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.