Jaunary Sweeps - Day 712

I accidentally misspelled "January" in my post, and today, I'm just going to go with it.

I awoke before the sun, and took the same route (only slightly faster) than I did the day before.  There was almost no traffic, and while I got a tiny bit lost yesterday in getting there (arriving five or six minutes later than my phone said I would), I pretty much knew the way today.  But as I got there, I realized that I drove past the same road I'd just gotten off, and my phone had told me to go half a mile out of my way (if I ever work there again, I could drive right to it).

We had been warned (in an email the night before) that, if we wanted breakfast, to arrive early, and I got there about one minute late.  And they were right.  As soon as--I'm talking the second--I was done with my nose-swab COVID test, I was taken on set.  I didn't even get to take my coat off or put away my backpack. 

The show I got booked on is called "Holiday Wars," a cooking competition where teams are given a theme, and they design and complete festive cakes so elaborate that only Abigail Hilton could afford to eat (not that she would or anything--no offense).   I was just standing in for one of the competitors, and they needed us pretty much the whole day.  

There were two episodes to be filmed, and the stages were decorated in a delightful Christmas theme (Santa's village, trees with lights, snowy backdrops, a barn, a Santa sleigh, etc.), and a marvelously chilling Halloween theme (with a mausoleum entrance, a scary Southern mansion, full moon backdrops, a cemetery, bats, pumpkins, spiderwebs, and plenty of skeletons).  I was utterly impressed, and it didn't get old, even after being on the set for hours at a stretch.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In Jaunary: 1311

There were more cameras in use on this show than I've ever seen in any context (even sporting events).  I counted eleven cameras when we did the full rehearsal.  Each camera had an operator, and they had to rehearse the cameramen trying to get their footage without bumping into each other (there was still a lot of bumper car action out there, and Mike, the camera guy I was assigned, told me each lens (not just camera) was worth over ten thousand dollars.

One of the cameras was on a big control arm (on the right in the above photo), and it was fascinating to watch what the operator could do with it.  He made it snake around and rise and fall and go closer and farther away from the host, until it looked like something alive, like a serpent or a Xenomorph or something.  I was quite impressed, and mentioned it to him, and he said he didn't even think about it, that the machine worked as an extension of his hand at this point, which explains why it had such an organic set of movements, I guess.

I have talked (probably too much) in the past about how badly extras are treated on (some) film sets.  But I'm not sure if I've talked about times I've been a stand-in, and how MONUMENTALLY better stand-ins are treated in productions (I went back and re-typed "monumentally" in all caps to make a point).  And this was no exception.  We were talked to like human beings, allowed to ask questions, talk, and take pictures (!), and most importantly, allowed to eat with the crew . . . and the same food as they got.

And oh, mamma mia, the food was amazing.  The show is produced by the Food Network, and it just stands to reason it would have excellent food, but there were so many options, and I ate stuff I'd never had before (like cooked carrots in chipotle sauce), with options of beverages like the colors of a rainbow.  The only downside was that, because of the pandemic, no one could sit beside or near anyone else, and so it was like when I started college, eating at a table by myself (except I had the phone to entertain me, something that didn't exist in those bygone days of yore).

It was a singular experience, being a stand-in for a reality show/competition.  For one thing, it was lots of actual work, instead of just waiting around to be used.  As an extra, you're really only needed when the camera's rolling (or about to roll), and the rest of the time, you're a dim-witted parasite that gets in the way of the people trying to do their jobs.  A stand-in is pretty much the opposite: useful in set-ups and rehearsals, camera tests, sound tests, lighting tests, run-throughs, and once the camera starts rolling, absolutely disposable.*

Now, that's not to say that it was hard work.  The most difficult bit for me was to pantomime like I was cooking for about twenty-five minutes straight (and that was made far easier by there being literally hundreds of cooking implements at my workstation that I got out, arranged, pretended to use, organized, and put back) so the cameraman could get used to following my action, pulling focus, etc..  The cameraman, however, was really working.  That poor S.O.B. had to hold a thirty pound camera the whole time, constantly moving to keep me in frame, and when they gave us a five minute break, there was sweat running down the back of his shirt.  And he told me that for the actual shooting of the program, he would have to do that for seven hours, to the point where he could barely hold his arms up anymore, let alone the camera.**

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In Jaunary:  1192

We all had to wear masks (above picture notwithstanding), and these were the heavy-duty fiber ones that leave a mark on the nose and cheeks.  Because of that, I didn't know what people looked like, and as I've mentioned before during the pandemic, that makes them fascinating.  I stare at eyes, and try and imagine what the face is like, and when they pull their masks down, I sneak a peek, like a fourteen year old boy (or me at my age) trying to catch a glimpse of cleavage or a pantyline. 

The Halloween set was amazing, and as soon as I got on it, I exclaimed, "I want to live here!"  There was a girl nearby (another stand-in) who expressed similar feelings . . . and we got married.

Okay, that's not true, but we did get partnered up as part of a cooking team, so I hung out with her for an hour or so, and that was nice.  

There was so much to take in on the set, with details you couldn't see unless you studied them, and since we were just standing around, I had plenty of time to do so.  I still would've liked to be able to wander through and check everything out (a few of the photos I took didn't turn out, because I didn't have time to walk over to something and snap a good picture before we got called back to our first positions.

We ended up spending a lot less time in the Halloween stage than the Christmas one (probably four or five hours less), mostly because they had figured out camera set-ups and blocking on the first one), and I could've stood to spend more time.  I was on my feet for a long stretch, and by four or five o'clock, I wanted to--and did--sit down whenever I got a chance.  Those poor cameramen didn't have that option.

I also brought a paperback book with me, and read it while standing there, probably burning through a hundred pages or more.  That hadn't happened in a while.

I became pretty friendly with the woman in my first cooking team (we were randomly placed together), an older lady who reminded me of a blonde version of my mother, and she took the above photo of me after I volunteered to take one of her.  We ended up hanging out together the rest of the day, and when she was struggling to figure out how to fill out her payment forms/I-9 at the end of the night (it had been, oddly, put online instead of on paper, and she didn't know how to do it on a phone), I hung out and walked her through it.

Then we were free to go.  It was pitch black out, and the drive through the wilderness and the twisty canyon that followed were very different in the dark.  Still, it was an interesting experience, and I'd be happy to do it all again, even though I won't be seen on the show, if I actually did watch it.* **

Words Today: 475
Words In Jaunary: 7812

*I read this super in-depth books about the making of the original "Star Trek" a couple of years ago, and it talked about how they put the main cast's stand-ins in Starfleet uniforms, so they could use them as background and extra crewmen walking around, and pretty much all of them ended up getting character names (and lines of dialogue on the show), since they were always there anyway.

**There was a harness attached to his waist and back that helped him carry the camera, that had a pole going up above his head that attached to the top of the camera, but still.

***That reminds me, I was watching a YouTube video where they were talking about the various Spider-villains that showed up in NO WAY HOME, and when they flashed back to the Sandman in SPIDER-MAN 3, it was the moment where Thomas Hayden Church is walking up the sidewalk, and I was right behind him.  It pleased me to see myself, even if it was for a split-second, and I rarely feel that way.