napping kids

lotsa folks did not work today, lotsa extra's snoring and such in Holding. Holding was next to set, so we had to be fairly quiet there, and this one clod kept talking at loud levels, and we all kept getting shushed for him. time-outs for all of us and no juice boxes from the teacher.

I did "work" a lot today and had a fellow extra today try to get me to play imaginary cards as part of our "miming" some action. he was doing all this elaborate motion and movement, which I should have known was coming my way -- before our scene started he talked about "craft" and "acting" and "observing." He then goes on to mime cards we don't have, and then do gestures which would mean he dropped the cards, and then he would magically have the cards again. Then, he decides that we are going to play the shell game, and for the pea -- he pulls out one of his imaginary teeth. He really didn't have a lot of real teeth, so using an imaginary one was a good idea.

While we were pretty far in the deep background, I was thinking about those crime shows, where they zoom into the background and find all the evidence -- I wish someone would zoom in on this dude in the viewing room and go

WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING?

Of course, I would probably be implicated, because I really didn't have a choice but to play along (although I was protesting with my mime by knocking the cards off the table, or pushing them back to him as he dealt. Yes, a budding Mime Contrarian I am!). I kept pointing to the spot on the floor where he dropped his imaginary cards, and when the scene ended, and we could talk again.

Me: YOU DROPPED YOUR CARDS.
Card Shark Extra: That was good banter!
Me: YOU DROPPED YOUR CARDS
Card Shark Extra: Why are you pointing?
Me: YOU DROPPED YOUR CARDS. YOU PULLED CARDS OUT OF YOUR COAT AND THEN YOU MADE THIS GESTURE (I do his flamingo arms windmill), WHICH MEANS YOU DROPPED YOUR CARDS ON THIS SPOT.
Card Shark Extra: Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, tell me how you do that trick to know where the cards fall.
My inner dialogue: IT'S CALLED LISTENING AND WATCHING THE OTHER PERSON INSTEAD OF FLAILING AROUND WITH YOUR IMAGINARY OBJECTS, WEIRDO!!!

Another Pinhead attached himself to me and proceeded to do endless monologues. Would not listen, would ask you a question, and then cut you off if you tried to answer it. I avoided him the rest of the day. He really did have a pin head.

I met some great peeps, however. I met this dude who's a professional Abe Lincoln, and he looked JUST like him. Real nice guy, gets a lot of corporate work outta it. Kids always ask him if he's the real Abe Lincoln and he goes "pull my beard." It's real, the kids pull it, and they're eyes burst wide open. He told me about someone on the boat movies I did (and I got decent placement in the one boat movie, I've been getting a lot of calls from peeps who've seen me in it) that went around playing songs and singing in high falsetto, but with absolute conviction. I don't know how I missed this dude. he's on a lot of sets, and he usually has a cup for tips!

I also re-ran into big fat pig dude, who's got his own Movie.com website now. He was on a show with me, and then I saw him in another movie as Tom Cruises brother (they just show a picture of him), and he even rode my Death Cab. he keeps trying to get me to come to his modern dance troupe, but I demur. he talks loud on set, and I get intesely nervous around him, I don't want to be shushed or bounced.

I was in the same make-up truck today as Muslim Hay. They were trying to rush extras to set, so they farmed some out to the principal make-up trailer. Muslim Hay was in their being a brooding muslim. He didn't say a word the entire time, and everyone else was joking and laughing about "kidnap hair," how are hair had to look unattended for this shoot. Meanwhile, I spoke at length to another actor on set about criquet. Another New Zealand dude, me thinks. He was kind and didn't pull any I'm an actor, you're background shiite.

As I left, one of the backies, Mark de Marquis was having it out with a P.A. over our Non-Deductbile Breakfasts. Much time is spent contemplating this in backie land, and the math leaves me out. I just know that we often don't get it, but have it written in as if we did by production companies. Mark de Marquis is a kind of backie shamon. He's on the SAG lecture circuit, and he's a tiny man who goes around and just starts rubbing your back, and you immediately purr. People claim he's healed the infirm. In the hands of the wrong person, his magic back rubbing powers could do harm, but he seems to be a genuinely caring person. he almost reminds me of Fiddler in Roots, amongst us lowly backie-slaves, he's the most respected, and yet if a sniffy N.Y. film producer looked at him on set, he would think him just a miscreant, a felon, a deluded star-struck bafoon.

Speaking of deluded behavior, we are not supposed to ever talk about the making of this film (like we work at the CIA), and have signed a paper vouching for this. The movie has had a codename the entire time we've been working it, despite it being on movie.com under it's correct name. they A.D.'s won't tell us much about the scene we are working in, for fear of breaching security, so we're often at a loss at why we are doing things. I feel like coming to set with 50 copies of the movie.com write-up on this picture and leaving them all over set. We got a big lecture about cell phones before we left tonight, despite never being told they were verbotten, previous to our admonishment. Me thinks they've got outraged producers who saw our cell phones and our afraid we'll take pictures and pierce the veil of secrecy so needed for a good movie production.

first day on Kid Napped

well, I got to see Muslim Hay. He is a famous actor and famously good looking. Muslim was in a Stan Spongheymeyer film when he was 7, and never got off the fame train. he was fairly intense on set, walked around in chains, he's one of the captives of this kid who kidnaps adults. he's also a juggler, and the plot sez he's having an intense competition with another juggler. I know, I know ... I didn't birth this thing ...

in the scene we shot today, Muslim Hay is pretending to be American. he's from new Zealand, but can jettison the accent with an eyelash's bat. it's weird to hear him suddenly burst into a full kiwi accent, when conversing with the director who is also from New Zealand. two extra kids get to unchain him, so he can talk to his "solicitor." I keep saying that if he's from America, he wouldn't know what a "solicitor" is (laywer). Or, at least, it would throw him for a second.

The other thing that is weird is while we are all captive, when the lawyer shows up to talk to him, we don't acknowledge, we just keep doing the tasks of incarceration given to us by our handlers.

One of our handlers has used me before. We chat today. He's just bought a Condo in beverly hills for ONE MILLION dollars. His occupation: corralling miscreants. Lord knows how I hate to bash a fellow backie, but being away from the herd for awhile makes me remember how barely functional some of these peeps are. Examples of coarse behavior today:

Immediately asking people how much money they make in certain kinds of previous jobs.
Farting in crowded areas.
Waving and shouting across a courtyard to fellow extras who are being given direction by THE DIRECTOR.
Shouting to the director and actors to "have more fun!" I hope this guy got canned. We heard five people are not coming back tomorrow.
Starting conversations with a personal complaint that is irrelevant to me ("I'm supposed to have gotten a residual today.") Uh, okay.
Coughing on people while barely covering your mouth.
Going up and talking to a nice principal actor, and immediately telling him about your access cable show you hope to do some day, thus insuring that the next time one of us stands next to said actor, we won't understand why he's being so stand-offish.
Speaking in a loud voice on a quiet set.
Taking a take-away container and filling it with two weeks worth of food. I know peeps are poor, but comon ...
Mistaking the very married make-up ladies kindness as an invitation to ask her out ...
Arguing with the sign-out people for five minutes (and making others wait) for a make-up bump for two dabs of face mud.
Launching immediately into your political diatribe of choice on someone who is lucky enough to stand next to you.

It's an early A.M. shoot in Van Nuys. They've taken one of the oldest buildings in the city, and turned it into a makeshift prison, run by kids. We are supposed to clamor in our bondage, but have to be careful we don't break the fake steel bars actually made out of flimsy wood. The main problem is it's a courtyard that sits next to the 405. So you have the attendant sirens, traffic helicopters and whooshing of traffic. Maybe their sophisticated post-production audio programs can get rid of these gremlins of the sine wave, but I doubt it. We did a lot of takes today, and I think sound was the culprit. Why do people shoot inside of staid soundstages instead of quirky quixotic locations???? This is why.

The set is button-cute, with several levels, and makes me want to break-out into Oliver songs, or West Side Story balcony numbers. Ah well.

how fitting

went to my fitting today. they dressed me as a dungeon dude, lots of itchy layers. it's mostly the same wardrobe crew as for The Sad Belgian. some nice dudes, some witches. the one dude had me stand against a white backdrop for a picture, turns out this backdrop was a door. I was bounced by a wardrobe witch coming through the door.

"maybe you shouldn't be standing there," she hissed at me.

riiiiiiiiiiiiight, like me, the mere extra had chosen to stand in this place. godforbid she vent her anger at her fellow costumer who had put me against this backdrop, despite knowing it's a door.

weird old dude asked me to open his gatorade. this meant, I was instantly his new best friend, and needed to listen to his ramblings. it all came back to me -- extra's extra-ability to sense a sensitive listener. trapped in a changing room with him, I nodded politely and was saved by another extra walking in whom he had worked with before.

Kid Napped

I've got work. I've got work.

"It's Monday, everybody works on Monday."

Dave. The Movie. That's where that quote is from.

I'm working on Monday. Hard, back-breaking work. I can't imagine what it's like to work so hard your back just snaps, but I paid $50 at the House of Metaphors for that phrase, and I'm going to use it.

I have a fitting on Monday. I will be silently (or not so silently) hated by the wardrobe witches. I am the underclass, and they have to touch me, to take their meausre of me. I have taken my measure of them, and I don't like them. At all.

Oh, some are fine. But the prospect of the clucking, and hateful glares, commands that cannot be followed, admonishments for not following the un-followable commands, bums me out.

But the thought of a union paycheck bums me up. I've got four daze of work on this project: About a kid who jails adults. The movie is called "Kid Napped." He's a kid who jails about 50 adults.

I'll be one of them. Captured by a child. So, I'll have to have suitable wardrobe. Fittings are fun when you put on your clothes, and start to create your extra character. Build your backstrory, your frontstory, you character dialogue, your rich, inner dialogue, your pressure points of conflict, arc, etc. When you watch a movie, you think that guy just walked across the screen to get a paper? Oh, fuck no. He's getting a paper because he's going to the want ads. To find someone he can't submit to, because his wife bores him. He's got 2 kids, one of which he'd like to sell on the open market for spare parts. He's been convicted of a felony in Kansas, but he was freed because of a computer glitch. "Just getting a paper?" Fuck you man, we are fucking background ARTISTS!