Exercise in boredom, Part 1 "Hamlet 2"
Oct. 13th, 2007 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billeylerIf working as sort-of extras in a fairly low budget movie is any indication, the movie industry is truly an exercise in extreme boredom.
We were all there at 7:15am, about dawn. All 14 of us. Some snacked.
At 7:30am, we were distributed the music we were to learn to lip-synch to. "She's a Maniac" (WTF??). Another song on the CD that we weren't told to learn was a cabaret-style song about shlongs.
By 8:30am, the makeup person had come over and looked us over and approved, noting that when it was time for filming, she'd be touching up some of our pates with no-shine.
By 9:00am, we had wandered over to the wardrobe department, and generally they liked what we were wearing and had a couple of the choristers change shirts to something more neutral.
By 9:30am, we were bussed 1/2 block over the the West Mesa High School gym to wait outside for our call.
By 12:30pm, we had totally run out of small talk and wandered off to read books, do homework, and the like. I wandered over to my re-parked car to try to take a nap.
By 1:00pm, we were led to the 2nd floor of the gym to watch a very small blip of a scene be reshot 5 times. Not our scene, though.
By 1:15pm, we were led downstairs to rehearse our scene (not knowing what it was). We sat in a cluster on the gym bleachers and practiced our lip-synched number several times. We stayed in the same spot for our 'establishing scene,' with the lead (Steven Coogan, British comedian playing a US drama teacher), a number of perky teenagers, and us singing just the first 4 lines of "She's a Maniac"...
By 2:00pm, we were done with that after only five takes*, but were asked to stay behind to figure out our schedule for the other THREE days we were expected to 'do something'...all days I can finagle, but since we don't know what the script is, we have no idea what we'll be expected to do! All we know is that we're the Gay Men's Chorus of Tucson.
A heavy lunch in the crew/actor tent, then home by 2:45pm.
And that was...The Morning and Afternoon of the First Day.
* Our total screen time for this take was maybe 2 seconds.
We were all there at 7:15am, about dawn. All 14 of us. Some snacked.
At 7:30am, we were distributed the music we were to learn to lip-synch to. "She's a Maniac" (WTF??). Another song on the CD that we weren't told to learn was a cabaret-style song about shlongs.
By 8:30am, the makeup person had come over and looked us over and approved, noting that when it was time for filming, she'd be touching up some of our pates with no-shine.
By 9:00am, we had wandered over to the wardrobe department, and generally they liked what we were wearing and had a couple of the choristers change shirts to something more neutral.
By 9:30am, we were bussed 1/2 block over the the West Mesa High School gym to wait outside for our call.
By 12:30pm, we had totally run out of small talk and wandered off to read books, do homework, and the like. I wandered over to my re-parked car to try to take a nap.
By 1:00pm, we were led to the 2nd floor of the gym to watch a very small blip of a scene be reshot 5 times. Not our scene, though.
By 1:15pm, we were led downstairs to rehearse our scene (not knowing what it was). We sat in a cluster on the gym bleachers and practiced our lip-synched number several times. We stayed in the same spot for our 'establishing scene,' with the lead (Steven Coogan, British comedian playing a US drama teacher), a number of perky teenagers, and us singing just the first 4 lines of "She's a Maniac"...
By 2:00pm, we were done with that after only five takes*, but were asked to stay behind to figure out our schedule for the other THREE days we were expected to 'do something'...all days I can finagle, but since we don't know what the script is, we have no idea what we'll be expected to do! All we know is that we're the Gay Men's Chorus of Tucson.
A heavy lunch in the crew/actor tent, then home by 2:45pm.
And that was...The Morning and Afternoon of the First Day.
* Our total screen time for this take was maybe 2 seconds.
