Happy Holidays!!

I've been so crazy busy with work that I haven't had a chance to post here! I'm back in SC until Jan 3, having a good holiday with my parents. I've been working as a casting assistant again on an untitled confidential project. It's been absolutely crazy but it's an exciting film to be a part of.
Hope everyone is having a great holiday!!

Sasha

My mom waited patiently last night until I finally got home to tell me some sad news. Sasha passed away yesterday. I loved him very much. He was my soul cat and I will miss him. I found him when I was working at Six Flags in Atlanta the summer of '97. He was a stray that would let me pet him and no one else, so at the end of the summer, I rescued him. When I moved to Austin, TX, he went to live with my parents. He always seemed to be a happy cat and I know my parents took good care of him. He ate breakfast yesterday and appeared to be normal. Then, a little later, my parents couldn't find him. They saw Sniffles and Mystic (our 2 other cats) sniffing around our wicker love seat. Apparently, he had crawled underneath and died in his sleep. Here are some of my favorite pics of my soul cat.

Sasha with his pal Mystic in the kitchen window.

The perfect lap cat.

Corporate Headquarters - Stand In

Well I'm back in LA and started working as a casting assistant again. Yesterday, I was needed to work as a stand in and get to today and tomorrow as well. It's great because I really need to work SAG as much as possible so that I can qualify for medical benefits. It was my first time working as a stand in and I had a blast.

Still in SC ...

so my parents drop me off at the airport on Monday ... and just before I board the plane I call them to make sure they made it home safe (my dad is 75 and I'm not too keen on his driving)

so my mom answers her phone and says they are almost home (my dad is driving) and then my mom says "WAIT" real loud, then says "oh my god" then I hear a crash and the phone goes dead ...
needless to say I didn't get on the the plane! They are ok. My mom called me as soon as she could to let me know they were ok. The accident happened a block from our house.

So I'm in SC until Friday ... staying to help with the insurance and help them get a new car.

St Cloud Class of 1950 Reunion

I flew home to Columbia, SC so that I could drive my dad down to St. Cloud, Florida for his high school reunion. St. Cloud was and still is a small town in central Florida near Orlando. They have long since built a new high school, but this was a reunion for the old school. I believe the years were 1929 - 1968. My dad was in the class of 1950, and his class met for dinner the Friday night before the reunion.
Saturday was the big reunion day. We went for the lunch and then returned around 4:30 for the dinner. There were people there that graduated in the 40s all the way to the 70s. I think overall, a little over 200 people showed up. It had been said that that would be the last reunion (they've been having them every 2 years for a little while) but there was a rumor that someone from one of the younger classes would be taking over and continue to have them.
I met some great people and heard some great stories. It was a lot of fun and I brought a video camera that a friend had lent me and tried to get some stories on tape, although some people became a little shy when they saw the camera.

St. Cloud High School (which has since been torn down)

G-Force - Pedestrian

Worked on a film called G-Force last monday. Easy day ... only used 3 of the 11 of us, so we just sat around and talked and admired the wonderful food they had at craft service.

Booked my flight home to Columbia, SC today. I'll be there from Oct 15 - Oct 29. I'm taking my dad to his last high school reunion in Florida on Oct. 20. I'm looking forward to a road trip with my dad.

I was hoping to hit austin on the way back to LA, but flights just got too expensive ... I waited too long. =( My friend Jason is getting married the first weekend in November and I was hoping to make that. On the bright side though, round trip tickets from LA to Austin are less than $200 at the moment ... so if I come up with the $$ then maybe I will make it.

Time for me to drive down town for a night shoot ...

Cavemen - Office Worker - 2 Days

I worked on Cavemen on Wednesday and Thursday. The shoot ran long both days ... good money, but boy was I tired. I didn't get home until 3am Thursday night (or should I say Friday morning).
It's a new sitcom based on the guys from those Geico Insurance commercials. I was an office worker in a mundane office where one of the "cavemen" gets a job. I'm not sure how this sitcom will do, but from the little I was exposed to, the writing seemed smart. It's not the kind of show I watch though.

Super Hero - Nurse

I hadn't heard of this film when I got booked on it, and apparently they were only in their 2nd day of shooting. My call time was 10am on Tuesday in Hawthorne, which is only about 20 minutes from me. I was actually booked as a patient and was told to bring pajamas, a robe, and slippers. They handed me a hospital gown and as soon as I had changed into it, they changed me into a hospital worker/nurse because someone hadn't shown up. So they gave me lovely pink scrubs to change into. I quickly discovered that the film was a comedy when I worked in the first scene. Jeffrey Tambor was playing a doctor and the scene had him walking through doors in the ER while he was talking to someone (the lead of the film, I believe, a guy that looked 18-20 yo) and the door hits a nurse with a tray, the nurse and the tray go flying, and Jeffry Tambor keeps walking and talking oblivious while we all scramble to see if the nurse was ok. It was a fun scene to be a part of. The nurse was a stunt woman and there was a stunt coordinator as well. Even though it's not that dangerous of a "stunt", films always take this kinda of stuff seriously and there was a large cushioned mat for her to fall onto.
The next scene we filmed, the doctor (Jeffrey Tambor) brought the guy into a hospital room to see his uncle. The uncle turned out to be Leslie Neilsen. It was real cool to see him in person.
The whole crew seemed laid back and had a sense of humor. At some point, someone fell asleep in a chair ... I'm not exactly sure who, on set. So, for fun, everyone started to quietly leave the set. The guy woke up before we could pull it off, but it was pretty funny.
All in all, it was a long day (YAY for OT!) but lots of fun.

Audition - Embarq

For whatever reason, I haven't heard from my commercial agent in a year. So I was surprised and happy when they called on Friday to let me know I had an audition on Monday. I was required to bring a winter coat, scarf and hat, and judging by the email I received, it was for some wireless service. My audition time was at 1:50 PM, but thought that since there was a slight possibility that I may have written it down wrong and my audition time may have been 1:15 PM, I planned to get there at 1. I arrived around 10 after 1, and I was the first person there. The casting agency (Danielle Eskinazi Casting) was at lunch until 1:30 so I found the sign in sheet and the info and made myself comfortable. The biggest part about getting nervous for auditions for me is mostly finding where I have to go and getting there on time. A man arrived and signed in and I signed in after him. I hate being first. =P
More and more people starting showing up in their winter attire and someone finally came out and started collecting our headshots and taking photos of us. The audition was a christmas carol like jingle for Embarq, a wireless carrier that I've never heard of. They were auditioning us 8 at a time and we all had to sing. They picked 1 town crier, 1 character, and the rest of us just sang the initial chorus: call, call, call, call, unlimited calls.
We rehearsed to the jingle music a bunch of times and then were called into the audition room. They placed us all together like carolers, with the town crier in the middle and the character with 2 lines behind him and the rest of us grouped around him. We rehearsed twice and then did it for the camera twice and that was it. Oh ... and of course I was "good" and left my cell phones in the car, and once we were in the audition room they asked us if we had our cell phones. They gave me and a few others highlighters to hold up as our cell phones. All in all, it was a fun audition.

My Name is Earl - Reporter

My call time was at 3pm yesterday somewhere in the middle of the valley. I've heard good things about working on this show and was looking forward to checking it out. I like the show, but hadn't really kept up with it last season and had hear that Earl was now in jail and figured the reporter scene had something to do with that. I arrived just before they broke for lunch, and even though they invited us to eat lunch, I wasn't hungry because we were told to come "having had" which means you're supposed to eat before you come and I was full. I was a little disappointed because the food looked better than normal catering, but I did have some fruit.
After lunch we waited while they finished up shooting some prison scenes. They also spread out "My Name is Earl" posters on the tables next to us that had some autographs on them. When the prison scenes were done, Jason Lee came by to add his signature to them. He seemed like a pretty cool laid back guy. That was pretty much the only time I saw him. We (the reporters) were finally told what our scene was about. It was part of a group of small scenes having to do with the governor. The scene was the governor's wife giving us a tour of the governor's mansion and all of us walking in to find the governor (Craig T Nelson of Coach and Poltergeist) standing in his underwear playing around with some kind of guitar. We had to react to him and that was the scene. Very short and sweet. It was fun and we probably did it about 4-5 times and then we were done.

Boston Legal - Juror - 2 Days

Back to Boston Legal. I was scheduled for a 2 day call on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was obviously a court room scene and I was one of the Jurors. I sat in the front row next to the floor person. I was hoping that I'd get to see James Spader do one of his awesome closing argument monologues, but he wasn't one of the lawyers.
They did scenes with each lawyer questioning the "witnesses"and it was interesting. They did the scene of the reading of the verdict before a lot of the other scenes, so we (the jury members) were trying to figure out why we would have voted that way before we had the whole picture of the trial.
At the end of the 2nd day, all the actors were wrapped and they kept the jury to do coverage. All the cameras were pointed at us and they let the standins do the scenes for our sight lines and our reactions. It was a little intense to see that many cameras staring at you when the bulk of your "reaction" is just listening to testimony ... but it was fun.
I was told the episode airs on November 6 @ 10:00. =)

Tonight He Comes - Hospital Worker - Day 2

I had the same call time of 6:00 PM and since it was friday, made sure to leave early enough to battle rush hour traffic. After getting there, went through wardrobe and was taken to set. They were going to do another jumping stunt with the cranes and something with a bus. But first they did a helicopter shot of the building ... Mercer General (the building that Will Smith's character jumps out of). They had all the background set in the plaza just before the entrance of the building and when the called "action", the helicopter showed up. We walked around the plaza for around 15 minutes while the helicopter hovered from different angles. It was a cool shot to be a part of and pretty cool because you didn't have to worry about where the camera was or staying quiet. We just walked and talked for 15 minutes. They also had a camera on the roof and the next shot was shooting straight down at the plaza while we "evacuated" the building. Most of the scenes that were done these 2 nights, I was in the deep background, but it was really cool to be a part of and to see everything that went into shots like these. Except for the lack of sleep, I'm glad I was a part of it all.
Here are some pictures I took from the second night. My camera is not that great in the dark and the batteries were low, so I apologize for the quality.

This was the building they used as "Mercer General". I think it's actually the CalTrans building in down town LA. It has some really cool and strange architecture.

Same building with the sign they made out front. It looked like it was made of cement blocks and was a permanent fixture, but that's the magic of film. Just about everyone went up to it to feel it and knock on it. I think it was simply made of wood with some textured paint to look like cement.

This is part of the set. Those giant lights are what they use to turn night into day. They are actually big balloons hanging from cranes. In another shot they had them lower and kept them floating by tethering them to the ground.

I find that when I work on location, I usually see something that I normally wouldn't see just driving around. This is a sign that was near to the set that shows all the sister cities of Los Angeles. I thought it was pretty cool.

Tonight He Comes - Hospital Worker

Well ... that may not be the final title, but I was booked under that title. If you look it up on IMDB it takes you to a page for the film Hancock, but when I arrived on set all the movie paraphernalia had John Hancock on it. *shrug*
Anyway, it's starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, and Jason Bateman. I was prefit last week as a hospital worker and told I would be working on Thursday, Sept 6. On Sunday, I received a call saying that it was now a night shoot with a possible recall for Friday.
So last night I left at 4PM in order to be at the location down town by my call time of 6PM. I got there around 5 so that wasn't too bad. I checked in, went through wardrobe, and was taken to the set. I think there were close to 75 or 100 extras broken up into categories (10 hospital workers, police, swat, reporters, etc). They had a whole intersection blocked off with 3 cranes and rigging set up and a building set up to be "Mercer General". My scrubs say "Mercer General" and so does my id badge. Will Smith plays a super hero and apparently in the scene, he jumps out a hospital window into the street below into oncoming traffic. One of the scenes they did last night was his landing in the street in the middle of cars and flying and landing again. It was really cool to watch. He and his stunt double did it many times.
The other scene, that we worked on while they were rehearsing the stunt, was a scene with Jason Bateman talking to reporters outside the hospital.
In all the scenes I worked on last night, I'm way in the background walking around, but it was really cool to see the way they worked on the stunt and all that went into it.
I got recalled for tonight ... call time 6 PM again. I only got 5 hours of sleep, since we didn't get wrapped until 5 AM last night, so I'm a bit out of it at this point.
I'm looking forward to seeing what scenes we'll be doing tonight. =)

Fiesta La Ballona

Fiesta La Ballona is an annual festival in Culver City down the street from me. I received a post card on my door about it recently, and when I finally got around to reading it, I noticed that Royal Crown Revue was playing! The last time I saw them play was when I lived in Atlanta. So I headed down to the festival and enjoyed the music ... even got to dance for 2 songs!

Boston Legal - Waitress

Yesterday, I worked on Boston Legal, one of my favorite shows. My call time was at 9:30 am and the studio where they shoot Boston Legal is in Manhattan Beach (which isn't too far from me). The scene was for episode 5 and was in a fine dining restaurant. I was to wear black pants and black shoes, but when I went to see wardrobe, they gave me different black pants, a white button down shirt, a black tie, and a long black apron (which covered up the black pants, lol). I didn't mind that they gave me black pants to wear, though, because I discovered yesterday that mine have gotten a wee bit tight and it's time for me to go shopping for new ones. Anyway, wardrobe didn't like my shoes. I have a pair of "shoes for crews" that I ordered when I was waiting tables. They are black loafers that are comfortable and have a non slip sole for slippery kitchen floors. Wardrobe gave me a pair of black suede pumps with 2 1/2" heels and said since it was an upscale restaurant, I needed upscale shoes. That was a laugh. They weren't comfortable at all, and although I've suffered through scenes in the past wearing uncomfortable shoes that wardrobe gave me, I was nervous about this scene, because I would potentially be carrying dishes, etc and trying to navigate set. So, I brought them with me to set, but I didn't put them on, because I wanted to wait to see where they would place me and whatnot.
It was a quiet scene with James Spader and a date. I believe it was 1 1/2 pages and some of the dialogue was almost a whisper. Now, most of the time, when working background, it's all pantomime. You don't talk or whisper, or make any noise, which is what they wanted for this scene. They kept asking us to try to walk quieter. They checked everyone's shoes, and put shoe foam on the bottoms to help with the noise. When the wardrobe lady came over to me, I thought she was going to get mad at me for not wearing their shoes. But she just had me walk to see if my shoes were noisy (which they weren't), and didn't say a thing. Every time I had to walk by the lead actors' table I was holding my breath trying not to make any noise. Finally, when they moved in a bit tighter, they told us we could take our shoes off. That was awesome for me, because it gave me the freedom to move more naturally.
All in all, it was a good day. We wrapped around 4:30 pm. It was really cool to be on the set of one of my favorite shows!

Life - Jogger

Worked today on a new show called Life. They booked me as a jogger and my call time was 1 PM. They were shooting on location on Mulholland Drive, and for once I had no traffic problems getting there and actually arrived half an hour early. There were a handful of extras ... some neighbors, some joggers and 1 dog walker. They finally started using me and one other girl to ... well ... you guessed it ... jog. We had to jog uphill toward the sun, past the house the lead actors were heading in to, but not for too far really. We did it about 7 or 8 times, and they waited until the sun went down to break for lunch. And then we were wrapped. Not a bad day, really, and good money since they didn't break us for lunch on time. I was told they were shooting the 3rd episode.

Brothers & Sisters - Worker

I joined a background service this week. It makes finding work as an extra much easier, especially once you've joined SAG since those jobs are harder to find. The service submits you to Casting Directors and if chosen, the casting director books you through them.
I was booked on Brothers & Sisters yesterday and was excited to be working again as an extra. Senator McCallister and Kitty (Rob Lowe and Calista Flockhart) were touring some plant for McCallister's presidential campaign and we lined up to shake his hand as he was leaving. Very easy day. We were used only for the one scene and I spent the majority of my day reading.
We were wrapped close to 5pm and I hurried to get out of there hoping traffic wouldn't be bad. And I was right ... until ... traffic on the 405 was coming to a complete stop. So I took the next exit and found my way on back streets ... and came to very very slow traffic and realized this wasn't much better. Not much I could do. As I was sitting in traffic, I finally heard a traffic report. Apparently a man with a machete was shot and killed by police on the 10. Part of the 10 in East LA was shut down which caused all the traffic in west LA, adding an extra hour to my trip home. Only in LA!

No more chocolate ...

Sunday was my last day as a Dove Girl. We went to the Hollywood Farmers' Market. I had never been to that farmers' market before and it's huge, with lots of great stuff! I definitely need to go back. But for now, no more handing out free chocolate. Now it's time for me to find more work!

The JKL skit aired on Thursday night, without the extras lol. It was cool to see the end result though, since it was all done in front of a green screen.

Jimmy Kimmel Live - Dodger Fan

Was called on monday to work as an extra on JKL on Tuesday. I was excited, since I've never worked on this show and I've heard lots of good things about it. My call time was at 1PM. After arriving and filling out all the paper work (AFTRA) and meeting the others, we all sat and waited until 4PM. In the meantime, we were treated to some good fried chicken, corn and mashed potatoes. Finally, we went out back behind the theater to a parking lot. The skit is about Uncle Frank sitting in a kayak trying to catch the big home run ball at the dodgers/giants games here in LA. It was all shot against a green screen and when they were done with Uncle Frank, all we had to do was walk back and forth in front of the green screen a bunch of times, like we were heading into the game. I was wearing a white dodger baseball shirt and a blue dodger cap. It was the easiest extra work I've ever done, and a lot of fun. I don't believe it aired last night, so look for it tonight. =)

Dove Girl

Well, I got my laptop up and running again! Had to take out my RAM and since the top of the screw was stripped, it was no easy task.

I got back from South Carolina on July 4. Had fun with yard work while I was there and got to meet our new dog, Zoey. She's a sweetheart! I'll post a picture as soon as I have one. =)

Got a promo job as a Dove Girl for now. It works 4 days a week (thurs - sun) for 4 weeks. It's not as organized as the promotions I worked when I lived in Atlanta, but the money and hours are good. Giving out free Dove chocolate isn't so bad, although some people do get confused between the Dove lotion company and the Dove chocolate company. Here's a picture from our first day.
Our uniforms are brown silk robes and flip flops. At least we're comfortable!!

Laptop Woes...

Well reinstalling the OS didn't seem to do the trick. =( It's been really frustrating not having my laptop for work and whatnot. I wanted to post some pictures from last weekend, but since I'm on my Windows 98 PC still, that will have to wait.

I leave for Columbia, SC to visit my parents next week. =) I'll be there for 2 weeks and I'm really looking forward to it.

Computers = Love/Hate Relationship

Sunday 3 June 07
So I really do love my laptop...until today. I opened up, checked my email, looked at a website or 2 and then logged onto World of Warcraft (Yes I am a geek). I managed to say good morning to some folks and was just walking around ... BLAM my computer turns OFF

and proceeds to reboot itself. I'm sitting there thinking, "Gosh, it hasn't done this since it used to overheat ... and it's no where near hot yet."

Next thing I know, it just hangs before it loads windows ... I'm staring and a black screen and it's not doing anything ...

So to make a long boring technical troubleshooting story short ...

Some file or something is corrupt on my laptop. I have 2 options at this point. I can reinstall the OS (Windows XP) and lose all my data (I use my laptop to work) or I can put a Windows XP CD in and hit R to repair. Now, for those of you that aren't computer techies, the handy dandy little CD that comes with your beautiful computer when you buy it does not have this repair feature. You can only REINSTALL from this helpful looking CD. So now I have to find someone with a REAL Windows XP CD or buy one to see if this little repair feature will actually work.

In the meantime, I'm on my beautiful Windows 98 machine unless I'm at work.

Monday 4 June 07
Well ... with not much of an explanation ... I've managed to load windows and here I am typing this from my laptop ...

I wanted to try the repair option before anything drastic was done and any data potentially lost ... so I went to The Computer Place (they service Toshibas and serviced mine there in the past) to ask if they had a full win xp cd so I could try hitting R for repair to see what that would do. After some talking, the guy that has helped me in the past, got a CD from one of their techs. It wasn't an official XP CD but had it written on it. So I popped it in, booted it my computer from the CD Rom and followed directions by hitting R for repair. It asked me which drive ... only one choice ... then asked me for the administrator password. I tried 3 times and it wouldn't accept any of my passwords and said since I tried 3 times I had to hit enter to restart the computer ... so I did ... went through the whole 3 minute reboot, got back to where I was, tried 3 more times ... still wouldn't accept any password I tried.

I decided I would try one last time and did the restart ... turned to talk to the guy that had helped me earlier and told him I was stuck because of the password (I wasn't allowed to ask any questions since I was borrowing the cd and not paying them, etc) ... forgot to hit F12 because I was talking to him ... the next thing I know Windows XP loaded and I'm looking at my desktop!!!! So I bought a memory stick since I had forgotten mine and put everything I thought important on it just in case I could never come back to windows again. Then shut down the laptop, handed back the cd, and headed home.

I turned it back on when I got home and sure enough windows seems to be ok.

Tuesday 5 June 07
Well, my windows was short lived on my laptop. I woke up this morning to no windows. Back to the drawing board. At least I was able to back up my work files yesterday. I'm still gonna try and fix it without wiping everything ... though it is tempting just to do a reinstall.

Back from Seattle

I had a blast in Seattle. Spent a week there and the weather was gorgeous. Apparently I brought the LA Sunshine with me. I did the whole touristy thing, and since the weather was so nice, the view from the top of the Space Needle was breathtaking. Seattle reminds me a lot of Austin, TX.

As far as work goes, Walk Hard wrapped last week. Went to the wrap party, which was a lot of fun. John C Reilly got on stage at the Derby with a band and performed for most of the night. They rocked! And of course, got to see a little preview of what the movie will look like. Looks pretty funny ... can't wait to see it.

National Treasure 2 is back in town and so been working on that and picked up another movie called "Surfer, Dude" which just started filming. There's a chance I may get to go to Hawaii later this summer to work as a casting assistant there, but we'll see. I'm pretty burned out on it all for now and am staying here through May and then will try to do more acting and dancing.

Casting Assistant - Walk Hard

So I've been working as a casting assistant once again ... pretty much since January. Been working on Walk Hard since the end of February and it's been pretty crazy. We were scheduling 50 people a day for fittings for a few weeks and that meant staying in the office until 10. That finally stopped, but it's been day to day surprises since then. Just found out on friday I have to book 100 more people for fittings next week for tues and wed ... oh joy.
I think it will be a pretty funny movie. It's been a handfull though ... Scenes have been canceled and rescheduled here and there, making our job harder and the actors frustrated. But it's winding down in May, and I'm leaving on May 9 to visit a friend in Seattle for a week. I've never been, so I'm really looking forward to it.

National Treasure 2 - 1865

So, I got to go back in time Friday night. The scene was a DC town in 1865, the end of the civil war. I was prefit in the costume a few weeks ago and that was the first time I had ever worn a corset, or even a period costume like this. It was a night shoot and my call time was at 4:30 at Universal. I arrived on time and after checking in had to wait in line a while to see wardrobe to get into costume. It takes a while to put the costume on, so the women's line moved much slower than the mens. Although, the mens line moved much slower at the make up tent, due to facial hair (mustaches and sideburns) ... women didn't get any make up ... so it evened out in the end. Once I had my dress on, I felt more comfortable than I did at the fitting. They must have had the corset too tight at the fitting ... that, or the fact that I had worn a waist cincher for 2 days on Walk Hard had better prepared me! Anyway, I was in the last group of women to get into wardrobe, and soon after they began bringing us to set. WOW! The set was really quite a sight to see! The streets were covered with dirt and most of the balconies and store fronts were decorated with older american flags. There were lots of horses and even a few dogs. The first thing you noticed on the way to the set was the smell. They had some sort of smoke cans set all around the set and it didn't smell like the normal atmosphere smoke you usually get on sets or in dance clubs. It smelled like frankincense; most people are familiar with that aroma from church ceremonies where they swing the little brass can. The scenes they were shooting were street scenes. They seemed to be doing some wide angle shots, shooting down one street towards an intersection where I believe the theater where Lincoln was shot was supposed to be. There were 3 men with tall Abe Lincoln hats standing on one of the balconies. They placed everyone and we stood in place and waited ... and waited ... and waited some more. There was a lot going on with the horses, horse and buggies, and even some civil war reenactor soldiers (yankees of course =P). After a while, we rehearsed a few times. And finally they told us that fireworks were going off and pointed in a direction we should look. Then they started rolling and as they called action, real fireworks went off in the distance ... I wasn't expecting that since usually when you're told something like that, it's just to give the background a general direction to focus and whatnot. That's when I realized this scene they were capturing must really look cool, with the street scene of all the hustle and bustle, people holding sparklers and fireworks in the background. After some takes, they moved us all around to different spots for a different but similar shot. This time I had to walk down the street, in the street toward the camera and then cross the street. I got to hold a sparkler and maneuvering around the soldiers and all the horse traffic was a little bit of a challenge. They had wet down the dirt and so there was quite a bit of mud everywhere ... occasionally my boot even got stuck in the mud. Aside from my lower back killing me from all the standing around, it was really quite a fun experience. After lunch, I was wrapped along with quite a few others as they were beginning to do smaller scenes. My back was happy to be rid of the corset although my balance was a little off for a while. The batteries in my camera died, so the only photo I have was taken from a camera phone.
I liked the first National Treasure and have been trying to figure out what National Treasure 2 could be about. In talking with a friend about Lincoln, he told me that he had recently read a book about the Lincoln assassination and that in recent years more journals from that time period have turned up and there seems to be more to the story than what we all learned in school. I'm interested in reading that book now and seeing this movie.

Walk Hard - 1953

I was booked and prefit as background for Walk Hard a while back and finally worked wednesday and thursday. It was a lot of fun. The majority of both days were spent sitting around and waiting to be brought to set, but during late afternoon we did get to work. It was a talent show scene. The movie is a parody of rock legend movies and stars John C Reilly. In these scenes, he was playing a 14 year old at a high school talent show in the 50's. All the teens go crazy over the music and all the parents get really angry. I was a teen and it was pretty fun ... although, I am a little sick of doing the twist! Here is a picture of me in my 1953 teen costume. It was really sunny and I'm squinting ... oh well ...

It was really cool to watch the process on set. They did a lot of improv with no real shot list. Sometimes they would just let the camera roll and do different versions of the scene or lines. That's the one thing that I like about being an extra. Even if you are one of many and not seen much on camera, you are on a set and get to witness the whole process. I was sitting right behind ma and pa cox at the talent show, so who knows, you may see me twisting away in the background. ;)

Jury Duty 2007

The letter in the mail that most people dread. I received one back in November and since it was scheduled around the same time I was planning on leaving for the holidays, I postponed it to February. Beginning Feb 4, I had to call an 888 number each night to see if I had to go to the court house the follwing day. If I made it through the week not being told to go, then I was done. On Wednesday, Feb 7, I was pretty tired and went to bed. Just before I was about to fall asleep, I realized I hadn't called the Jury Duty "Hotline" to check if I was needed. So, I made myself get back out of bed and call ... and to my dismay, heard the message that I was expected the following morning at 8am. So I let my boss know and reset the alarm to an earlier time.

I arrived at the courthouse to find that it wasn't your typical old style government or courthouse building that I had expected. It was a 9 story pretty glass building. There was a long line snaking through the lobby of the building of potential jurors waiting to go through the xray machine when I walked in. The jury waiting room was on the 4th floor but apparently they make everyone wait to go through security at the same time. One of the security guards was very good at keeping everyone in a neat line and cracking jokes. Finally, around 8am, they let us through and up to the 4th floor we went.

The jury waiting room is a large room with TV's hanging from the ceiling, vending machines and even some desk space with internet connections. After everyone grabbed a seat, a woman came out of an office and explained how everything worked and then played a DVD for us on the TV's that explained Jury Duty even more and also told us how great Jury Duty was. We then had to fill out a survey and line up in groups to turn in our paper work. When we turned in our paper work, we were given juror badges to wear. They did not display our names, but a juror id number that we were given.

If no court needed us, then we would stay in that waiting room until about 4:30 or 5 and then that was it ... our service was over. If we were called into a court room and were excused from a jury, then our service was over and we could go home. So, at this point, it was just a waiting game. We were free to turn on the TV's or whatever, but not to wander to far from the waiting room. Around 10 or so, we received a visit from a judge, who talked a little more about jury duty and what it means and how it works, etc. He was very nice and very informative.

Around 11 or so, they read off a long list of names, of which my name was one of them, and we were told to report to a court room on the 7th floor. We all filed into the courtroom. There were 14 chairs in the jury box and 4 in front of it. They then called out juror numbers and one by one, people filled in the 18 spots. I was not among them. Each of the 18 potential jurors then had to answer 3 or 4 questions, mainly where they lived, what they did, and if they had been on a jury before. After that, the judge then asked more questions. It was so obvious that some people didn't want to be there, by the way they would answer these questions, and the became more and more annoying. Instead of answering yes or no to a simple yes or no question, whining and whatnot would ensue. Once the judge was done with his questions, the defense attorney and prosecutor each took time to ask them questions. Once all this was over, both lawyers took turns thanking and excusing some of the 18 potential jurors. Finally, they were down to less than 14 jurors, and so new juror numbers were called to fill the remaining seats back up to 18 again. I was yet again not called. The new people had to each answer the first 3 or 4 questions and then the judge simply asked each juror, if they had an answer to any of the questions that had been asked prior by the judge or the lawyers. Thank God they didn't have to go through all the questions that were asked, although, there had been a lot of questions asked, and I began racking my brain in case I was called. At some point, during all these events, we had broken for lunch and returned and so it was now mid afternoon. More jurors were thanked and excused and eventually my number was called. I answered all the questions I could and I was not thanked and excused. After more whining from more potential jurors, they finally had their 14 jurors (12 + 2 alternates) and we were sworn in and told to report back the following day at 10:30 am. We were also told that the trial was expected to last 4 to 5 days.

Courtroom hours aren't bad. We reported each morning at 10:30 am. We broke for lunch at 12 and returned from lunch at 1:30. We'd have a 15 minute break between 2 and 3 and then were dismissed by 4:30. The following Monday was Lincoln's birthday, so the courts were closed and I worked my regular job that day, training a new guy that my boss had brought in to help cover for me since I wasn't going to probably be there for the whole week.

Closing arguments finally came, Thursday morning and we began deliberations that afternoon. It felt good to be able to finally talk about the case with someone, even if it was only in that room with the other 11 jurors. We had 2 counts to decide on: wreckless driving and hit and run with injury. If we had a question, we could ask the judge, but it had to be in writing and we would have to go back into the courtroom with everyone present and then the judge would read the question and answer there. We could also have testimony read back to us by the court reporter, and again this would happen in court on record. We asked a question that afternoon and after the judge answered it, it was around 4 so we were dismissed and told to come back at 9:30 the following morning. It was a complicated case. You can be charged with hit and run even if your car was not touched in the accident. It's too complicated to go into here, but we had to figure out if the defendant knew that he had been a cause of the accident.

So, Friday we arrived at 9:30 am, and had the court reporter read back some testimony and asked the judged another question, dealing mainly with the way the particular law was written, because it could be read 2 different ways. After getting our answer, we were unanimous on our decisions, and filled out the paper work to hand in the verdict.

/soapbox
I am glad I had this experience and although it was time consuming and you only get $15 a day, I won't be upset if I get called again in the future. As annoying as jury duty is and can be, it is part of being a US citizen. Having the right to be tried by a jury of our peers is one of the reasons this country came into existence. I think most people take this for granted nowadays. If I was accused of something, especially if it was something I did not do, I would want people like me and you on the jury. It was so disheartening to see so many people whine and complain and try to get out of it. For people that just can't afford it, it's understandable, but that's not the case with everyone. The only time that I feel my time was really wasted during this whole process, was the first day of jury selection. The bulk of that day was wasted listening to people whine and complain and try to get out of it. The trial might actually have begun and ended sooner had people just sucked up and answered the questions honestly and let the process take its course. So, as hoakie as this may sound, if you get called up for jury duty, be thankful that you live in a country that protects your rights from being judged unfairly.
/off soapbox

Back to a full time job ...

I have been working as a casting assistant off and on since I got back home from the holidays. As of last week, though, I am officially working on a movie once again, Charlie Wilson's War.
It's great to be working full time again. I'm still hoping to take an improv class in March and hopefully that won't mess up my schedule.
Basically, I'm a casting assistant to Specialty Casting. We need to find 1,000 Afghani's or Middle Easterners to play Afghan Refugees from the Afghan conflict in the late 80's. We've already had some open casting calls and plan on having more. It's a fun project to work on.

No interview ... well sort of ...

So the interviews were cacelled yesterday. They decided they wanted to see pictures before people came in for interviews. So I got my landlord to take a few shots of me all geeked out in the parking lot and emailed it to the casting director. I had forgotten that my glasses got dark in sunlight, but the casting director said the pictures looked great. So, now I go in to interview this evening at 5:00 and I get paid for yesterday's interview as well. Here's my geeky warrior girl look...

Mama's Boy

Today I have an interview for a featured extra role on the movie "Mama's Boy". The character is described as a geeky warrior girl ... think dungeon and dragons ... and is supposed to be pelting someone with tennis balls. Sounds like fun, lol. I'm doing my best to look geeky with my hair in pigtails and wearing glasses. I have an old skirt that I'm going to use as a cape. Having a cape was suggested by the casting director.
I'm a bit nervous as always, but looking forward to it!