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. =)