didn’t quite follow, but thought was odd. Then he asked if he could take his picture with me with his phone, which was amusing.

Man, that scene was so fun to shoot. The actors run out and at the signal, I run out after them, chasing them a short way down the hallway and when he slams the door, I grab the handle to keep it shut, while banging on it like I want to get out. The guys behind me banged a bit as well, and we were all growling and snarling and acting like ravenous animals (what they had told us was that we were wanting to eat and our food was running away), so we’re all acting like we want to eat the actors. There was a small window in the door, through which I was looking at them. It was so cool. The Hispanic actor, especially, had this great look of fear which was just so easy to react to. It really helps in feeling scary when someone’s looking at you in fear. Every time they said “cut” and I walked away, I saw that I’d managed to get drool all over the door. I kinda thought they’d clean it up, but they never did. I even got drool all over my hand, from banging the door once I’d drooled on it. Once, while running, I slipped and fell, then got back up right in front of the door. At the time, I thought I’d messed it up, but the guy I mentioned this to was like, “Well, you’re supposed to be not quite in control of your body, anyway. Plus then you pop up in the window, which would be scary.” So, it probably looked fine, anyway. I’m curious which take they’ll use. After one take, I looked at my wrist, where I’d been banging the door, and there was this bump. I was like, uh-oh. So, after we were done, the guy took me to the medic, who rubbed some cream on it. It’s still a bit swollen now, and it’s a big bruise, but doesn’t hurt or anything, so it’ll probably be fine. My knees are all bruised up from banging at the door, too. I was really going at it. After one of the takes, the Hispanic actor, as he was going back to the starting point, told me, “You were so f***ing scary. That was f***ing awesome.” So, that was cool.

We went out for a bit and were soon brought back in. First, it was just the three of us. We did another bit where we’re fighting at the door. Then the rest of the extras were brought in behind us. We were all given more teeth spray and molasses. As I’m standing there, absolutely disgusting, drooling molasses, another one of the crew guys goes, “If I don’t hit on you right now, you’ll understand.” A couple seconds later, I looked over at Trish and she goes, “You’re so hot.” Ah, the fun of irony. So, the next bit was just that we finally get the door open and all rush out and down the staircase. At first, we tried it with a verbal cue, but the guy signaling me couldn’t hear it much over all the growling sounds and I couldn’t hear him over them. Now, they wanted to keep those sounds (and really, it’s so much easier to be in character when you can make them), so they tried having him holding the door, so he could let go and not have me do it. Apparently that didn’t work all that well, either. Then we tried it with me doing it and they’d give me a visual cue to open the door. Except that it took me a moment to see the cue, then when I did, the door was really a bit stuck, and slippery as well, so it was a few seconds before I got it open. When I tried to explain after that take, they said it was fine. I think they’re just gonna cut it so that it’s not really important.

We waited around for a while afterward. It was so funny to look around and see us all chatting in a totally normal way, but looking how we did, all blood-covered and scary. Kind of hilarious. Check out my pics page for some pics. Anyway, they ended up not needing us any more, so we got cleaned up and left. I wanted to leave the make-up on, as I thought it would be funny when we went to get some food, but the general consensus was finally to take it off. But man, that would have been so much fun.

As I told Trish and the others at one point, I have a niche. Scary, creepy, intense, I can do. I may be useless as “the girlfriend” or “the sexy neighbor” or “the cheerleader”, but “the bloodthirsty zombie-creature”—I own that.

New place and stuff

2007-05-20T22:05:00.000-07:00

So, it's been kind of a busy week. I started my new job, which is a little boring, but pretty easy. I sit at a desk and transcribe interviews and stuff from reality shows. There's a bounty hunter show, a "Bachelor" type show, a show by the guys of "Pimp My Ride", a couple fighting shows, and a show about an exorcist. Some are more interesting than others. The office is pretty relaxed. Everyone's pretty cool. There's free food and drinks in the break room and every friday they buy us lunch (even though last friday they decided on sushi, which just depressed me).

I also found a place to live last Sunday and moved in on Monday. I'll try to get some pics up later. It's a house with a great little yard. One of my roommates has a dog and I get to have one, too, though I haven't decided which one yet. On Saturday, I went with one of my other roommates (there's four rooms in the house) to hang out with her friends and watch both Pirates of the Caribbean movies. That was a lot of fun.

Monk

2007-05-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

I left Temecula last night around 4 p.m. Well, actually, it took me about 15 minutes to get out of Temecula, at least, which had me really worried that I wouldn’t make it to Universal Studios in time. But it was all okay. Turns out most people are, in fact, leaving L.A. on Friday afternoon, rather than going into it. I made it there by about 6. By the time I got my make-up on and followed a make-up lady to the set, it was 6:30, well before my 7 p.m. call time.

The only notice that this was the “Monk” set was a small yellow sign that said “O.C.D.”, which made me smile.

I sat and chatted with a petite, pretty, black actress with very short hair, named Alicia, while the other people showed up. I think there ended up being about 40 of us or so. The scene was outside of a hip-hop club, so, being white, I was naturally in the minority. Most of the people were black, a handful were white, and there were some Asian/Hispanic/Middle-Eastern looking people, too. We were held in a white tent with tables and chairs inside. Before we actually got to go to wardrobe or anything, we were joined by an 18-year-old Asian girl named Jill and another 20-something black woman named Sparkle (which, it turned out, is her real name).

By the time we were sent to wardrobe, the sun was setting and it was getting chilly. I was wearing what I think it a fairly cute and flattering halter top, but the lady gave me a jacket to put over it. While I appreciated the minor extra warmth it provided, I have to say that the ensemble looked a whole lot better without it. She also had me switch from shoes that were moderately comfortable to those gold heels I wore at Chas’s wedding (the four-inch ones that are not made for long-term wear). By the end of the night, my feet were absolutely killing me. The worst part is that I was standing across the street, behind a parked car, for every shot, so it wouldn’t have mattered if I was wearing fuzzy bunny slippers.

Walking past the trailers on the way back to holding, I saw the guys that play Stottlemeyer and Disher, as well as some lady, sitting in the doorway of one of the trailers (really, on the stoop of the trailer, oddly). Ted Levine, who plays the captain, looked at me as I passed, so I smiled. Actually, I think I smiled at any of the cast or crew that looked my way. I was just happy to be there.

By the time the hair people came through to see who needed help, it was dark. She took a few of us to the trailer and had us wait outside. While we were standing out there in front of the open door, Tony Shaloub (the guy who plays Monk) walked past, talking on his cell phone. The make-up lady was going to have us wait, I think, until the actors were out, but I guess someone told her it was okay, because she had us go in one at a time. My hair is usually an utter frizzy mess, so it definitely needed some help. I went in first.

There were probably six or seven chairs in the trailer, which was pretty long. On the far end Ted Levine was getting his make-up done and at the other end, a couple down from me, Tony Shaloub was getting his done. There were several other people in the trailer, either doing something or just sitting around, talking to people who were doing something. While sitting there, I spotted a copy of the script stuck in against the mirror, with the title, “Mr. Monk and the Rapper.” It’s the fifth episode of the sixth season, I believe. The lady who messed with my hair evidently decided it was hopeless, because she just put it up in a high ponytail, though even that was more complicated than it should have been. She brushed it back, tried to put it up, failed, grabbed a different scrunchie, brushed it back again, tied it, hair-sprayed the ponytail, and scrunched it up so it didn’t look like it had been brushed out. Like I said, way too much work.

So, back to holding, then. We chatted some more and finally were taken to set. The set was a street scene in front of an alley. It was set up like we were trying to get into a night club, with a small group of reporters, as well. I was placed, along with a few others, across the street, in the deep background, behind a Mercedes (which I think I might have inadvertently scratched a little). We were to look all excited and nosy as a stretch Hummer pulled up and Snoop Dogg got out. (Speaking of the cars, they had another Hummer and some other really nice convertible there. It was funny to see the men, including the two cops and some of the crew, not able to walk by without looking in the window and playing with the weird handles on the hood. One crew guy even set off the alarm.) I was a little disappointed that I had to stay in the back the whole time. I didn’t even get to do a cross through the scene, as most people did. I think they were going to use me once, they picked me out, but then they didn’t end up using me...which made me a little sad. I could barely hear the dialogue and see what was going on from where I was. I did get to watch when they turned it around so we weren’t in the shot, so I could watch from behind the director and monitors and stuff.

Pretty much all the extras were complaining about the cold (and it was pretty chilly) and some saying that they just wanted to go home...which I thought was weird. I just thought, do you want to work or don’t you?

It was fun chatting with people. I chatted some with a few of the crew members at various points. A couple that I asked if they watched the show basically said, “I used to watch it at the beginning, but I don’t like this new girl much,” (meaning Natalie over Sharona). Talking at lunch with Alisha and Sparkle, it was interesting to hear their stories, and they way they both sort of just felt like they suddenly needed to move to L.A. Alisha said she had been fighting it for years, wanting to move to New York (where she’d lived for a few years), but then it was like she heard God say, “Quit your job and move to L.A.” and she was like, “Okay.” Sounded kind of familiar.

The night ended up being fairly short, only 8½ hours. By the time we wrapped, we were all so tired and cold and ready to go home. Of course, that was when I hit a little snag in my plans. I returned the jacket to wardrobe, changed shoes, got my voucher all filled out and turned in...and realized I didn’t have my keys. I had, it seemed, left them in my car. Without going into all the boring details, suffice it to say that I made a right nuisance of myself trying to find them. I ended up staying about an hour and a half longer as I searched for the keys, then waited for triple-A. It was still quite dark, everyone was leaving, and a couple people stayed to make sure I got in okay and everything. But you know, if you’re going to be stranded somewhere for an hour in the dead of night, there are less interesting places than the Universal Studios backlot. While retracing my steps, in case they’d fallen out somewhere on the ground, I wandered through a number of life-sized street sets (if you’ve ever been on a Universal Studios tour, you’d know what I refer to). I even found one that looked like an entire town square, with a fountain in the middle and everything. It was not quite completely dark, as the smog that covers the city reflects the light back down, giving the sky a sort of red glow and providing plenty of light to see, if one has decent night vision. There were no pesky street lights, although in some areas, huge set lighting lit up sections of the street. The square, though, was entirely empty. So quiet, so peaceful, so calm...I kind of just wanted to sit there for a while...but I didn’t linger for long, as I didn’t want someone to come by and get mad at me. But I made it out eventually, and soon after I left, the sun began to rise.

After getting back just as Brenda was apparently getting up, I went to bed. Several hours later, I awoke and, among other things, looked online for an apartment. Oh, yes, that’s the other news. I got a job. You know that interview I had with Pilgrim? They finally called back. I got a job as a transcriptionist, night shift. I start Monday. So, I went out with Brenda and Joe to celebrate. We saw “Meet the Robinsons” in 3-D, which was a really funny, cute movie. I quite liked it (though it wasn’t entirely unpredictable). Then we went to a restaurant called BJ’s, which was really great. Practically everything on the menu looked fantastic, but I ended up getting a French dip sandwich, which was just...well, just really yummy.

So, I start work Monday (which, sadly, means these blogs will probably be far less interesting, as I anticipate sitting in a room all day, rather than making TV shows and observing famous people). I’m trying to find another place ASAP.

Back to "Heartland"

2007-05-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, I made use of one of the perks of living near L.A. Namely, limited screenings. There are some movies which only get released in few theatres in the country, usually in L.A. and New York. So, I went to Santa Ana to see a film called Snow Cake. It stars Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver. Admittedly, when I first heard of a movie starring those two, my little geeky heart hoped it might be “Galaxy Quest 2”, but alas, ‘twas not to be. No, this film is a rather nice drama about the friendship between a lonely man and an autistic woman. It’s got some nice humor, some good surprises, and just some nice, interpersonal kind of drama. I want to get it when it comes out on DVD.

Speaking of Alan Rickman, I saw a book, when I stopped into Borders, which argued both sides of The Great Snape Debate. What I found amusing was that each side had a chapter analyzing the casting of Snape for the film. One side said, “Alan Rickman plays a lot of really evil villains,” while the other side said, “Alan Rickman plays a lot of misunderstood and/or reluctant heroes,” which amused me, simply because even if only one of those were true, it still relies on typecasting, which in no way can be evidence for or against an entirely different character. Even people who almost universally play heroes might occasionally play villains (such as Harrison Ford in “What Lies Beneath”, or, perhaps, Tom Hanks in “Ladykillers”...though neither of those were particularly memorable).

So, while I was in the bookstore, I got a call from Jeff Olan Casting, from whom I have gotten most of my extra gigs so far. They asked if I wanted to do another day on “Heartland”. So, that’s what I did on Thursday. It was much the same as the last day I was on. I don’t think I saw a single one of the same extras from that day, though there were many others (well, excepting the stand-ins, of course).

In one scene, me and this black lady who looked about my age (though I think I later heard something about being 32), who I think was named Christine, were dressed as O.R. nurses and we wheeled a gurney out of the doors, with the two main nurse actresses (Morena and Dani) on either side, then the “star” (Treat) and the black doctor (Rock) walk up and stop us. Treat’s all, “What are you doing?” and then the nurses explain something, then the poor actress on the gurney who had to wear horrible, full-eye, yellow contacts because she was playing a patient who needed a liver transplant, said some stuff in Spanish and was all distressed, then at the end of the scene, we wheeled the gurney back in. So, short scene, but lots and lots of takes, different angles and such, and we didn’t have to wear our masks, which was nice.

After a lot of the takes, Rock would add some attempt at humor, like saying, “Muey bueno” in a terrible, American accent, or saying something, I can’t remember what, telling us to go back in the room, but he sounded like some kind of...well, like someone from the south, at least several decades ago. Hard to explain, as it was mainly in the way he said it, but it caused Morena to call him “Dr. Black”, which is exactly the impression it gave.

In the room, while we were waiting, at one point, Dani and Morena were joking about doing a musical episode, to which I commented happily, “Like Buffy!”, and Morena nodded like she knew exactly what I was talking about, then Dani said that the guys only brought it up because they wanted to sing “the Boner Donor” song. I didn’t bother asking if this song had already been made up. I also learned, and felt vaguely disappointed about this, that in real O.R.s, they actually turn the air conditioner on super-high so that it’s actually cold, rather than sweltering, as it is here.

Once, the way Treat said his line almost made me laugh, mainly because of the very serious, dramatic way in which he said it. His line was, “You most certainly are my problem,” but what came out was, “You certainly most are my problem.” Hey, I found it amusing. Sort of like, after they had taken off the marks made with the big tape off the floor and replaced them with tiny little pieces, then Treat walked up and, between saying, “What are you doing?” and his next line, he had to stop, look down, find his mark, take a step back, and look back at Dani, during which time she’d said her line, and then said, “From where I’m standing...” which made Rock actually laugh, and I almost lost it a little, too. I also found it amusing when one time between takes, when he was trying to remember the lines (he has to check the sides a lot) and the other actors were talking, he went, “People, please! I’ve got words in my head!”

Then there was another scene, where they were in the O.R., doing a surgery. My job was to carry a bowl of “stuff” across the room, what’s called, appropriately enough, a “cross”. I think I really nailed it. I tell you, I can move from one place to another like nobody’s business. Actually, they only needed me for a few of the shots, given the camera angles they were using. For a lot of the time, I was just standing around in the hallway, not going back to holding in case they needed me. I got some water, then later I got a cream soda, grabbed a few bites from the craft service table, and mostly just hung around. I didn’t spend more than a minute or two in holding the entire time before lunch. Unfortunately, the heat and the mask and all was getting to Christine (the other nurse in the scenes with me). She was actually in that last one more than I was, and when she got out she told me she had begun having a panic attack and thought she was going to pass out. She even told me she’d been looking for me. She went to talk to Melinda (the 2nd AD, who tells us extras where to go in a scene), and ended up going outside, needing oxygen, and later, the ambulance came. I don’t know exactly all that happened, but apparently she went home.

After lunch, we were in a different holding room, and they were doing a bunch of hallway scenes. So, we got to take off our surgery gear and got a few props, like pens and a stethoscope. We did a lot of walking around, looking like we were going somewhere. I was just glad not to have to wear all the extra stuff, even if the scrubs they’d given me were about a size too small.

During my time in holding, I made a call and booked a job for today. It’s a night shoot, but it’s on “Monk”, which is a show I’m very fond of. So, I’m excited about that.

Spiderman 3

2007-05-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

I went to see Spiderman 3 tonight. If I may use the word, it was AMAZING! I don't want to give anything away, but I just have to say, it really hit at the heart of what the Spiderman story is all about. Forgiveness vs. revenge, taking personal responsibility for the choices you make....The casting was spot-on. Gwen Stacy was beautiful and innocent. Eddie Brock was suitably sarcastic and spiteful. Sandman was...well, just about perfect, near as I could tell. And the end was just wonderful. Let's just say, not quite what I was expecting (although I was a bit surprised at what befell Gwen Stacy...or rather, did not befall her). And we even got to see a bit more of Doc Conners (a.k.a. The Lizard). Perhaps he'll play a prominent role in the next one finally? All in all, I have to say, best Spiderman ever. I'd be hard-pressed not to say this is my favorite superhero movie ever...and that's saying something.

Disorienting...

2007-05-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so all that lack of sleep...guess I was tired. Until about five minutes ago I thought it was still yesterday. A few hours after I came home, around 4 p.m., I took a nap. I woke up, looked at my clock, saw it said 6, and assumed I'd been asleep a couple hours, and it was still light out. Apparently not so much. Now I really wish I hadn't fallen asleep with my contacts in.

I met the Orisi

2007-05-02T16:25:00.001-07:00

If you don't have a clue what the title of this blog means, you're clearly not a big enough Stargate geek. Okay, let's try another.

I met the shiniest Companion in the 'verse.

...Still nothing?

Well, then, you won't get the cool factor here. Okay, it wasn't as exciting as Harrison Ford, but it was still kinda neat.

I had another background gig. My call time was 7 a.m., so I got up and got mostly ready, then called the number again at 4 a.m., only to find out that the call time had been pushed back to 10. So, I got a couple more hours' sleep. Still, kind of wish I'd called when I first got up.
It was in Hawthorne, sort of southwest of LA proper, I guess. It was in this hospital (RFK) that was...well, kinda ghetto. They really cleaned up part of it to make it look like it could still be in use, but the parts they didn't were sort of hilariously run-down. It's a hospital show, funnily enough, about transplants. I could never figure out if it's a series or mini-series, but apparently it will be premiering on TNT in June. It's called Heartland. I got to be outfitted in scrubs, surgery gown, mask, booties, the whole deal. After I got my scrubs, I went to get some breakfast at the catering cart, where the lady asked, "What would you like, bonita?" I said, "What do we have?" to which she answered, "Breakfast." "Anything?" I asked, "Okay, could I have a pancake?" And so she made me a huge Mickey Mouse pancake that was absolutely adorable. And then we got called in before I could eat any of it and I had to throw it away. It was very sad.

The AD that told us where to go when off-set was kind of a jerk. Major power issue. Really an unpleasant guy that treated us all like misbehaving children. But I'm sure a lot of people in this business are like that (I heard some of the other extras talking about the wardrobe guy from Grey's Anatomy, who they called the Wardrobe Nazi.) Melinda, the AD who directed us around on-set, was very nice, though.

The first scene was some story about a uterus transplant. It had to be taken from one room to the other. Once, a guy (maybe another AD) yelled, "Uterus back to one!" which made us (or at least, the women) laugh. (For those unfamiliar, "back to one" means "back to your places at the beginning of the scene".) My job for the first part was to help one of the incoming doctors get his scrub gown on. Or at least it was until Morena Baccarin came in and took my job. But at least then I got to help do up the doc's mask, and didn't have to go stand in the corner with the other useless extra nurses. So for that bit, I just helped the actor, Chris something, get his mask tied while Morena helped him on with the gown. For fifteen minutes or so (maybe less, hard to tell), we just kind of stood there waiting while they were getting the shots in the other room and rehearsing, occasionally coming in and getting the end of that shot, which was the bit we were in. So I was just standing there by the door with Morena and the other actress nurse. They chatted a bit and I made a comment occasionally, though extras aren't really supposed to talk to the actors (but when you're standing right there, sheesh, it's almost weird not to, isn't it?). Nevertheless, I could only contain myself so long. In one boring moment when nothing was going on and Morena was just standing in front of me, propping the door open to keep it cooler (Morena, of course, played Inara on Firefly, as well as the villainous Adria on the last season of SG-1), I leaned over and said, "If I may say, Firefly was one of the best sci-fi shows ever." She said, "Oh, thanks," and asked if I watched it on TV or got the DVDs. I admitted to only getting the DVDs, then she said, "I'm surprised it lasted that long." I'm not entirely sure what that meant, but it doesn't sound terribly optimistic to me. I would have liked to say more, or mention Stargate, but she didn't strike me as being terribly into sci-fi.

So...for the rest of the day, I spent most of the time in one of the O.R.s, usually holding a clipboard, watching with interest as the actors pretended to perform surgery, or going about some fabricated business as the actors pretended to perform surgery. It was much more involved for me than the last show had been. I had things to do, or pretend to do. There were about 30 extras total, but most of them sort of left throughout the day, as they got done with, leaving only about 10 of us until the end. Since I was in O.R. gear, I think I was one of the ones used most. Of course, my face was covered in a mask, so all you could see was my eyes and forehead, but I was there.

The cast acted much more like I would expect actors to be, joking around and chatting between takes, laughing, just sort of being normal. The lead was Treat Williams ("Treat"...what a terrible name for a guy...though I suppose it would be a worse name for a woman), who seemed to have a bit of an ego. I recognized the face and the name, but didn't know from where until I got home and IMDb'd him. Then I remembered where I knew him from: previews for shows I never watched. The other two actors had pretty extensive filmographies, too, but all things I've never seen. Although the tiny actress who joined us in one surgery scene, I recognized immediately as Reese from and ep of SG-1 (she was the android that apparently created the Replicators...although I'm still not 100% clear on how all that worked out). I had a couple moments where I inwardly giggled and thought, "I'm in an O.R. with Adria and Reese." And for this reason, I also found it amusing when the little woman had someone else take a picture of the two of them together...and then I got images of the Ori and Replicators teaming up to take over the galaxy, led by these two adorable, petite women. The crew was really nice, though a bit more focused than the actors. (It was amusing when Morena had to correct the pronunciation of her name to the...I don't know...lead camera guy?) One of the crew guys (maybe a gaffer or something?) was sort of staring at me when I first got on set. Finally, he said, "You have very pretty eyes." I wasn't quite sure what to say to that other than "thank you" (though I was thinking of something like, "Well, now I'm afraid to take my mask off, lest the rest of my face be a let-down").

It's funny the idea of "business", this idea that everyone's got to look like they're doing something, even if it's utter nonsense. In one scene, I had to move stuff from a table onto the little cart/tray thing directly next to it. Except that when the scene continued after I'd finished, I had to keep looking like I was doing something, so I just moved it around on the cart. In another scene, it was just the five of us extras that had been in most of these scenes, as well as the stand-in for Morena (who was this lady from Israel). We were only in the background, as the scene was taking place in the room next to us, but there were windows to see into ours, so we had to look busy. So, we chatted a lot while they were setting up, then would have to look busy while they were rolling. I had a clipboard, so I pretended to take notes and look around, check things. Another guy was the anesthesiologist, who fiddled with gauges. The stand-in was prepping the surgery area (this scene was a baby heart transplant, so there was a Chucky-esque doll) and the girl across from her put the gas mask on the doll. One guy on the other side of the stand-in...well, I really don't know what he was doing after he took the cooler from a guy that popped in, then out. And one other guy really just wandered around the room, poking hoses and stuff. But while we weren't rolling, we had a rather interesting discussion about international politics, the war, Bush, Saddam and other lunatics, etc. So, for at least an our or so, that's how it went. "The reason I can't stand Bush isn't just the fact of the war, but the fact that he squandered the unity America had as a country after 9/11." "Action!" *mime scribbling, fiddle with dials, poke I.V. tube, nod meaningfully at each other, move from one side of the room to the other* "Cut!" "Exactly. At this point, no matter what he does, I don't think he could be an effective leader, simply due to the fact that so many people hate him, he could never unify the country."

But I tell you, after that, I have a new respect for doctors and nurses, who actually work those long shifts (we were there for 14 ½ hours, got out around 1 a.m.), only they're actually doing something important, that people's lives depend on. If we thought it was hard just being in that room, covered in gear, for a few hours, I can only imagine how hard it is on the people that have to perform delicate surgery for hours on end in there. It was kind of neat, though, walking around in my scrubs and stuff. Made me feel, just for a moment, like I was actually doing something important. But let's call that just another reason I could never be a doctor or nurse.

"Crossing Over"

2007-04-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally got an opportunity to make use of my finely-honed sitting-around skills. Yes, this week I made my first foray into showbiz by being an extra in a big Hollywood movie called “Crossing Over”.

I awoke on Wednesday around 2:30 a.m., showered, ate, etc. and left the house around 4:15. At first I thought that traffic was pretty light...until I got on the freeway. Turns out traffic into L.A. at 4:30 a.m. is akin to I-5 traffic into Portland at...oh, any normal, daytime rush hour. Still, things kept up a pretty good pace, so I arrived downtown by 6 for my 6:45 call time. I thought it worked out pretty well.

There were about 700-750 extras there. It was apparently the biggest scene in the film. My designation was “Guest”. Also present were “Immigrants” and various “Officers” and “Agents”. It was nice to see all the men in suits, and many people were wearing very ethnic clothing, like a small Asian woman wearing one of those adorable Chinese hats that looks like a cymbal, and a Jewish guy complete with sidelocks and light purple plastic reading glasses that looked like something a 10-year-old girl might favor if she were farsighted. There were many different races represented, which makes sense, considering it was a naturalization scene.

We got checked in, then got in another line to make sure our wardrobe was okay. It was somewhat amusing to watch the people in charge of all this. The AD even had to remind some people how to stand in line. It’s no wonder they call them “extras wranglers”.

People have different reasons for doing this. One lady I talked to just wanted the money. It sounded like she was on lists for all kinds of work like this for focus groups, trial juries, and such. Some are actors hoping to make connections or possibly even get an elusive chance to say a line. Some are retired people looking for a bit of extra income on a flexible schedule. And there’s a lot of people trying to get into other parts of the business.

I met a lot of interesting people, most of whom were those around me during our long sit-and-wait. There was Robyn, who I knew as an actress immediately. Young, pretty, and South African. Her family’s in Florida now, though, which is where she’d lived most recently before moving out to L.A. about a year ago. She doesn’t normally do extra work, but she wanted to be involved in the film because the director is also South African.

There was a 50-something guy whose name was Jim, I believe. His main thing is stand-up and impressions, but he does a lot of extra work, too. He was on that CSI:NY shoot we saw last week. The day before this shoot, he’d done a wedding scene for Desperate Housewives. He told me a lot about being an extra, the various companies, and such.

There was an older German man who looked a bit like Ian McKellen. I didn’t talk to him a whole lot, but I chatted some with him and Robyn while we sat.

There was Brett, who was one of those guys who you can never be sure how serious they are. He joked around and talked a lot, sort of the cheerleader, giving high-fives and telling us all we’re going to be stars for the powerful way we sat there and looked at the podium. He was also a major flirt with just about every woman everywhere, and talked a little too much about his sexiness and his “guns”, but it was somewhat amusing, as one wonders whether his talk of his own sexiness was ironic or not. He was rather a plain looking guy.

Amy sat beside him, a fairly quiet girl about my age who seemed the shy, quiet type (though her later stories to me of how she offered to buy a totally sloshed Jimmy Fallon a drink, twice, and how she once touched Matt Dilon’s butt in a bar on a dare called that impression into question). She’s from New Orleans, out here a few years. She was friends with the steadycam operator, Colin, who I met briefly. She’d read the script for the movie, but didn’t want to spoil me for what was actually going on in the scene we were filming. Guess I’ll just have to wait to see it like everyone else.

There was Patrick, who was originally cast as an immigrant but got moved beside us to fill an empty seat. His outfit looked right out of Angela’s Ashes, but when I asked his last name, it turns out his heritage was Norwegian. How disappointing. Evidently he works for art departments building sets and is trying to get enough work in that to join the union.

I met Manfred, an older fellow from Austria who immigrated when he was a young man. He had studied math and worked in computers for a long time, but at some point “they” wouldn’t let him any more, so he was doing this. We talked of immigration, the emotionality of females, the status or writers in modern filmmaking, and I told him about many of my scripts. He told me his son is an aspiring director. I gave him a copy of some of my short plays to read.

For a short time, I sat next to the Magees, a couple in their seventies who’d been married for fifty-something years and usually worked these gigs together. They gave me some good info on extras work, too. On the other side of them was a singer who’s Mexican-flavored album has been picked up by Sony, who’s trying to figure out whether it’s best to distribute it in the U.S. or Mexico.

After about two hours of just sitting around, they led us all into the big coliseum which had been set up to look like an immigration ceremony. Robyn and I took seats in the front row of the back section. As it turned out, one of the actresses (a little girl) was sitting very near us. We sat around for a very long time as they kept setting things up, rehearsing and all. During this time, we met Brett and Amy, and I think Patrick was brought in.

The hair guy (20-something, rather wiry, with tattoos all over his arms and strange ear piercings, and looked like he should be carrying a skateboard rather than a skull-covered hair kit) came over and tried to tame the frizz that is my hair. It only worked moderately well. And while I’m on the subject of crew...one of the crew guys looked like he could be Joe Flanigan’s younger brother. He had the same build, eyes, and nose. For all I know, maybe they are related. One crew lady looked like she could have been Corin Nemec’s twin (he played Jonas on the 6th season of SG-1...cool character).

When they were rehearsing or shooting, we had to react, to “beam with pride”. The lady that played the judge stopped talking after a few sentences, so we had to sit in utter silence, staring at nothing and reacting with pride. It’s surprisingly hard.

Then, in classic fashion, during the second actual take, a phone rang. We all kept going. The phone rang again. Finally, the director yelled, “Cut!” and everyone turned to look at the culprit who had failed to turn their phone off. I heard a few mumbles of “Harry” just before I caught a glimpse of the other side of the room, where Harrison Ford quietly turned away and fiddled with his phone. Many people hadn’t known he was there. The German man sitting next to Robyn didn’t even know he was in the movie.

And so it went until about 1. Waiting, then very carefully reacting to nothing for what seemed at least a couple minutes at a time, then more waiting. I never could see any actual acting, though I suspect it was happening somewhere out of my earshot (which I came to discover was a surprisingly short distance in relation to the acting on this set). Finally, we broke for lunch. The weather was beautiful and there was a nice breeze under our tent, so it made the fact that I could hardly eat any of the boxed lunch somewhat more tolerable.

After lunch, we all went back to our seats and did pretty much the same as we did before lunch (the hair guy even had to fix my hair again). It was a bit easier, as there was less reacting required, though there was some occasional standing, sitting, and cheering. Harrison Ford’s phone went off again, but at least cameras weren’t rolling the second time.

After wrapping for the day, it took 45 minutes for me to check out, and I ended up in about the middle of the line. I finally left at 8 p.m.

It’s strange...the last movie I saw before leaving Salem (actually, the last movie I saw at all) was Harrison Ford’s last movie, called “Firewall”, and now the first job I get down here is working on his next film. Strange coincidence. And seeing him there was weird. On the one hand, yeah, of course he’d be there, and he did look exactly as he always looks on TV and magazines, and I know I’m supposed to be all professional...on the other hand, every time I looked across the room and saw him, I kinda thought, “That’s Harrison-bloody-Ford!” And he is one of the most famous people in the world, so I say I’m justified in that reaction. (Oh, and Amy told me that she’d heard the little boy behind her say to the man beside him – and she didn’t know if he was serious or not – “Hey, there’s an old guy over there that looks just like Han Solo!” Which may just be the funniest thing any child’s ever said in the history of cinema.)

Friday was much the same. Got up at 3:30 (I overslept by an hour, but managed to get off around the same time), check-in at 7 a.m.; they didn’t have my name on the right list, but it all worked out. We sat around for about three hours before being told to go in, during which time I chatted with Amy, Brett and Patrick, wrote a McVala sonnet (lately, I’ve been writing Stargate-related sonnets and I thought it would be fun to try some shipping ones, and I’ve always rather liked the unique ships), and had a rather small bite of breakfast.

A note on the craft service (which is basically the showbiz term for catering): there were different levels. Not everyone got the same food. The cast, crew, and SAG (aka union) extras got things like stir fry to order, omlets, grilled chicken, a salad bar, chocolate cake, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. The non-union extras like myself got a breakfast that reminded me of my grade-school cafeteria and boxed lunches that were shoved at us by the AD and PAs (that’s Assistant Director, or one of them, and Production Assistants) and bottled water. For snacks, the cast and crew got things like fresh pineapple and cantaloupe, gummi bears and coffee, while the extras got hard, tiny, cookies, carrot sticks, and some sort of watered-down “mango” drink. On the first day I didn’t bother eating breakfast and I took the boxed lunch, but I found out I was allergic to most of the stuff in said lunch, so I hardly ate any of it, so on the second day, I told the AD that I was allergic and he moved me to the crew/SAG line. For a couple minutes there, I felt really cool. The stir fry looked great, but I couldn’t possibly eat it, so I had some very good wild rice and some grilled fish. It was delicious. (Note to self: Become actor. Get SAG card.) After eating (while sitting with the others with their sad little boxed lunches), I decided to pop over to the salad bar table and get some of the chocolate-dipped strawberries (plucked them off a pineapple, actually). They were just about perfect.

Anyway, there was a whole lot of sitting around as before, only we would move from one area to another, depending on which way the camera was pointing. I think I ended up in five or six places in a single crowd scene. In the first set-up, it was a straight-on two-shot (it looked like) with Harrison Ford and the other actor (who I looked up on IMDb and is actually younger than me, though I would not have guessed it; also, I’m now feeling jealous and inadequate). After sitting, the lady who was positioning extras had me switch with another lady, as she thought my shirt was colorful, and it might be nice to add some color to the shot for variety. That seat was right behind the actors (it was their stand-ins that were there at the moment, of course), right between them, right in front of the camera. It would have been so cool! Alas, they soon switched us back so that I don’t think I was even visible. I would have done the same thing, of course. My shirt would have been distracting amongst all the black of the other people, plus I will probably be seen in another shot where I’m sitting a few places down from the little six-year-old actress, so that would have been weird, and, as the lady standing beside me where I ended up pointed out, I was probably too tall, anyway. I’m guessing theirs was the first reason, but the others, along with the fact that I would have been terribly self-conscious and not known quite what to do with myself, make me not feel to bad. But still...that would have ruled! (Although my new position did let me hear the guy behind me say something about “Mister Jones,” in a Chinese accent under his breath between takes one time, which made me laugh.)

I was really hoping that I’d at least get to hear Harrison Ford act, even if I couldn’t see it (as we were all supposed to be looking at the stage). But in that whole scene, the actors were whispering the whole time. I think it was sort of an intense whisper, but a whisper nonetheless. Probably the only people who could hear were the ones sitting within three feet of them. In fact, I don’t think I ever heard any of them speak, even between takes. The director and crew and all would say things to each other. I could quite clearly hear the director giving the actors direction, when he was even farther away from me than they were, because he was speaking in a fairly normal voice. Once I heard Harrison Ford say, “Good,” to something the director said, and during one take, he said, “Line,” really surprisingly loudly (though when you’re in a large, open building in complete silence, it’s easy to be surprisingly loud). It was kind of funny, though... whisperwhisperwhisperwhisper, pause, “Line!” Even in a later shot, where a guy’s getting arrested, I could barely hear the guy reading him his rights, even though I was only about 10 feet away. Very weird.

So, yeah, it was cool seeing Harrison Ford (and isn’t it funny how we tend to refer to some people, especially famous people, by both names?), but you know, he’s so serious. He’s a “serious actor”. I’m sure this is a dramatic scene and all, but he didn’t crack a smile, at anyone, the entire time, that I could tell, not even when he wrapped for the second day and all the extras were cheering and clapping. He just sort of gave a meager wave and slipped away. Once he almost sorta half-smiled at someone, but that was as close as he got. He would come on right before it was time to shoot, get to his place usually sometime between the director yelling “rolling” and “action”, and then sneak off when it was done while they set up the next shot. And always looking so serious. I just wanted to go, “Aww...it’s okay. Really. It’s not that bad.” He looked slightly more relaxed when I saw him going through the salad bar table at lunch (Yep, I ate from the same table as Harrison Ford. Don’t I feel cool? I’ll get over this soon. I’m a professional. Ahem.), but I still didn’t see him talking to anyone. Not what I’ve come to expect from actors at all.

So there was more moving around, and a bit more to watch, the second day, which is probably why it didn’t seem as long (though a lot of us were still nearly asleep right before lunch). I got out about 7:45 p.m. This extras thing is actually really fun (except for the excruciatingly boring parts, but even then, sometimes you can look over, see a famous actor, remind yourself that you’re on an actual film set, and that makes everything okay).

Traffic sucks

2007-04-20T22:58:00.001-07:00

Well, I had a lunch meeting at 1 in Studio City at the CBS lot, with Anne (it's the same place I had my other interview). We left the house in Temecula at 10:30. It was raining. For a while, raining quite hard. Aparently people down here don't know what to make of rain. "Aaah! What's that? It's water falling from the sky! Why is there water coming from the sky? Water's supposed to be on the ground! Oh no! It's on the ground, too! And it's gathering together like millions of mini-lakes! Can we still drive through that? Will the car sink?" Consequently, I was 20 minutes late. Anne still met with me, but we only had time for lunch. No set tour. She told me about the show and asked about my writing. I told her about some of the short plays I'd written and she laughed in the appropriate places. Then I showed her the scripts I'd brought with me (some of the short plays, "Trench Lovefare", "Just a Game", "Storyteller" and "The Man of Light Means and the Suit" if anyone's interested) and the Stargate script I'd written and she asked if she could keep them, so that's good. I also gave her my resume, in case she hears of anything. She even paid for my pop and cheeseburger, which was very nice.
After that, Mom and I drove into downtown LA to meet with Brian, another contact I'd e-mailed a few times. He's an assistant editor on Numb3rs. I watched that show once, thought, "Ah, too much math!", covered my head and ran screaming from the room. But maybe I'll have to see it more now, if I get a chance. Anyway, he was apparently done for the day, so he spent about two hours talking to Mom and I (he practically insisted she not wait in the car as she'd planned) and showed us around the lot some. We popped into one of the soundstages, where the set of the house on the show is. We just sort of snuck around behind it, where the "outside" of the house is, between the house and the "neighbor's house" backdrop and peeked in the window at the inside, where the furniture was all covered to protect it from dust.
We kept walking around the block, toward a cafe where we were supposed to get some coffee. Around the corner we were somewhat surprised to find a huge group of people and lots of cars all neatly arranged to resemble traffic. There were NYC cabs and ambulances. Seems CIS:NY was filming what he guessed was the season finale. We went around the back of the appropriate building, through the extra's holding pen (it really did make them sound like cattle), through the big room where there were lots of bags in chairs, heading downstairs to the cafe. Some people with headsets looked irate and told us to get across the street with the other extras, but we had to quickly tell them we were just passing through (after all, it's not like they had "keep out" signs or anything). I was half tempted to pretend we were extras and just go, but we probably would have gotten in trouble for wearing prints. Then we found that the cafe, as well, had been cleared out. This surprised Brian, as he said he'd been there two hours ago getting lunch. So, we went back to his office (or dressing room, apparently), where he had a nice avid (editing machine) set up. Having dabbled in editing, I was duly impressed with the various decks, towers, monitors, and the huge TV screen. So, we chatted for a while about the business and our parts in it. He was very nice. Gave him a resume, too. You never know when someone might hear of something.
We headed back from downtown LA in the middle of 5 o'clock traffic. It sucked. LA drivers are crazy. Several times someone would zip ahead of the line in a bike lane or parking spaces on the side of the road, then try to merge back in, and when we didn't let them, they looked at us like we had a problem or something. Stupid, crazy cheaters.
Then we stopped at Barnes & Noble to get a Thomas guide (which both Anne and Brian suggested I pick up, and turns out to be a $35 map book), tried to use my Barnes & Noble gift card that my former co-workers Tyson, Haley and Aimee were kind enough to get me as a going-away present, only to find out that it doesn't work. I suspect Safeway is to blame. Will work on figuring that out.
Anyway, Joe set up my computer so I can use their wireless internet, so I'm excited about that. And now I've got to read more Harry Potter (book 1) to Mom (it's been nice on the long car rides, especially). It's a lot of fun.

Now in LA

2007-04-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a bit of an update:

From yesterday...

Well, we made it. Mom and I got into LA on Sunday night. We're staying with my brother's in-laws in Temecula. Nice little city (well, little is relative, I suppose). Very nice neighborhood. Unfortunately, it's about two hours from where I'd want to be living if I got a job on a show or something. Speaking of which, I've got an interview tomorrow. Yay! So excited. I hope it goes well and I don't stick my foot in my mouth or something. Then, if I do get it, I'll need to find a place over in that area pretty quickly, so as to avoid the 2+ hour commute as much as possible.

We visited Aunt Willena on the way down, stayed there overnight. When we woke up, it was raining, which is apparently a good thing. Why is it every time I come to California, I bring the weather with me? Anyway, the next night we stayed with Grammy Sue and Grandpa Tone.

Joe and Brenda are really nice, they've got an adorable old Border Collie named Einstein and a very pretty cat named Buddy (formerly Emma, if I recall correctly). The weather is sunny, so naturally I've covered as much of my skin as possible. There's a nice breeze, though.

And today...

So, my interview with the lady from the show went well. I was supposed to interview with the producer, but instead it was some other lady, whose name and position I can't remember. I guess it went pretty well. She said they didn't have anything available now, but she'd keep my resume and circulate it to the different departments in case something came up. The interview was on the CBS lot in Studio City, which was terribly glamorous and exciting, with all it's various buildings and so forth. I got there 45 minutes early and the gate didn't have my name, so I had to come back 20 minutes later, and even then the guard had to call for clearance. The weather was beautiful, though. Bright and sunny with a lovely wind.

I met with another lady, too. Someone Mom works with is related to her. She was very nice. And tiny. She's an assistant editor for various reality shows. I gave her a resume, too, and she said she'd check to see if her company's hiring.

I've got a lunch meeting with Anne, who's a writer on that first show (Greek, it's called, about sororities/fraternities, apparently), on Friday, and she said she'd show me around the set, which should be fun.

Vancouver...again

2007-03-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

As I drove through northern Washington at dusk on Saturday, I was struck once again by the way God creates such magnificent splendor with such ease. I would share a picture, but alas, I was driving and so could hardly take one. But trust me...it was amazing. (Oh, here's a pic I took while waiting over an hour to cross the border. It doesn't do the thing justice, though.)

I got into Chas's and Amanda's (hmm...need a shorter name...how about Amase? Chanda? What do you think?) about 8 or 9. Actually, first we went to a pizza place called Boston Pizza and hung out with some people she apparently knows from church. It was fun. After some research and pestering of the waitress and manager, we discovered that I could eat the nachos. So, nachos it was. Fun was had, though apparently Amanda found our waitress terribly rude. Chas and I disagreed. Perhaps it's a cultural thing.

I got up at around 7 on Sunday morning to go see A Dog's Breakfast, the film by David Hewlett and a bunch of other Stargate peeps, the forum for which I've been on for several months now. I had already pre-ordered a ticket for the later showing, but decided to go to the early one, as well. As it turns out, tickets had not sold so well as past screenings, so I was able to buy one at the door. We were met at the door by one of the producers' mother (Mrs. Lenic, I presume her name was), who took our tickets. As I entered the theatre and made my way to the front, a girl in the front row called out, "Shawna!" I looked to her and waved. "Yes?" I said, a bit surprised. "Lemonchicken," she responded, and I immediately went to her, recognizing the name from the forum, and we chatted for a while about a variety of Stargatey type subjects. I did put my bag down in a seat, though, to make sure it was not taken, then went back to her. At some point, a girl came up to us, handing out leaflets about the Doctors Without Borders fund raising thing going on, which I said I knew about already. After several minutes, I noticed people looking back toward the booth and waving, and soon the whole room was doing so, as David Hewlett was looking out at us, smiling, waving, and video taping us as if we were a bunch of particularly odd monkeys in a zoo. I kept talking to Lemonchicken (real name Alicia, I believe) and her friend (who apparently plans to register on the forum under the name Mangoturkey) until Hewlett and the two producers (as well as the real star of the movie, Mars the dog) made their way to the front, at which point I decided I should probably go to my seat. They welcomed us and noted with some approval the "Save Carson" banner that some people had hung at the back (the same one used in a demonstration outside Bridge Studios on Thursday), then went back out and the movie started.

I don't want to give too much of the movie away, so I'll just say that it was very funny. Yep, quite humorous.

Afterward, there was a Q&A session, with the first question coming from a little girl (perhaps 7 or 8 years old), who was wearing a shirt that said, "When I grow up, I want to be like Rodney" and was, naturally, "How are you so awsome?" If you don't get why that's amusing, you clearly aren't a big enough geek. The Q&A was interesting, and at one point, John Lenic called on Francy in the back (by name, yes) and it was only then that I realized she was the person who'd been handing out leaflets, and felt incredibly stupid for not recognizing her and saying a proper "hi" (she's on my myspace friends, for crying out loud). Someone else got a "Happy Birthday", so I can only assume they'd met our hosts before.

After that got over, I went outside to get in line for the next showing, chatting with the lady who'd brought the small child (who seemed rather impatient to give Hewlett a small, stuffed hamster which its tag named "Rodney"). She was from California, and had apparently been to every west coast screening (that's one in LA, a few in San Jose, and these). From her I learned that Jason Momoa, who plays Ronon, evidently got a big ol' tribal tattoo on his arm over the break. Can't wait to see how they explain that one in the show. Not that it's not appropriate for the character, which is at least a good thing. It wasn't too long before we were heading inside again. On the way, I snapped a pic of the people holding the "Save Carson" banner. Really, quite a nice banner.

Chatted with the person next to me while waiting again, got the welcome again, watched the film again. Perhaps it was because I was tired, but it wasn't quite as funny the second time around. But then again, I suppose most movies wouldn't be as funny upon an immediate subsequent viewing. Got the Q&A again afterward, then they said they had to leave, as Hewlett apparently had like 10 pages of dialogue to memorize for filming on Monday, which he described as McKay trapped in a jumper (which made me think, "I thought we already saw that episode"), and they scurried out. Well, he was ambushed by the little girl giving him the hamster and made suitably friendly small talk with the little one. I thought it was hillarious when he asked her name, she responded "Katie" and he said, "That's my sister's name," as if we hadn't just watched a movie starring said sister, whom we all knew perfectly well was named Kate. ;-)

I was a bit disappointed that there was no opportunity to meet him and Jane (one of the producers, and his fiancee) one-on-one, as had happened with some of the other screenings, but I did stop to tell the other producer, John Lenic, that I enjoyed the film (only later wondering if he found it odd that I had a picture of his brother on my shirt [his brother had a small part in the film, and I was wearing a shirt I designed from a promo pic]).

So, that being done, the rest of the day was pretty much just hanging out. Really, didn't do a whole lot. Went to the store, played some video games, etc.

The next day I meant to do some research about literary agents in the city, only to find out that there really aren't any. Well, one, but they prefer to work with writers based in Western Canada, which pretty much cuts me out. That, compounded with the various work permit difficulties, leads me to the decision that, while I do indeed want to live and work in Vancouver, I believe I shall have to get there by way of LA. I have already put in a transfer request with Safeway, and hopefully it will go through soon. I have at least one contact in the industry down there (possibly more), so I'm hoping once I get down it won't be too long before I could get a job on a show or something, as an assistant or somesuch, and an agent.

So, having decided that, I went down to Yaletown, to a chocolatier called Chocoatl, where I got some, yep, chocolate, then walked a bit until I found a salon. So, I got a haircut for the first time in about four years (and it's a great improvement, I believe; still long, but styled and layered). I may post a pic of the new cut later.

That night was pretty slow, too. I made some spaghetti, which turned out pretty well, I thought. Then we turned in fairly early, I got up early, and came home. And now here I am. It was a nice weekend, but I have to go to work at 1 a.m. tomorrow. Eech.

5 Things You Don't Know About Me

2007-03-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

So, apparently I've been "tagged" with this "meme". If you don't know what that means, it's not important. And if, as is likely, you're someone who knows me very well, just think of this as "5 Things You May or May Not Know About Me"...

1. The first friend I can ever remember having was back in California (so I was, I think, no older than 6, but probably a bit younger). His name was Matthew. Unfortunately, that's just about all I remember.
2. So far, I (or we) have had the following types of pets: German Shepherds, Rottweiler, Miniature Schnauzer (my brother's), cats, bunnies, various species of fish, tiny frogs, wee baby turtles, goats, leopard geckos, hamster, and a little snake (but that was Chas's, too). I prefer the dogs, of course, but I've got a great fondness for cats and reptiles.
3. If I could turn into any animal, I would want to be a tiger. However, if it were animagus-style, based on personality, I'd probably end up as a wolf or bat or something.
4. You know what they say about all the "good ones" being either taken or gay? I don't buy that. If someone's gay, they're really not my type, anyway, and so not one of the "good ones" as far as I'm concerned. No, the truth of the matter is that all the "good ones" are either taken or fictional. Case in point: Carson Beckett. I would marry him in a heartbeat...if he actually existed. Anyone happens to know any single guys like that (and yes, Scottishness is part of the equation), send them my way.
5. I like cheese. And chocolate. But not together.

Also, I exploded a couple plates today.

Two Down, One to Go. No Pressure.

2007-01-08T17:35:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Bellingham, Washington, for Chas's wedding. Rather than accounting the whole trip in excruciating detail, how about bullet points?

Indian food, it turns out, is quite good.
Anthony's, a restaraunt by the water, has the best service I've ever seen in my life.
My cousin Stephanie has gotten enormous. Okay, that's an overstatement, but it seems like the last time I saw her she was knee-high to a hobbit and could barely form coherent sentences, and now she's taller than Grammy Sue and kind of a weirdo (which isn't meant as a criticism).
It seems Americans, on the whole, are quite clutzy.
Eating an apple at a pizza party really loses a lot in the translation.
My brother is a good man.
So is my dad.
Swing dancing in five-inch heels is only marginally as difficult as it sounds.
Chas is, evidently, a chick magnet. If the vast number of pretty young women that showed up is any indication.
Whenever you've got your entire family in one place, be sure to take a goofy picture.
Even when you think you're dancing like an idiot, there will still be those who think you're good.
According to Chas's cutest friend (who is, alas, married), I am a hottie. Also, pretty much everthing a man could want in a woman. Which is, you know, nice to hear.
Tiny martini glasses, while not terribly functional, are simply adorable.
I *heart* my leather trenchcoat, and superlong scarves are teh cool.
A great dress is worth the effort.
Re: My Parents...Awwww (see below)

The Great White North

2006-12-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

First off, there are a few new things to the layout here. Check out the video at the bottom, a link from youtube.

So, I drove up to BC on Friday for Amanda's bridal/lingerie shower. Long drive, but quite nice. The weather was good. North of Seattle there was snow on the ground, but not the road. Quite a bit of snow by Bellingham and up to Vancouver. Just beautiful. I stayed with Amanda. By the time she got home, got her messages, and called to see where I was, I was just looking for a place to park outside her building. I'm afraid I sort of sprung on her a bit. But she was very gracious and welcoming nonetheless. Then Chas decided to join us, so he came up from Bellingham and we all went out to eat. On Saturday, Chas and I had a nice walk around a fair bit of Vancouver. Such a lovely city. The shower was at night. Got to meet Amanda's friends and sister, who were all very nice, but were humorously shocked at the idea of an intelligent, educated woman actually having a gun in her home and being willing to use it (of course, as Chas and I established while talking to Amanda on Friday, apparently empathy doesn't run in our family. I recently took an "empathy test" online and scored a 9. Out of a possible 80). I hadn't put a card with my present, so when she picked it up, I said, "That's from me, to the woman who's marrying my brother." Then she opened it and everyone was quite amused and seemed to like the footy pajamas I bought in the girl's department at Target (which just about fit her, actually). I left around noon on Sunday for a long, leisurly drive back (and crossed the border three times, as I got a bit turned around in Blaine). Of course, after driving eight hours or so, across the entire state of Washington and a fair bit of Oregon, I got home and realized I'd left all my toiletries at Amanda's, so I had to go down the hill to Safeway...at which point Mom and Dad insisted on one of them driving me down so I didn't go alone. But it was a fun trip and I'm quite glad I went.

Donations

2006-10-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

Safeway has this new thing this month. I guess it's Breast Cancer Awareness month or something. We have to ask every person if they want to donate to fight breast cancer. The top three checkers at the end get a $20 gift card. Strangely, I find this makes the day go much faster. I have a quantifiable goal now, and it's a bit of a game, too. Figuring out how to ask, depending on a variety of factors, sizing the person up...it keeps my mind occupied, which is nice. And, apparently I've been doing well so far. My boss told me I did an awsome job fund-raising the first day. It's also an interesting way to observe people. Some give, some don't give because they already had, or because they give to other things, or in other ways, or because they just can't afford to. Then there are those people who don't give to breast cancer because they're bitter about it not being something that more personally affects them. I asked this one guy (I could tell right off that he was probably gay, so I was curious how he'd react to a disease that primarily [physically] effects women) and he replied with a bitter, "Actually, I have colon cancer. I'm about to start chemotherapy." How do you respond to that. I think I said, "Oh, sorry about that," which I immediately realized sounded completely ridiculous, like I'd just accidentally dropped his pen or something. Of course, what I should have said (although he might have gotten angry and I might have gotten in trouble) was something more like, "So you know how terrible it is, then," because really, why is it a part of human nature that some people feel that just because they're suffering, that somehow lessens what others are going through? Or that trying to help someone else is somehow an offense against them and their own problems? On the other hand, there was this woman in one of those scooters who I asked, and couldn't tell her response, because she started talking about how blessed she'd been in her life, and how the doctor had already found and removed several melanomas before they could cause trouble. Then I saw her put at least a dollar (some form of paper currency) and change in the little donation bucket. Seems to me she had much more the right idea.

And on a completley different topic, Mom said I needed a better picture of me on here, so here's one of Chas and I at Falen's wedding.

48 Hour Film Project

2006-09-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago I participated in something called the 48 Hour Film Project, which is basically this big contest that goes from city to city. Teams from each area compete to make the best film in 48 hours, given a genre, line of dialogue, prop and character. I had heard about it, but had never had a chance to actually do it until this year. Turns out Chuck knew a guy who was getting a team together, so he gave him my name and that was that. Our team leader was this guy named Jason, who's a teacher at McNary. I think it was everyone's first time, and most of us didn't know each other, but it was a lot of fun. For the most part, people were good at their jobs. My job for this was as an actress. I tried to use my main talent, which is writing, but there's only so much you can do when you've got a dozen people all trying to come to a consensus on a story, so at some point I just stood back and let them do what they would. Our genre was fantasy, which I was totally stoked about. That is so my genre. But there was one guy in particular who seemed to really not actually want to do a fantasy. He was the editor/special effects guy. His idea, which I suppose the director liked (either that or this guy was just so pushy that he got his way) was that it's about a character who is fantasizing, and that somehow makes it a fantasy. Which might work, if at some point we actually showed the fantasy, but we never did. *sigh* The character we had to include was a scrapbooker. So, we decided to do a story about this mortician who gets bored at work, so she makes up fantasies about the dead bodies she's preparing, about what they might have been like in life. Which I think could have been a way cooler concept than the actual execution turned out. So, Saturday morning at around 5 a.m., we met at the location to start shooting. A few hours later, we started. I was cast in the main role, wtih the two other actors playing corpses. We filmed what in the final product turned out to be almost the entire film, but what I thought was going to be only about half of it, before I had to go to work at noon. When I came back at 9 p.m. or so, the director informed me that they had decided to redo everything, as it was deemed too creepy. Apparently part of that creepiness was me, as they decided to use the other girl and I got to play a corpse. It turned out all right, though, as I got some pretty cool photos of our rockin' make-up, and had very little to do with the actual finished product. I'd post a link so y'all could see it, but really, it's not worth it. What story there was was vague and overshadowed by the flashy but completely pointless special effects. So, to recap: really fun and interesting learning experience, but I really got to appreciate 1) what actors go through in the whole "just say the lines" kind of treatment, and 2) that yes, a story is critical, and though everyone may want their part to be the most important (i.e. effects), it all amounts to nothing if it's not telling a story.
This photo was taken by Brittni Lippy, who was...okay, I can't remember exactly what her title on this project was. AD or something. Anyway, she took a bunch of cool pics of me and other people, of which I've been promised copies.

X3

2006-05-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

So, Saturday, some of us went to see X-Men 3. I liked it. Beast rocked so hard. Kelsey Grammar as Beast was probably the most brilliant casting of the trilogy aside from Patrick Stewart, who it would be difficult to miscast in anything. (If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to be spoiled for it, t'would be a good idea to stop reading now.) This film was so far beyond anything that really happened in the comics that I wasn't even mad. It's not like they just killed one character who didn't die in the books, but the rest was accurate. That might have upset me. For this film they really just threw everything in canon out the window and took the same general ideas of the characters a whole different direction. For what it was, I liked it. What it was was a totally AU story. (That's "alternate universe" for non-fanfic readers.) As such, it was quite good and a rather good wrap-up of the trilogy. Of course, they leave it open for a possible sequel, which is a possibility, given that the film made something like $130 million opening weekend. But yeah, there were so many things that were so blatantly wrong about the film, to tell them all would take forever. We had a fun rant about it afterward. There's this part where Iceman is out ice skating with Shadowcat, then it pans up to show Rogue watching them. My reaction: "Aww...She needs to find herself a nice cajun boy." Would like to see Gambit show up some time, but maybe he'll get his own movie eventually, if we're lucky. I think possibly the funniest part of the film was when Magneto stopped traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, then uprooted a large portion of it and moved it to a completely different part of the bay. After everything's settled, he looks back at this couple that had been trapped in their car the whole time. The woman looks at him, then locks the doors. One of those brilliant, subtle visual comedy bits that's hillarious because it's both so unbelievable and so true. And that part with Jean and Prof X in the house, for some reason I was getting flashbacks to the ep of TNG called "The Perfect Mate", that she guest starred in. I don't know why. It's weird to watch that episode, though, after seeing X-Men. Watch it some time. You'll see.

Okay, so on to RL (that's "real life") events. Sunday was Faith's bridal shower. Lots of people, didn't really know most of them. Faith was adorable, per usual. I won the game about how much do you know about Faith and Galen. So...not a lot to say there. It was a bridal shower.

Random updates

2006-05-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Hey, everyone. It's been a while, so I figured I should write something. I worked today and for a few hours yesterday and I'm supposed to work Monday, at this place that the employment agency sent me to, typing people's addresses and stuff into a computer. It's just a few days, but at least it's something. I finished a book yesterday, called Knight Life, by Peter David. It's about King Arthur, Merlin, and others in modern day New York, where Arthur decides to run for mayor. It's at best mildly entertaining. Am now trying to finish Wicked, which I've been part way through for years. Saw some movies recently. 8 Below: good. Quite cute, lots of drama, one bit where I actually jumped in my seat, and that's saying something, some humor, etc. And now, some that you've probably never heard of. An Awfully Big Adventure: despite its labeling, not a comedy. Very tragic and creepy, actually. And British. So, quite odd. Gangster No. 1: a pretty mediocre gangster movie. Nothing I haven't seen in a dozen other films. Except that they expect us to believe that in 30 years, Paul Bettany will look like Malcolm MacDowell. Blow Dry: reasonably humorous comedy about a hair styling competition, with a nice little family drama in there, too. Since it's a comedy, in the end, they all become a cute little happy family again: a man, his son, the son's new girlfriend who's the daughter of his arch-nemesis, the man's ex-wife, and the woman she ran off with. Simply heartwarming. Josh Harnett plays Alan Rickman's son, and shows us that his British accent is almost as terrible as Rickman's American accent. But there are some really cool looking hairstyles.

So...Coldstone?

2006-04-24T19:06:00.000-07:00

Well, the plays are over. Saturday was the last night. Went really well again. It's so much fun, but kinda sad that they're done now. I got so many hugs on Saturday. Hugs are nice. Also got some random pics of people hanging out in the green room, just 'cause. After the plays and the Q&A, we did strike and had a cast party (which we spent the first hour or so of watching Robot Chicken). So, really good times. Lotsa fun just hanging out with weird people.

Plays

2006-04-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

Plays are going well. So far not more than a few dropped/messed up lines, but nothing too serious. The actors are great. I tell ya, it's enough to fill my heart with warmth and happiness when I see one of my characters so perfectly realized as most of these have been.

I just saw this "add image" button here, so I'm going to put up a test image to see if I can get this to work.
Okay, it seems to have. This is the pic that appeared in the paper, with the article they wrote about the plays. It's from rehearsal of "Get the Freeze Ray". Kind of an odd choice, but still...

Be cool

2006-03-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

So, I went with Charity and Brody and one of Charity's friends named Emily to go see West Side Story at WOU tonight. I wasn't expecting it to be great, and I wasn't disappointed. Actors that can't sing and singers that can't act...ah, what else is musical theatre made for? The most hillarious part was that a large number of the gang members were gay (those are the music majors, mostly), including Riff, the big tough head of the Jets. Except instead of big and tough he was short, chubby and flaming with a bad dye job. Yeah, my suspension of disbelief snapped about a minute after the curtain rose. The fight scene at the end of the first act was priceless. I'm a big lover of pansy fights and this was definitely one of them. These guys did not know how to fight with a knife, nor, it seems, had they even held one before. It's really one of those things that has to be seen to be appreciated, but let me try to sum up what the fight was like...circle circle, poke poke, jab, backward pansy kick, poke poke, front pansy kick, way overblown reaction faking like the kick actually connected, circle, poke, stab stab. Oy. Boy, we had to try really hard not to laugh too loudly. It was a "serious" part, after all, and I did know people up there. They probably wouldn't have appreciated it. Overall, not quite worth the 11 bucks in itself, but when seen with good people, definitely a passable night's entertainment.

Vancouver

2006-02-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, Mom and I spent most of last week in Vancouver, B.C. checking out the film school and the city. I like it. Looks like a really good program. I especially like that it would give me a nice portfolio by the end, as well as a DVD of my work, and I like the collaborative nature of it. It sounds like it would be really great. Hopefully I'll hear back about the loan application tomorrow.
The city was...well, a city, which I'm not used to. Lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of walking. Kinda cool how everything's so close, though. The first night we got there, Mom tried to put a quarter in the meter, apparently thinking that American money might actually work. It didn't. It's definitely a northwest city, though, as evidenced by the fact that, as I expected, pretty much no matter where you are in the city, if you just keep walking, you'll eventually run into a Starbucks (or several). We drove out to Burnaby to see the studio where they film Stargate. Didn't get to see a whole lot, as there were bushes all around, but I did see one car in the parking lot with the license plate "CHAPI", which made me think of "Chapa'ai", which is the alien word for "Stargate". It amused me.
Um...so, yeah. On Wednesday Chas came up to join us. We spent some time walking around the city, looking for apartments and stuff, just getting a feel for the different areas. I liked Yaletown, but it's expensive. The West End was nice in a sort of quaint residential way.
Well, as I said, hopefully I'll hear about the financing soon. Can't do much until then.

VFS

2006-01-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally heard back from Vancouver Film School. I've been accepted. Some snippets of the letter: "While all of your pieces demonstrate creativity and a passion for writing, your humorous samples are by far the most lively and engaging. You take your characters and situations to extremes, milking them for the most comedic appeal with good results. Your dialogue is a real strength as well. It is snappy and entertaining....This will serve you well, as many developing writers often struggle to create dialogue that is both compelling and authentic. You are well on your way in this regard." He did warn me that my drama sometimes borders on melodrama, though. I suppose he has a point. The comic samples I sent were largely a couple scenes from "Get the Freeze Ray" and one of the sequels.
Now I just have to see if I can get the money to go (about $37,000, including living expenses).

Happy 2006

2006-01-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

Well, it was a pretty quiet New Year's. I managed to get my parents to indulge in some movie-watching, as is tradition. We only got through three on New Year's Eve, but we got another one in on Sunday. We saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which they hadn't seen. Is it just me, or is Tim Roth frightening no matter what he's playing? There was this British movie called Truly, Madly, Deeply, which really wasn't as funny as something in the comedy section should be (about 15 minutes in, this woman's completely crying her eyes out over her dead husband and I'm thinking, "This is a comedy?"). Yet another movie even Alan Rickman couldn't save, as far as I'm concerned (have you ever seen Dark Harbor? Don't). However, the concept of a woman's dead husband coming back in the form of some kind of solid ghost, then her getting sick of him hanging around all day and having all his dead friends over all the time was pretty amusing in itself. Then we watched Equilibrium, which is a great movie that didn't get much publicity. It's sort of Matrix-y, but I think I like the fighting even better. Got some cool gun fighting, as well as swords (including a rather interesting hand-to-hand gunfight). Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, Sean Bean...and an adorable Burmese Mountain Dog puppy. On Sunday we saw Coach Carter, with Samuel L. Jackson. Good movie.

On Monday I woke up feeling quite bad, which continued for the rest of the day until Mom finally took my temperature at night to discover that I had a fever. It got up to 101 that night, but I took some asprin stuff and that kept it down for the next day. I'm feeling pretty good now, though. We think it was the flu.

Well, better get back to doing something productive. Later, all. (And if you read this, don't be afraid to leave a comment so I know someone is. Just click the word "comments" below.)

HP movies

2005-12-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

So, Tuesday we decided to watch all three Harry Potter movies in a row (and by we, I mean it was Charity's idea), so some friends came over (Galen brought Aunt Willena with him) and we started them around 4:15. I'm afraid Charity and Brody (one of their friends I just met) and I kind of annoyed the others with our incessant talking about future events during the first movie (it's really too bad we don't see more of Quirrel. He was strangely likeable. Well, until the end, at least.). I don't know that we ever shut up, but it was fun, and everyone had seen that movie, at least. Then Chuck showed up for the second one, which we still kind of talked through (Gilderoy Lockheart is amusing, and I can't help but feel a little sorry for him at the end. Glad he shows up later, though.). About 30 minutes into the third movie, the only people left were me, Galen, Faith and Aunt Willena, and we got done about 1:30 (Lupin's the best, and Sirius is pretty great, too. Gotta love those good guys who you think might be bad or other people think are bad.).

All of this was to prepare us for going to see the fourth movie at IMAX on Wednesday. You know, after seeing two movies on that screen, I think I can say that I don't actually like it that much. I'd rather see a movie on a normal screen, like they're meant for. It hurts my neck and those close ups are just a bit overwhelming.

Oh, and on Tuesday, which was my...fourth, I think, viewing of PoA, I finally caught that line where Lupin tells Snape, "Don't be a fool," and Sirius says, "He can't help it. It's habit by now."

By the way, if you've never seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, watch it (you should be familiar with Hamlet first, though). I just saw it last night, and it's hillarious. Strange, but hillarious. The dialogue is fantastic and the parts without dialogue are dang funny, too.

"You can't not be on a boat."
"I've frequently not been on boats."
"No, what you've been is not on a boat."