Americanizing Shelly

Americanizing Shelly is a low budget film that doesn't have too much info on imdb. It took me little over an hour to drive up to Thousand Oaks ... for some reason there is always this "rush hour" on Sundays around 5 and 6 and it always screws up my travel time because I always forget about it. Anyway, I got there and basically sat around and read for about and hour or 2. The bar was open and some bar patrons were there, so, all in all, it felt pretty laid back. I met this guy, who was also a paid extra, that was the spitting image of Vince Vaughn out of Swingers, and just as loud and obnoxious as you might imagine. He was a lot of fun to talk to. They finally broke for lunch around 9, and the burrito buffet was pretty good. They had an electric slide lesson on the dance floor right after. I had suspected there might be dancing, since it was a country western bar with a good size dance floor and thought I might get to two step. =) I was right. Well ... sort of. An AD asked me if I could two step and I said yes a little. I'd been fortunate to do it some while I was in Austin. =) Then, they picked out a guy and told me to teach him. Now, out of all the dances I know, I know very little about leading two step, so teaching a guy was not something I was confident about. They found 3 other couples that were regulars at the club that could two step, so once I showed the guy they paired me with what I came up with as a basic and an underarm turn, it helped to see them and get a better feel for it. I have to say that my partner had no dance experience, but he did awesome. He really picked it up quickly and for a guy to learn a traveling dance like that and not only have to maneuver a dance floor right away, but a dance floor packed with camera and crew, he really pulled it off and made it look like he'd done it before. And he wasn't even a paid extra ... he was just there with some co-workers. We had to go around the line dancing electric sliders in the middle, somewhat like you see on a normal dance floor. However, the first few takes we did, they had us going the wrong way ... against the line of dance ... which even messed up the real two steppers. Then we finally got to go the right way, but we also had to maneuver through the line dancers, which is not typical, and needless to say, there were a few bumps here and there. All in all, though, that was the most fun of the evening and the most interesting to write about. After the dance scenes, there were just your normal bar scenes with pool playing and what not in the background. We didn't get out of there until 2:30, and they were still filming,, but they couldn't afford to pay us OT, so they got rid of us. I got home about 3:30ish and fell fast asleep. =)