School for Scandal

I'm here on this new show starring Elie Sonthomp called "Jane Smith." We're way the fuck out in post-Pomona, Clairmont being the actual city I believe. We're in a neighborhood of MacMansions, look-a-like pimples sprouting up on the hills like a nasty outbreak. This particular McMansion has a enuff expensive bad taste to be used as a mafia wedding host. Every now and then the owners walk by, and I can't believe they bought all this junk. The ceilings protrude down like the layers on a gaudy wedding cake. Everything looks like a wedding cake, the columns, the ornate touches.

Elie Sonthomp looks great, she was the star of that most famous trilogy, Front to the Past, much of which was shot at Worldwide Studios, a place our Hollywood Death Cab gets to go through some times. She played a small-town girl in Front to the Past, but today she's dolled up to look like a mob moll, although I suspect she's an FBI undercover. Not sure what's going on in this plot, and the AD's weren't kind enough to explain to us what was going on. We have this one A.D. who I'd like to light on fire and watch burn. She's got on a form-fitting top so her jugs jut out. She has this harsh, throaty party-voice, and she uses the condescending kintergarten teacher tones when speaking to us. I had just gotten to set, and she started to yell at me about something I had done wrong, and I was like: "WHAT?"

She realizes she's in a bit of a bind, I bite back, and tries to tell me what crime I've committed, and I cut her off with: "I've executed every command I've been given." She shuts up and wanders away, trying to chat up someone higher on the chain. She flirts shamelessly all day with the males, and turns up the charm super high for one of the male actors. He's from a great cop show, he's an ex-basketball player, looks like Dean Martin in his prime. Kool degenerate look. She is trying to catch his eye and suceeding. I have no problem with this, but it's the drastic change in tone and posture everytime she sez one thing to one of us background folks. Like she's had to go back into the leper pits of Calcutta and is disgusted. She is like so many of the other A.D.'s I've noticed. SO intent, treating this like a war, and us like cannon fodder, hoping to throw their pebble in the pond and have someone notice the waves.

Everyone does it on a set, to a degree. To try to be noticed. To end up not just a grip, but a key grip, to be the D.P, to be the director, to be the star. All the crew has either got their own, or worked on a buddies short film at one time. I get the healthy desire to rise, but some are so feckless and ugly about their stomp to the top. This chick is a Glick, a Sammy Glickette, from the greatest of all LA Tales "What Makes Sammy Run."

I'm talking to an extra who assures me that "Rob Morrow is a dick." He was on a show with him where he walked around glowering the whole time. Rob did, not the extra. This extra and I decide to open an School for Socialization, to help out some of our more backwards backies. Some of our lesson plans include:

Try Listening! You know when someone else is speaking, it's not just your cue to breathe and gather more things to say about yourself when they stop! If you say something that pertains to their last comment, it might actually engage them!

Don't talk about your health ailments all day.

Don't Playah-play any girl in sight. You look like a dog trying to pee on every vertical object, when he's clearly outta piss.

Don't brag about your impending stardom.

Don't do your stand-up routine because someone gave you eye contact.

Try to talk about things other than joining the union. It gets old fast.

Don't shove your political beliefs down people's throats. Think that they might actually disagree with you before you bray!

Don't interrupt crew members when they are doing their job.

Listen to the A.D.'s blocking directions and try to follow them!

This guy and me are having a great time relaying all the various things our school could teach. We like the idea of the Sophisticated Background Artist emergeing from our school, able to walk with a script balanced on his head, and use the right fork when stealing from the craft services table.

Meanwhile, we are set up on these tennis courts, and two background dudes dressed as waiters, have figured out how to play tennis. They're using a ball left behind, and sandles for paddles. quite skilled actually. I can't believe the A.D. lets them play, I was sure I was going to hear the word "liability" at some point. Later backies start pitching at a water bottle they set up across the court. One guy just jumps in and starts demanding the ball, instead of waiting his turn. Yup, we'd sentence him to Background Breeding school.

I wonder, can normal, sane people only do this job so long, before they go "backie-ballistic" or get feral, or just get out. I look at the backies' books around me on the tennis courts, they are all self-help: food, diets, pysche, colon-cleansing, religion, etc. Everyone's trying to cure themselves. This show is bad, lots of lame, bad obvious mob jokes, but I do like the director using a lot of hand-held camera, and trying to get different shots, that he's coming up with on the fly.

At one point, he's musing about his shots, and the camera grip sez "Comon, we got a man on a stick here," telling the director to hurry up and make up his mind, the camera dude is lugging around a very heavy camera on a stick that's attached to his body. Breach of class, was surprised the director didn't fire the dude.

I've decided I want to see a show that uses one extra. You dress him up, send him on crosses both ways. It would be like: we're the cheapest show, we'll only use one extra. After a while, viewers would start to notice, "Hey, that same guys always in the background! They don't use anybody else! Wasn't he just the doctor, now he's an orderly!"

At last I hear those pavlovian words we backies love to hear: "Martini shot!" (last shot of the day), "Checking the Gate," (makes sure film fired okay, and means your through with that particular shot). I wonder when God comes to get me, he'll say: "Hello Josh, I'm here to check your gate."