Look, I ain't saying today sucked--it didn't, in fact--but this was a fourteen hour day, easily the longest day I've had since starting this daily writing/exercise/blogging thing. And I was really tempted to just say "It was a good run, but eff it."
But I forced myself to do 50 push-ups at 1:00am, and fifty sit-ups at 1:20am, and now it's 1:41am, and I'm going to squeeze out fifty words. And that's all I can do today. It's gonna have to be good enough.
Sit-ups Today: 50
Sit-ups In April: 3016
Today was the first day of extra/background work I've done in a year. While I was there, waiting to be used--there was a lot of waiting around, which is typical, but because it was outdoors, it ended up being a lot of standing around, and that ended up being hard on my back (and a lot of other people, who complained about that, or the heat. Or both). I had gotten an email from my friend Jeff in Germany, where he talked about not liking cellphones and how he missed the lengthy letters we would write each other back in the day.
So, to entertain myself, and partially to piss off Jeff, I decided to send him a running commentary--all in audio--of what I was doing, seeing, and thinking of. Honestly, I must've sent him ten different recordings throughout the day (and night), that he said only amounted to thirty minutes or so, but it felt like a lot more than that.
Being an extra is mostly waiting to be used, and if I had a thousand dollars for every time I've gotten on a set and NOT been used, but was just paid to sit and read (or worse, sleep), I'd have a lot more money than I do now. Or ever will have.*
That having been said, they really worked us on this shoot, probably since there were supposed to be many more people walking, milling around, and clapping. They even did that thing first done in FORREST GUMP (it was revolutionary then, and now as old hat as the hero trying to save the bad guy from falling and the bad guy tries one last bit of treachery that leads to their death, or the female good guy being the one to take out the female bad guy, or a female character is horribly unpleasant but we accept her because she looks like Jennifer Aniston or Reese Witherspoon (granted, this one is a little bit newer. But only a little bit), where they shoot a small group and then move them and shoot that and then move them and shoot that, combining it all digitally later so it looks like there are hundreds of people.
There were twenty-five of us, and a half dozen tuba players, and we got plenty of use, plenty of walking around behind the principal actors. Several extras had those Apple Watch things (am I dating myself--by calling them things--even further than I did when referring to Reese Witherspoon as attractive?), and compared how many steps (ie miles) they had walked through the day. The distance was unbelievable. It was almost enough for me to want to buy one.
Or to want to sit down.
The thing that was most cool about the set was, because it was set in December, there was fake snow and fake Christmas decorations all over. And on all of the spring tulips, they had put this thick white foam from a machine that looked like soap in person, but on the monitors looked EXACTLY like snow. The problem was, the foam evaporated or melted or whatever foam does, and they had to keep spraying more on in between set-ups.
We were told the next day that we were not supposed to take any pictures (and apparently somebody did and posted them online, and they were baaaaaaaad little extras), but I had already done so, and told the A.D. (assistant director) that I'd taken photos of the foam. And he said, "The foam? What are you, some kind of creepy pervert?"
To which, I said, "Oh, you have NOOOOOOO idea."
It was a long day, with lots of activity, and very little of interest to you (I'm sure). Suffice it to say, it was a warm April day (and night) but it's a Christmas movie, so we pretended it was winter, and that included wearing thick jackets and long-sleeved shirts, gloves, and scarves. I got word that one of the Gen Zs actually put on socks!
 |
| (here you can see both the foam and them hosing down the street) |
I made friends with an old man (well, he told me he was seventy-one, and that's not that old, really, but he looked old), who impressed me with his positive attitude and professionalism. He and I were the only extras that worked both Thursday and Friday, and at the end of the day, he gave me a Diet Pepsi.** Afterward, I thought, "You know, maybe I should call my dad, and ask if he'd want to work on one of these projects with me. It could be something we could do togeth--"
And only then did I remember that he's been gone nearly five years. So, so strange.
Just for fun, I fact-checked yesterday's reference to Strom Thurmond speaking at my graduation, and that puts my graduating class either as 1955 or 1956. Huh.
Push-ups Today: 50
Push-ups In April: 3160
So, one last mention of the story I started to record yesterday: usually when I sit down and perform a story, I add lines to it here and there. This was no exception, but it was the first time I recorded a story and then thought, "You know, this is way too long. I ought to go back in and cut out, not only the additions I just made, but about two hundred words beyond that."
See, in "Two Month Retreat" (or whatever the story's called), a young married couple has an argument, then the guy takes a walk alone to cool off. That's when the story really begins (honestly, it could start right after the argument is done, if I wanted to be a screenwriter about it (there's this old suggestion that you start a scene as late as you can and you get out of a scene as early as you can. I don't subscribe to that point of view at all, but it probably works great in editing***). The story's not about the fight, but about the aftermath of the fight.
And the politics of the day really influenced that fight, so it takes up a couple of pages instead of the two or three paragraphs it needed. Hmmm.
Words Today: 207
Words In April: 20,012
*Unless you want to support me on Patreon at this link. You could tip me on Paypal, if you like, but I am no longer able to access that money, so maybe I should take the Paypal link down. I'll explain on Sunday.
**To my horror, I thought it tasted just fine.
***Check out the first cut of any scene in STAR WARS, for example. The Cantina scene, for example, originally began with Luke going into the bar and then looking around. You see a bunch of humans (including Han Solo making out with a hot chick), and a few aliens, and an establishing shot of the group, and then cutting back to Luke taking it all in, but the droid alarm goes off and the bartender says (in an English accent) "Hey there, your droids, mate. We don't serve their kind here." Luke says, "What?" and the English Wuher says, "Your droids. They'll have to wait outside. We don't want them here, ya wanker." And in the final edit, we start with a barrage of delightful aliens of every shape and color, lose most of Luke gawking, and don't see Han until a second before he introduces himself.
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