My shoot this weekend was the polar opposite of last weekend. Last weekend we began around 4:30 pm and ended when the sun came up. This past Friday I left my house at 6:30 am and got home around 9:30 pm. It was for a post-protest party at "Grace's" house. I drove my car right to the site where the filming was taking place so that my car could be parked on site, to be used in the movie. (That happened last weekend too.) Then, as before, I was given a short van ride to "base camp" for wardrobe, hair and make-up. Then back to the site with all the other extras who were part of the day's filming.
As is typical, there is a lot of sitting around and waiting to be called for a shoot. Once you arrive at the scene of the shoot, each person is assigned a spot to be. Props are given out (in this case, bottles of fake beer, glasses of fake wine, fake joints, etc.), and if you need to move around during the shoot, you are told exactly where to move to and when to do it. My first shoot had me placed next to Cat Guthrie, a singer/songwriter woman whom I had accompanied at a concert two weeks before. It was nice to see her again in this context.
For each shoot, a scene needs to be practiced, and then shot several times to get it just right. Sometimes you have to be quiet, and pretend that you are talking, while one of the principals in the film has some dialogue. It is a fascinating process. The night after this shoot, last night, I saw "Cyrus," which has some party scenes in it. Having done the party scenes the day before made me have an entirely new perspective on what is involved in filming a scene like that. I realized that when this film comes out, I will be one of the only people on earth who will notice my own face in the scenes of the film, because I and the other extras are truly "background." But that's totally okay with me. I loved being involved, meeting so many interesting people, and seeing first-hand a little bit of how a movie is created.
As is typical, there is a lot of sitting around and waiting to be called for a shoot. Once you arrive at the scene of the shoot, each person is assigned a spot to be. Props are given out (in this case, bottles of fake beer, glasses of fake wine, fake joints, etc.), and if you need to move around during the shoot, you are told exactly where to move to and when to do it. My first shoot had me placed next to Cat Guthrie, a singer/songwriter woman whom I had accompanied at a concert two weeks before. It was nice to see her again in this context.
For each shoot, a scene needs to be practiced, and then shot several times to get it just right. Sometimes you have to be quiet, and pretend that you are talking, while one of the principals in the film has some dialogue. It is a fascinating process. The night after this shoot, last night, I saw "Cyrus," which has some party scenes in it. Having done the party scenes the day before made me have an entirely new perspective on what is involved in filming a scene like that. I realized that when this film comes out, I will be one of the only people on earth who will notice my own face in the scenes of the film, because I and the other extras are truly "background." But that's totally okay with me. I loved being involved, meeting so many interesting people, and seeing first-hand a little bit of how a movie is created.