My Car Will Be More Famous Than Me

Well, the people from that "State of Play" movie finally called like on Wednesday to book me for Saturday (yesterday). Since I already knew I had crapped out on the Stonehenge lottery (350-some people for 190-odd slots was better odds than a coin flip, but no sure thing), I was actually free over the weekend, so I went for it.

The guy also booked my car, which meant that I would drive my car onto the set (which was a city block in Mt. Washington), and it would either be visible as a parked car or I might drive it down the street during the shots. So the casting guy said "clean your car." I didn't know how clean he meant, so I went insane and cleared out all the junk and vacuumed out the inside as well as get the outside washed. Since the shoot was going to be "all day" Saturday, I busted my ass Friday afternoon doing this.

Then I call the hot-line to get the details about call time and where to drive to, and find out that it wasn't going to start until Saturday evening, like 7 PM. This was my first experience with wacky professional movie lingo. See, the 'day' starts whenever the crew arrives to start work, even if that's like 6PM. The first meal of this 'day' (the one they feed the crew before they start and the background should arrive having eaten) is always called 'breakfast.' So in the case of this shoot, 'all-day' meant all-night.

So I get there and get redirected a couple of times as to where to park, but finally did, and put the paper with my name printed on it on the dashboard, left the door unlock and the keys inside like I was told, and flicked with all of the other background across the street. Then they hiked us over to 'base camp' (about 6 blocks away) to get our paperwork started and our clothes approved by wardrobe. Then we piled into vans and drove back to the exact same spot that we'd started our hike from. Apparently we were in front of the background holding area, which was a Curves gym. They had soda, water and snacks for us, and we sat and waited.

Some of the drivers (extras with cars) were called out to drive up and down the block, but my Neon stayed where it was parked and was in a shot from a third-floor window looking out onto the street and following Russell Crowe (the only big star on set that day) as he came out of his character's house and went into the laundromat. (Note that the above is a reference to the actual Russell Crowe and not one of my stupid name substitutions when I refer to one of my friends who may or may not have an LJ account. Sorry for any confusion.) Meanwhile I sat in holding waiting to get picked.

They called me once, but turned out not to use me because they grabbed too many people. But at least my car was still in shot, I believe. Then came 'lunch'. Yes, they actually called it 'lunch.' This was probably the first time I have eaten lunch at 1 in the morning. They carted us back to base camp and we got in line (SAG people got to go in front) and we grabbed a tray and served ourselves from the buffet. There was beef stroganoff, potatoes, chicken, fish, and all sorts of desserts. And we could take as much as we wanted. Most of it was really good, and I found myself a lot hungrier than I would have thought.

When we got back from lunch, I got put in the laundromat putting in a load of laundry while Russell walked down the side walk in front of all of the businesses. They props people apparently went to a couple Goodwill stores and bought everything they had, and divided it into baskets according to their own whims. My basket had a lime-green top, a navy sweatshirt, a purple towel, among other oddly-colored things. After each take I had to remember which items I put into the washer in which order, so I could do it the same way every time. I could see Russell about 12 feet way through a window, which we found useful because for the first couple takes we had no way to know when it was starting until he started walking. Then they got someone in there with a radio who told us when they were rolling.

Then they decided to put a camera rail down in the street next to the sidewalk, so I had to move my car to across the street. Then they decided that the rail wasn't working in the street, and brought it up on the sidewalk, but I probably would have had to move the car anyway as the rail was pretty close to the edge. Once we were done that shot, they sent us back to holding.

They called me again, but only so I would move my car back to the other side of the street because they wanted some of the same cars to be in this new shot. Then back to holding. Then they put me on a bus (they had actually rented a Metro bus for these scenes) only to pull me off and say they were releasing some of us. As it was 5 AM at that point, that was fine by me.

So, even though my car may have been in up to three times as many scenes as me, I now have a voucher copy from one day of being an extra under a SAG waiver. Two more to go.