Nightstalker

August 23, 2005
Episode: The Five People You Meet in Hell
Location - L.A.

Another long day. I clocked in at 11:00 am and clocked out at 1:12 am, next morning. The office set of the Los Angeles paper that Kolchack works for is on the 16th floor of a Downtown L.A. building, and base for the Background is on the 15th floor, so today meant a lot of elevator rides up and down. It also meant that when I was not on set, I was in an air conditioned office space with a view of the L.A. downtown. Being as I have issues with heights, I didn't make much use of the view, but one could not ignore it given there were more windows than extras on this set.

Today (and tomorrow) I am a staff writer for the Los Angeles Beacon, and as such, I got to sit at a desks and pretend to be busy. As a background artist, I am expected to remember what I did, so that each time the cameras shift location to film the scene from somewhere else, I will repeat the actions the same way in each shot. This allows the editor to cut the scenes together while having some level of continuity. In one long scene, I wrote out my actions as I did them.

Paper, Phone, Write, Hang-up, Book, Phone, Write, (Long wait).

I picked up a paper, examined it, picked up the phone, spoke to the person on the other end (i.e. talked to myself (without talking)), wrote down information, hung-up, picked up a book, again picked up the phone and wrote down more information. The last action was longer as the scene was long. This was easy enough, because before each call of "Action" by the director, is the call for "Background", which is our cue to start doing whatever we're to do. By the way, the director relies on the production assistants, or director's assistant (2nd 2nd) to place and direct the Background. He may call for more movement or bodies, but what they do is not his concern (unless it takes away from his scene).

By 12:30 am, things were getting harder. All I had to do on the "Background" call was walk from off camera, into the scene and away out the door at the far end of the office. The only problem was that the guy who yells "Background" was not given his cue and so neither were the Background artists. For quite a few takes, we background folk were relying on telepathy to know when to go. This was the last scene, and the last camera angle, so everyone was rather beat.

During one scene, the director was upset because a simple 3 line scene was taking too long to set up. He hollered that if things didn't get moving he'd shoot himself. Then he added that he would take a few others with him first. Crew pointed out that they did not have budget for bullets, so he was out of luck.

By wrap, several of the Background artists had to be nudged to get them going, as they had fallen asleep. A good thing, as many of us will be back on the set by 11:00 am next day. Less than 8 hours of sleep away.

CSI: New York

August 22, 2005
Episode: Corporate Warriors
Location - CBS Studios

Sometimes you just hit the jackpot for bookings. While I did not end up as a dead body on CSI: NY, I did get to be a band member. The actual call was for background that had their own instruments, and no, you did not need to know how to play them. I have a trombone and was thus told to show up in proper band attire, and was given a white hat and suspenders. For this episode, there was one trombone, two trumpets, one cornet, two clarinets, and three saxophones. Only two of us actually played the instrument we brought with us. Myself and one of the saxophones. He and I had the chance to jam as we did a little impromptu swing and Dixie. Though not to loud, so as not to annoy the director.

We were taken from base to New York street, perhaps better known as the Seinfield street. This is where many of the street scenes were shot for that show, and today we were shooting an Italian Festival where some poor guy gets the bloody hell kicked out of him. Now the good thing about all of this is that this Italian Festival is a food thing. Lots of food, and it is all freshly cooked on set and edible and background were told to go ahead and eat what they wanted, but please try to eat some of it during the camera roll. I'm sure I saw one or two people being rolled off the set by overworked crew. This ended up being a ten hour day for me (starting at 5:45 am) but I never felt the least bit hungry.

New York street has awnings that bridge the gap between buildings on both sides of the street, thus allowing some control of light and preventing direct sun light on the cast and crew. The street itself is not overly long, so to give it that feeling of greater length, the cameras shot the street going first one way then the other. There were quite a few background on the set, so it really was as crowded as it looked, though it did help that most of the background stayed off the sidewalks.

In the scene I suspect is the opening scene to this story arc, some guy larches into a statue of a saint and appears to be grabbing handfuls of cash, only just put there by obliging background actors. Five Italian looking guys grab him and beat and kick him in a violent display that surprised most of the background players who, because they were not told that the fight was going to happen during that take, were sure that some of the folks on set had gotten into a non-verbal dispute. The beat upon actor got quite the applause after regaining his feet and demonstrating that he could still walk.

Alas, some people have all the perks. I noted with some envy that the guy that played the dead body (after being so artfully beaten) had a stand in, just like the leads of the show. Any time you could not see the body, but one of the stars was looking at or photographing it, the actor got to go back to the shade and a dummy was put in his place. I wonder what they pay the dummy?

West Wing 2

August 18, 2005
Call time: 12:30 PM
Warner Brothers Studio
Burbank, CA

Today was a really cool day, because today, I pulled up to the WB parking lot and said, "I'm background for West Wing, 12:30 call." and I got to park my car and walk onto the WB lot.

They could have had me sit on my hands all day, and I would have been just fine. I managed to get to the souvenir store on the lot and use my pay voucher to get 20% off the WB pin I purchased. Next best thing to being a regular employee.

Clocked in at 12:30 (There really isn't a clock. That is just when they hand you your pay voucher) and sat around, visited the company store and walked onto the set of West Wing (actually behind the scenes). Like all things on T.V. they look bigger on the screen than they are on the set. After much sitting around and some wandering, the time came to go over to the "Ranch". This is where the WB has many more sets that can be used by any production. Today, we were shooting in a library. More specifically, the school library of the High School we visited yesterday.

We sat and sat and it was after lunch (5:00 PM) before my group of parents/teachers were called. Of course, during this time, rehearsals were going on with the talent and such. In the library, Santos finishes a speech and is then open to questions from the assembled parents and teachers. The subject of the questions was Creationism and Evolution. At one point the director (who looks like he just graduated high school) explained that he needed the background to respond to what Santos was saying, i.e. take a side and agree or disagree. He asked how many people in the group believed in Creationism and no one raised a hand. So he asked for a show of hands of those born between January and June. When the hands were up he said, "You folks now believe." Funny how this method worked for him in other ways. Santos makes a humorous remark and those of us born between January and October were the chucklers in the crowd.

Now here is something that you would never know if you didn't see it or weren't told. Sets are very warm/hot places. Lots of lights and people packed into a place with no air conditioning (picks up on the sound recordings) and the doors are kept closed during shots. By watching the show, you couldn't tell that the actors was being mopped between takes. Nearly every time the cameras stopped rolling, make-up was out with tissue and retouches as needed, and let me tell you it was needed. Bottled water was provided and I noted that the water was HtoO, which gives 100% of the profits (after taxes) to charity. I don't know if this is a WB thing or a West Wing thing, but I thought it was cool.

One of the books on this mythical high school set was "Complete Sexual Fulfillment" and a copy of the Financial Times was visible with a picture of George W. Bush on the cover. You never know what little secrets are kept from you on television.

If you want to make money in stocks, buy stock in the company that makes the black, orange, red, white and blue tape used by the crew to do everything with. I kid you not, one gal had at least one of every color on her belt, and it was used to mark where the camera stops and travels, where the actors stand, where the chairs are placed, and for tacking down anything that one didn't want getting up. The WB must spend a kings fortune on this tape, and Hollywood is full of studios that use it.

At 8:00 PM we took a brake while the set was adjusted so the cameras could look at the audience that Santos was talking to and we came back in and repeated the scene many times over with ever changeling camera angles and points of focus. The scene probably runs less than four minutes, and took a minimum of five hours to shoot.

We were done by 10:00 PM. While wondering around the Ranch, I came across a sign that you might recall from some of the WB's commercials for their shows. It's at the top of this post.

West Wing 1

August 17th, 2005
"Mr. Frost" (episode # 7.4)
Call time: 6:00 AM
El Segundo - On location
Leonard High School

I managed to get just over 3 hours sleep before getting up and getting ready for a 6:00 AM call in El Segundo (10 miles from home). After checking in with wardrobe, the background people loaded onto a bus and were taken to a local high school where we settled our belongings and marched over to props to be turned into, protesters/parents/teachers, Secret Service, state troopers, journalists, photographers, camera/boom mic operators or VIP's. Amongst the background we had a musician playing a protester, an ex air force officer/environmental engineer as a journalist and a working L.A. policeman as a state trooper. Takes all kinds.

By 7:30 we were busy shooting a scene where Senator Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits), along with Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford) and Louise Thornton(played by Janeane Garofolo) pull up in a motorcade in front of the high school, and walk from the cars to the inside of the front doors. Josh and Louise stop to talk a moment while Santos stops to talk to the previously mentioned VIP's. Then Santos joins them and they walk into the school.

Sounds simple, I know, but the truth is that it just ain't so. First of all, all of us protesters had to be put into position. One of the PA's (production assistants) came over and proceeded to tell us protesters where to stand. We were put into "pro religion" and "anti religion" groups and told to holler and chant real loud when the director yells for background. Then she went away and we stood around waiting for all to start. How silly is that. Another PA came over and rearranged the two groups into four, mixed them beyond understanding and told us to mime the yelling and chanting, so as not to interfere with the sound.

Finally the director is ready to go and the cops halt traffic, and background is called as a 737 passes 20 feet over head as it leaves the runway of LAX. I mean the bloody landing gear is still spinning and you could see little Eddy looking out the planes window at all the funny people standing around the high school. If you ever think it must be a breeze to be an actor, or work in television, think again. We finished that one blasted scene at 12:00 Noon. That is to say FIVE HOURS LATER! We yelled, we mimed, we collapsed because if we had been real protester waving those signs (mine said "STOP Praying on America's Children") we would have dropped them and gone home hours before. By lunch time, my arms were about to fall off, the "press" background actors were scorched, having been in the sun the whole time, and the actors had gotten in and out of those SUV's enough times to qualify as door testers at the car factory.

I got to eat lunch at 1:00 PM and then sat in the shade of the Base until 6:00 PM when I was called to be background once again. This time I sat in a chair for an hour and twenty minutes while poor Jimmy Smits repeated the same scene over and over and over, until the children in the band behind him also had the words committed to memory. By 9:00 PM we were done shooting and by 9:45 I was on our way home. That's 15 hours and 45 minutes after I clocked in. Long day, huh.

Something you pick up on quickly is that everything moves around a set in a rather chaotic manner, and one of the things you here often is "Watch your Back!" You are a participant in avoiding your own injury. You are warned and then must move or be moved.

The crew was great and West Wing is a must to work for again. Which I will be doing tomorrow. Gotta love this biz. I only hope the day is a little under 15 hours this time.

Huff (Showtime)

August 16, 2005
9:30 Background Call (Extras)
Set: Trader Vics in Beverly Hills

I set my alarm for 7:45 AM and got up at 6:54 AM (groan). Dressed and out the door by 8:30 AM and at the base camp by 9:00 AM. Base camp is where they set up the meeting place for actors, crew and such. Because this was a location shoot, we were fed breakfast and lunch. The "background", which is what the extras are called, were ferried to the wardrobe department where the talents (principal actors) trailers and make up vans were located. Costume people checked what we wore, and I had to change from a white shirt (too much for the cameras) to a red shirt and as I had done my own make-up, I was ready.

We were then ferried (again by van) to the shoot site. This was the famous "Trader Vics" restaurant in Beverly Hills. I went inside and found a seat where I spent the better part of an hour chatting with Jennifer (J.J.) who was set to play a jail guard later in the day. We now know each others lives. While I was sitting there, a production assistant came over to Tom Skerritt and asked him if he could filet a fish. He asked why and was answered, (couldn't hear the answer) and then asked if they were going to put him to work in the kitchen. He seemed reassured that he was still going to play the scene he rehearsed.

It was about 11:30 before they needed me. On the call "Background", the extras start moving, and then "action" is called. Action is when the talent begins emoting. My first bit was to be seated by a waiter with two women and another man. By the third take, the other guy was taken off to sit nearer the action. About 3 or 4 takes later, I was dragged off a spot about six feet from the talent, where I waited for my cue to cross from stage left to stage right, just behind the actors. We did this a bazillion times.

After a while, they moved the cameras, and I had to move to a table just behind the talent, where on my cue, I got up and made the same cross. I have begun to think that some of this was made up on the spot. Kind of, "Well, we got this guy crossing, and now we gotta figure out where he crossed from." A rather controlled form of chaos.

Among the "background" players, were those that were enjoying themselves, like me, and those who gripped about the working conditions. Kind of like a fisherman gripping about having to work on a boat. Sheesh.

After lunch at 4.44 PM, I clocked out and went home. About a 20 minute drive. And I am beat. Spent most of the day sitting, but when I worked, I had to pay close attention to what was going on, this being my first day on a set. I had a ball. I would not mind working with this crew again. Professional and polite.

Tomorrow -------------------------------------------- West Wing!

In the Background - The Start

Three years ago I joined up with Central Casting and became a background actor (extra). These are the blogs I sent to my friends and family.

Central Casting
August 15th, 2005

Well today was the day to sign up at Central Casting. Easiest job I ever put in for. You go in, fill out the papers, pay a fee to sign up, and you are almost an extra. I say almost because, I still have not worked in that capacity. That will be remedied tomorrow, in Beverly Hills, where I will be making my first appearance in a T.V. show.

I will be a restaurant patron on the Showtime show, Huff. Release date to be noted when I get one. I am, of course, excited, and will let you all know what happens.

While signing up at Central Casting, a gentleman made a most excellent observation. He said, "I would rather pretend to type in an office for a living, than actually type in an office for a living." Here - Here!

Well check in Wednesday to see how things go on Tuesday. I will try to keep this log active and up to date. I suspect my success will have something to do with how busy I am.