2nd and final day for stardom

Yesterday, 11 of our chorus gathered at the vast, but abandoned city-owned train repair depot downtown for a  5:15pm* call (very -ish for a number of people).  This was our 2nd day of filming...this time with a cast of a hundred or so 'audience' members.   The first day was a Saturday morning and afternoon two weeks ago, where there were only a few others involved and we did our 'establishing' shots.

We finally got out of there at 4:30 in the morning, completely exhausted, cold and numb.  I got 5 1/2 hours of sleep in before I dragged myself to work by 10:45am, so I'm actually in pretty good shape, but fading fast as work winds down.

Our role this time was to MEMORIZE and sing (or lip-synch) Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Today"...which none of us thought lent it self as a choral piece, even for the Tucson Gay Men's Chorus we were supposed to be.   We spent some time analyzing the lyrics, since at first blush it made no sense at all, sounding like it was written in an LSD haze.

As well as rehearsing that LONG ballad-like number over a dozen times in random breaks**, we spent a huge amount of time being part of the audience for the fake play-within-a-movie for Hamlet 2.  We were special though, being in the top row of bleachers, all wearing a somewhat mismatched collection of our own long-sleeved black clothes and pants.  Fit in well, since this play wasn't supposed to be in a theatre, but in a hodge-podge of seating (lawn chairs, couches, portions of theatre seats, recliners, folding chairs, rustic benches) in an abandoned train depot that had been tarted up with a hip-hop style of design with formidable looking 'skull' that looked like a prototype for "The Time Machine."

It was hard to tell if this was a low-budget picture or not, considering the number of cameras moved around and even on a rolling track at one point filming us.

I do have to say, we sang/lipsynched the entire number really well, several times.   And withstood the dozen or so takes the involved extremely loud confetti cannons blasting huge amounts of paper over us and the audience, while the "Jesus" (????) in the film, the lead actor Steve Coogan was raised and lowered in a Flying Foys type of contraption.  He's the only lead I recognized...I never saw David Arquette (or I didn't recognize him) or Katherine Keener, theoretically also in the movie.   We found later that the director is 'family,' although he didn't set off my gaydar.

We actually finished up the filming about 3am, and dragged ourselves over to the trailer we had been assigned.  It took Matthew checking with the film director about 4:20am before we realized that it had been wrapped.   We had exhausted all our small talk by then and were just sitting there numb, wondering what we were going to do about work (which for most of us was in a few hours).   I'm glad he checked, or we'd still be sitting around on the floor of this little trailer.

The chorus made $4,000 from this 2 days of shooting deal.  And we're done.  Matthew cancelled chorus rehearsal tonight so we can all recover from nearly 12 hours of this grueling volunteerism.

And after all that, we only have the vaguest idea of why we're in the movie or what the plot is about.

But I'm sure we'll rent "Hamlet 2" when it's released sometime next year just to find out! :-) 

Now how do I get that FREAKING song out of my head????

* I got home from a nearly 3 hour square dance center board meeting at 4:30 and had just enough time to wolf down a meal that Danny had nearly finished for dinner.

** If the director had really been serious about wanting us to look good doing this, we'd have had a profession coach working us...as it was, we just guessed at what was wanted of us, not even separating into lyrics into voice sections.

2nd and final day for stardom

Yesterday, 11 of our chorus gathered at the vast, but abandoned city-owned train repair depot downtown for a  5:15pm* call (very -ish for a number of people).  This was our 2nd day of filming...this time with a cast of a hundred or so 'audience' members.   The first day was a Saturday morning and afternoon two weeks ago, where there were only a few others involved and we did our 'establishing' shots.

We finally got out of there at 4:30 in the morning, completely exhausted, cold and numb.  I got 5 1/2 hours of sleep in before I dragged myself to work by 10:45am, so I'm actually in pretty good shape, but fading fast as work winds down.

Our role this time was to MEMORIZE and sing (or lip-synch) Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Today"...which none of us thought lent it self as a choral piece, even for the Tucson Gay Men's Chorus we were supposed to be.   We spent some time analyzing the lyrics, since at first blush it made no sense at all, sounding like it was written in an LSD haze.

As well as rehearsing that LONG ballad-like number over a dozen times in random breaks**, we spent a huge amount of time being part of the audience for the fake play-within-a-movie for Hamlet 2.  We were special though, being in the top row of bleachers, all wearing a somewhat mismatched collection of our own long-sleeved black clothes and pants.  Fit in well, since this play wasn't supposed to be in a theatre, but in a hodge-podge of seating (lawn chairs, couches, portions of theatre seats, recliners, folding chairs, rustic benches) in an abandoned train depot that had been tarted up with a hip-hop style of design with formidable looking 'skull' that looked like a prototype for "The Time Machine."

It was hard to tell if this was a low-budget picture or not, considering the number of cameras moved around and even on a rolling track at one point filming us.

I do have to say, we sang/lipsynched the entire number really well, several times.   And withstood the dozen or so takes the involved extremely loud confetti cannons blasting huge amounts of paper over us and the audience, while the "Jesus" (????) in the film, the lead actor Steve Coogan was raised and lowered in a Flying Foys type of contraption.  He's the only lead I recognized...I never saw David Arquette (or I didn't recognize him) or Katherine Keener, theoretically also in the movie.   We found later that the director is 'family,' although he didn't set off my gaydar.

We actually finished up the filming about 3am, and dragged ourselves over to the trailer we had been assigned.  It took Matthew checking with the film director about 4:20am before we realized that it had been wrapped.   We had exhausted all our small talk by then and were just sitting there numb, wondering what we were going to do about work (which for most of us was in a few hours).   I'm glad he checked, or we'd still be sitting around on the floor of this little trailer.

The chorus made $4,000 from this 2 days of shooting deal.  And we're done.  Matthew cancelled chorus rehearsal tonight so we can all recover from nearly 12 hours of this grueling volunteerism.

And after all that, we only have the vaguest idea of why we're in the movie or what the plot is about.

But I'm sure we'll rent "Hamlet 2" when it's released sometime next year just to find out! :-) 

Now how do I get that FREAKING song out of my head????

* I got home from a nearly 3 hour square dance center board meeting at 4:30 and had just enough time to wolf down a meal that Danny had nearly finished for dinner.

** If the director had really been serious about wanting us to look good doing this, we'd have had a profession coach working us...as it was, we just guessed at what was wanted of us, not even separating into lyrics into voice sections.