... And YOUR Room is Over HERE.

Money-Making Scams

2011-09-02T23:56:00.005-03:00

I begin this entry sitting not at a bus stop but on a park bench next to a bus stop, not far removed from one of the city's major universities. The world goes by me and around me, some of it shabby and ominously dressed, some of it young and very beautiful.

It's a sunny day. I sit in the shade of an old tree, I wish I knew what kind. The breeze blows gently on my neck. My leather jacket is draped over the back of the bench. I'm here because of a scam.

One of the Facebook groups I belong to published an alert about an ad on Kijiji looking for models. As curiosity took hold, I went and then saw a different ad on Kijiji that advertised background casting from a company I'd not heard of. I wondered if that was a scam too. The next day that same question was asked by member of that Facebook group and the reply came: no, they're legit. I went to their site, uploaded my info and got a phone call mere hours later (!!!) and that is why I'm here today for the Stephen King movie, "Bag of Bones".

I'm very early.

It's the Friday afternoon before the long weekend and my workplace shut down early, what luck! I drove to this part of the city and circled for a bit before I found a parking space. I decided to use my ages-old military training and do a quick reconnaissance on foot, locate Extras Holding, find out where my room would be today.

It's looks to be a gym you'd find in a small school, the floor marked with yellow lines for badminton courts and a stage with a drawn curtain to one side. It's odd to find this room here, this gym, because it's in a church. Chairs and tables are set up to receive a lot of people. A lot of extras are needed today. First there is a graveside scene and some of the people milling about here are dressed in mourning clothes. The afternoon scene, the one I'm in, is an auditorium scene, New Yorkers gathered to listen to an author read from his work. On the call sheet, there's a list of names about six pages long; a lot of people are here today.

The room stinks.

Maybe it's not the fault of all the people in it. Maybe it always stinks. I don't feel obliged to come back some other time to find out. And I'm not precisely looking forward to spending the day in it.

So, instead and two hours early, I'm outside in the fresh air, sitting in my shirt-sleeves on a park bench, my leather jacket slung over the back of it. Writing to you. Occasionally, I have to brush away some bug. Sitting here in my new least-favourite human posture - head down, thumbs tapping out words on some fucking phone or other - I'm mostly missing all the pretty girls going by. One just passed not speaking English.

In my car is a suit bag with three different suits to chose from and a sports bag with ties, shoes and some other extras including my book, only one book this time, I just started reading it. I decided not to wear one of my suits to work, instead I dressed in a black short-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, dark socks, black shoes and my leather jacket. A closer read of the costume requirements said that the auditorium scene will have different people dressed different ways from suits and ties to business casual to jeans and t-shirts with maybe jackets and sweaters. It said because of all the people that need to be here, we should arrive to set "camera ready". Perhaps I already am.

I wander.

To the park down the road, watching the people, the ducks, the geese and the time which moves slowly but I'm not impatient. I come back to the church (ha) and run into Laura who I only know from Facebook. She doesn't know me at first and almost not even after. I find a guy in a headset who tells me, actually my room is down the road over THERE. There's a Background Holding #2 that wasn't listed on the map, but it was on the call sheet.

Lots of time. I have more wandering to do, another recce. But first I return to my park bench. Tap, tap, tap with thumbs.

In my travels, I pass a young woman pulling a carry-on suitcase. "It's a long walk to the airport," I think to tell her but don't. Later at the room, there will be half a dozen girls at least with carry-on suitcases, packed with wardrobe choices. I won't be able to recall if any of them was the girl I passed, but I figure one must be.

I wander farther than I have to before doubling back and locating my room, a dark, empty studio space at the University theatre with no chairs but it doesn't stink. The people there aren't from Production, they are with the venue. We chat briefly and I leave to find Bliss which for today is the name of the street where I parked my car.

They said things were running behind. But I'll have my book. And you. For now, what I think I need is a better parking spot, but it turns out Bliss is a lot closer than I thought (... a parable?).

I return to the theatre and read for a while. By the time it's time to check in, a rabble has appeared around me. A PA arrives and starts handing out paperwork. We form a line and it soon begins to stink, oh dear, patchouli and body odour. The group seems so young. I might be the second oldest person here and I start to fear being mistaken for an authority figure. I only see one other person with a blue form, a tell, an indication of an ACTRA member. I wonder how many of the rest of these people know what they're in for. It might be fun to listen in.

Post-paperwork, a return to the room, where chairs are being arranged in a "U" with two or three rows. I quietly suggest one chair at the mouth of the room to face all the others. Not much of a reaction. I thought it was pretty funny. There's a paucity of conversation. All the tones are hushed. The loudest noise is the chair legs clacking together as they are brought out. A quick survey of the room reveals a collection of disinterested faces, like a collection of strangers riding the bus. Many heads are down, lost in the little screens of their smart phones.

We get an overall brief from the PA, boiler plate stuff for the benefit of the rookies. I look around frankly at the people assembled. No one looks back.

A second wave of extras arrives, the morning group from the other set. They seem more relaxed and happening. And older. There's a lot of people here now and still not a single soul I recognize. A very pretty woman almost sits beside me and then changes her mind, easy come, easy go.

We are now a bigger bus of strangers. I don't hear anyone telling tales of this shoot or that shoot they were once on, which is unusual. Just a collection of hushed conversations, not all of them in English. This feels more like church than the church.

People glance over and then glance away. There are empty chairs on either side of me when chairs are at a premium. Maybe it's me that stinks.

Laura arrives! I'm up to one (people I know). I say hi, she says hi back. I'm standing against the wall at this point (oooo, my back) and she walks past me eventually taking the chair next to the one I used to be in.

In dribs and drabs, more and more of the crew show up. The scene we'll be shooting will be in the auditorium that's on the other side of the curtain from where we're collected. The decibel level creeps up. And the tempo of things. I go to wardrobe with a small handful of others and after three tries, I have the shirt I'll wear. So, not quite set ready after all. Wardrobe wanted something coloured other than black so I/we don't get all swallowed up by some collective darkness on set. The shirt I'm wearing now is a baby blue, actually a fine check pattern of blue and white. After Wardrobe I'll go to Make-up where, hey look, I found a longer line. Laura passes by again without a word and I begin to fantasize about un-friending her. I wait in line before I decide to bail and come tap-tap-tap to you some more.

Someone has carved my initials in the extreme top right corner of the corkboard outside the hair and make-up room. And underlined it twice. It looks like it's been there a long time. I'm starting to feel the same as the line-up to hair and make-up refuses to creep or even crawl forward.

When I finally get to the door, I see they have people going three at a time. Earlier I did a rough count of how many were here and I got up to about 70. I think more have arrived since. A gentleman behind me was out-loud thankful we weren't there as horned beasts (I should have said, "Speak for yourself"), some such Star Trek 3-hour makeup job. When I finally got there I might have been in the chair for all of two minutes, trying unsuccessfully to get someone to colour the grey out of my hair, all these young people.

For the second show in a row, I meet someone I know from Bedford Players, Nell (not her real name). We sit in the front row next to each other as all the people who have gone through Wardrobe, Hair and Make-up swap from Extras Holding to the auditorium on other side of the curtain - we're now on set.

Not so fast!!!!!

Everyone up and outside. Like right outside, not Extras Holding. There are some lights to be hung or some such thing and we go outside where Nell shares with me her stories of food deprivation and thirst, conditions incumbent on non-ACTRA film extras. Up since 5 am, and barred from the coffee and donuts on set, told there would be nothing to eat, presented later with very meagre snacks, barred from eating lunch until all the crew has gone through first and then relegated to some distant corner to eat.

I wondered about having her guest-blog for me.

I read this to her and she laughs, "That's not true!" I wonder from having listened to her what part I messed up.

I steal away for a bite from the craft table. I'm asked if I belong to ACTRA and then all is cool. I have my snack beyond the sight of the assembled extras outside the door, no need to incite riot. As I'm not quite finished, the gathered herd moves toward me, ah shit: busted. But at the last moment they're steered elsewhere; it seems someone has opened up a separate craft table for the extras and the resulting scene is one like from "Piranha!!"

Back outside, the sun begins its evening slide and the temperature grows cooler. Mandated for the next while to stay outside as the set is blocked and lit, the extras grow chill. Jason Priestley arrives, ducks a glance over at our collected group (shyly ...? Really? Awkwardly...? Really? Is he ...Canadian?) and heads inside in time for first team run-throughs. I've met Julie (who earlier this morning met Laura, small world). She was keeping an eye on some of my stuff while I went to Make-up. Now I'm guarding her make-shift seat outside while she and Laura move off for a smoke. Seating, you might understand, is rather at a premium, here outside the building in the driveway. Sweaters too, as the wind freshens and the air grows cooler.

Some time later, we return to the auditorium. Some of us are specifically assigned places to sit, others, like me, just go find our own. I'm five rows up on the aisle. Stage right. It's cool in here too, but with the lights and 100 people, I'm not expecting it to stay cool.

Abruptly and completely unexpectedly, my name is called.

I've been wrapped!

Obliging but bewildered, I head behind the curtain to see the PA who soon realizes that the pile of ACTRA papers was mixed up and I'm not one of the union people who arrived earlier this morning and who are about to "turn into pumpkins" (ie - incur overtime). The matter having been quickly cleared up, I return to my seat.

The stand-in in at the podium in front of us is replace by the "first team" actor. I don't know him except it's not Jason Priestley. Jason must be playing the Agent in the scene. This other guy is the Author, the star of the movie, but I don't recognize him.

We're ready to shoot it.

Lock it up.

Clear the lights.

Roll camera.

Speed. Speeding.

"A" camera, scene suchnsuch, take one.

Marker.

Action.

Not until he starts reading to us do I realize the actor at the podium is Pierce Brosnan.

Wearing dark glasses, as he looks up from the book he's reading, he seems to be looking straight at me.

Allow me to say it was suddenly pretty fucking cool.

Doing the scene, I try to give it my best. Like my scenes in Mr D where I was WAY off in the background, I work it best I can, reaching for a feeling, animating myself in realistic ways, not wishing to be some dead-eye zombie extra, investing myself with subtle movement designed the reveal Life and Reality, never mind the camera may not even see me. I give it my best. I make specific choices for my reactions. Listening now, I hang on his words. I'm here to listen to my favourite author. I'm somewhat incredulous and horrific-comic at the outcome of the scene, but play it casually. It's film, not theatre. We do two takes. Mr. Brosnan is awesome in the first one and even better in the second one.

While cameras are being turned around, we're filed out of the auditorium, out of the building and then around to the service door where we will get supper (actually, I find out later, it's substantials, or "subs"). The mouth-watering smell of hot pizza wafts through the air.

But your subs are over here: a choice of veggie or meat hot dogs (small shrivelled weiners and keep your comments to yourself, thank you very much) with cheesies. To the crestfallen girl in line behind me, I explain that in the biz, we call that O.P.P. - Other People's Pizza.

I ate with gusto. Then back inside. Three more takes of the same scene, this time the camera is in front of us, riding rails for a tracking shot. The extras murmur amongst themselves after this first take that Pierce took his cell phone from his left pocket where in the previous set-up he took it from his right. Whether he knew this or someone told him, just before the next take he switched it back to the right one.

Finish, file back outside. I talk with Julie and Laura (who I will not un-friend after all) about the day; agreeing that it's a different kind of day, how there's so few people here we know, how some people have actually left after deciding it wasn't for them or they were too hungry or too cold or too something. I'd heard this had happened among the schoolchildren and teens on Mr. D, but I'm surprised to hear adults have bailed today. Laura is still recovering from a bad sandwich she ate early in the morning - it makes her ill talking about it - but she'll stick this out to the end. I'm very surprised to learn she's not ACTRA. It is a point of some consternation with her and we talk about that for a while before heading back inside to sit behind the curtain in Extras Holding where it's warmer.

Mr. Bronsnan does a few more takes of the same scene with a different camera setup but we can't see this one; we sit quiet as mice behind the curtain that's behind him.

As I was covetting a picture of me with the prop book (imagining me holding it up to show the back with the novel's fake blurb and its photo of Pierce Brosnan as the author on the dust jacket), I overhear the wardrobe mistress talking with two other members of the crew about the prospect of Stephen King (himself!) will he or won't he get a chance to come visit the set. Aficionado that I am, I couldn't help interjecting. "Excuse me for eavesdropping," I said, "but isn't it sort of a tradition for him to make cameos in his movies?"

Have you read me before writing this blog? Do I ever do this sort of stuff? Like, mostly never.

So one of the crew turns to me, a slender man with longish, grey hair, a sharp profile, dark-rimmed glasses framing an intelligent fox face. "When he's invited," the man said. "Only when he's invited. I've done a couple of his movies and..." And he went on to say more, but I might have been suddenly having a moment somewhere between Oops and Holy fuck. Mick Garris, director and executive producer for "Bag of Bones", this was the guy I had sort of interrupted.

Moving on.

Back to set where this time it was OUR turn, the camera tracking over Mr. Brosnan's shoulder to record our reactions. We're awesome. Two takes is all we need. Between these two takes Mr. Brosnan observes to us wryly about the scene that we keep doing over and over and a couple of people maybe laugh louder than they need to. But, hey.

The crew breaks down the setup while we're still in our auditorium seats. What next, I wonder. While I'm wondering I'm also reflecting how the mood has changed among the group, from quiet and introverted, all that hushed conversation, to now, when we seem much more relaxed and jovial.

The camera moves in for tighter reaction shots of individuals in our audience. They are pointed to the other side; they've picked a couple of extras to focus on over there. I'm safe for now. Just before cameras roll again, Jason Priestley moves into a chair and into shot and I think, "Oh."

One take. We're done, we're thanked, we applaud, we file out to be officially wrapped.

On the way out...

not by design but from a collection of purely random actions by about one hundred different people...

... I find myself walking directly behind Pierce Brosnan, for those few instants, following in his footsteps.

Back To School

2011-08-05T20:53:00.000-03:00

It's August, and the school I'm in is empty, partly because it August and there's still a month to go before classes start up again and partly because it's just past 7 in the morning and I'm a whopping 45 minutes early for my call-time on the set of "Mr. D", a TV series about a teacher.

The Alice Cooper song has been running around my head since I got up.

Even at this hour, people are beginning to trickle in. My room over here today is a cavernous cafeteria. Two of the four walls are glass and the early morning sunshine is pouring in. It almost feels like outdoors. I sit facing west otherwise I'd be blinded by the sunrise. It's a very nice room.

Crew and extras start to fill up the room and the countdown is on to get signed in and move on to what will hopefully be a highlight of the day: the breakfast burrito.

Score.

The burrito includes bacon and eggs, cheese, salsa and comes with a nice cup of strong black coffee. The paperwork includes a statement of citizenship, an agreement for one dollar in exchange for the rights to any appearance I might make in a behind-the-scenes DVD ... and a confidentiality agreement.

I'm sitting at a corner table in the cafeteria having just been introduced to a very pleasant woman who turns out to be one of the stand-ins and will be here for the duration of the series and whose name I can't publish because of the confidentiality agreement.

It's a very private school.

After only one hour, some of the kids have already been moved outside. They're here to play school children and I reflect that I've never worked with children before (other than that one time with my own) and I wonder what that will be like. Unknown to me at this hour, after today I will still not have worked with children. We're shooting outside today, to start at least, and today "today" will act as several other days and I will help (apparently) by changing shirts several times, the wardrobe lady having picked the ones I am to wear and in what order.

Unknown to me at this hour, I will only ever wear the one I'm currently wearing in front of the camera.

It's unusual for things to be moving so quickly so early, people getting in front of camera this fast. I wonder, is this the difference between TV and movies? Some kids are outside but so far I still sit in the corner next to the Extra's Holding sign, alone now as the stand-in lady also seems to have left for set.

At two different times background kids come in and sit down to tables at the west end of the cafeteria and are politely told to move over to the east end - where I am - because their part of the room is over here.

I'm out at 9:00 for filming. Wow. At 10am we're back, on a short break as they turn the cameras around to shoot the same scene we've been working for the past hour. I have no idea what the scene was about, I was so far away. My role as a teacher was just to walk down the pathway leading away from the school, far from the camera. In my last job it was like I had a role and a function and a name and even screen time with the heavy hitters. This time I'm a speck passing somewhere way in the back, a true background performer. But who knows what the rest of the day will bring.

Performing with me is a woman I know from having worked with the Bedford Players. As we make our crosses far from the range of the boom mike, we talk about acting and actors and directors, movies, web sites, kids and plays. Two teachers having a discussion, is what it will look like. I tell her a little about this blog and she's concerned I'll write about her having brought a Danielle Steele book to read. I reassure her with a reminder of, gee, even if I wanted to there's that confidentially agreement.

I wouldn't usually use this space to write about my bathroom breaks, but....

I'm heading down a long hall, passing classrooms and lockers and labs until finally I find the bathrooms - one's for men the other's for staff. There's maybe the tiniest hesitation, but after all I'm not a teacher, I just play one on TV. In the men's room, the urinals are REALLY low to the floor. I speculate idly on whether the staff toilets are at a more adult height. These urinals are low AND waterless. Lettered in a semi-circle around the drain is the company's 800 number. I think, this must be the only company in the world that advertises their 1-800 number (actually 866) where it's read from underneath your own piss.

The things you learn on set.

Hey, my cousin's here too and I wave but the guy who sees me first and says hi isn't my cousin but one of the executive producers. He may have had a hand in casting me for "Black Harbour" all those years ago. His wife and I were in "The Sound of Music" together all those more years ago. These days I see him much more frequently. His son and my son play on the same baseball team. I help coach. We say hi and shake hands (I washed before I came out).

At 11 it's back outside where I show off my range. Where originally I was walking on a concrete path away from the school with another teacher, for this part I'll be walking on a different concrete path TOWARD the school (and this is the part about showing off my range) ... ALONE.

It's a tough call, which scene will I be more obscure in. The first one maybe.

At a little after noon, I come back inside for a sandwich and some applesauce. Out of deference to the kids who are all still outside shooting and who aren't permitted to have sodas from the craft table (reserved for actors and crew), I have some water and a grape juice pack. Just so you know, as a card-carrying member of ACTRA I am entitled to the craft table.

But why make waves.

I finish my book.

I start reading my next book, absurdly pleased with my own foresight to have brought a second one along.

Can you FEEL the glamour of it all?

The third teacher in our triumvirate told the Bedford Player's teacher he was from Persia (so, Iran, right?). At the moment he has his head down, catching not forty thieves, but forty winks. It seems to me like a great idea. Later he and I will improvise a game of no-limit Texas hold-em with juice boxes, straws and empty plastic straw wrappers and I bust him six times in a row.

Oh yeah, by the way, as I settled in earlier this morning, I caught a single word spoken between two of the kids and that word was "Neville". Later, I noticed a boy who looks remarkably how you thought Neville Longbottom would look all grown up when you saw him in the first Harry Potter movie. The resemblance is striking and uncanny.

When they are not on set the kids aren't reading books like us old fuddy-duddies. Almost to the last man (even though some are girls and the rest are only boys) they have out their smart phones, an uncollected lot of kids, a half-dozen to a table, all of them independent and ironically disconnected from each other, thumbs tapping out whatever in their separate isolated spaces.

(Sez the guy tapping this all out on his BlackBerry.)

I duck into an open classroom to change into a different shirt. It might have been the French class. There were posters on the wall for the French Riviera and a sign on the wall: "Le respect n'est pas donné. Tu dois le mériter," which I figured the kids hadn't done, otherwise the sign would have said, "Vous devez".

The 2nd A.D. (whose name I'm dying to say because I REMEMBERED it, small wonder, but can't because, say it with me, the confidentiality agreement), the 2nd AD asks me if I've heard from the casting agent. I confess no, I haven't, to which HE confesses that they had me in mind to read for a part, well, well, well. The casting agent had been distressed to hear I was already there for background work but he-who-must-not-be-named assured her I was deep in the background..

"Economically advantageously deep," I said, grinned and he laughed.

HOPE!

The thing with feathers.

I sent an e-mail to my agent as a heads up and then, taking some initiative, I went back and asked the 2nd AD whether I should make a point of hanging back in the deep background to protect whatever future role there might be for me. The inference being not just to suggest a course of action, but to somehow make it official, this course of action, because there are a lot of people here on set who make decisions and none of them are me.

Either he picked up on this or he had exactly the same idea because the next thing he did was get on the walkie-talkie to let the 3rd AD know they should keep my face more or less hidden from the camera for the rest of the day, however else they wanted to use me, all of it a moot point as it turned out.

"Your pretty face," is what he actually said.

I twirled and laughed. "I think I'm in love!"

Two-thirty comes and it's lunch.

Quarter after four comes and lunch is still the only thing for me on the go, digesting too slowly in my stomach. That was a lot of potatoes. Somewhere something is going on but it doesn't include the rest of us still passing the time in the cafeteria in various sundry and generationally appropriate ways. Some new actors showed up (at least one that I recognized and so would probably you if you're Canadian) and they're off filming something at the moment with a small group of the students, just down the hall which is why a PA has shown up to shoosh us all. The shooshing interrupts a meeting with a former neighbour and personal trainer of mine who has suddenly appeared with her son. He and my boy used to play together regularly before she moved away from our collection of condos. We have more than a nice few moments of catching up.

Natalie (happy to use her name since she's not cast or crew) tells me she's also now a life coach ... and then asks me what's so funny.

This, I said, posted only a couple of days ago.

Once upon a troubled time, many years ago, Natalie gave me one of the best hugs I ever had. It was sometime around Christmas, a holiday hug from a random encounter at a movie theatre that no longer exists, she with her boyfriend, me by myself, a moment she probably doesn't even recall and something I've never forgotten.

At seven oh five, more than six hours after last the leaving set and 139 pages into my second book, we wrapped.

My New Facebook Friend: Tom Selleck

2011-06-01T09:10:00.028-03:00

Back before the great age of technology, I would get a call from my agent telling me there was a gig somewhere. No longer.

We're not huddled around radios anymore, people. And there's no one fiddling around with the rabbit ears to get rid of the fuzzy picture on the colour-TV. Now it's all HD plasma bigscreen TVs, baby. And Facebook.

(Because it's waiting for me on my DVR, sometime this week maybe I'll watch the movie about Facebook on my HD plasma bigscreen TV.)

I still feel guilty that I don't pay my agent a commission for doing background work; it's a change from my last agent and it's her rule, not mine. She might not even know I'm here today.

The casting agent (different from my "talent" agent) posted a whole mess of stuff on her Facebook site and wouldn't you know, I'm available for some of it! I left her Facebook page to browse over to her casting group's web site where I've already set up an account for myself. I logged in, clicked on the projects I'm available for, and a day later she gave me a call to tell me to come play! Slick as you please. It's just the one I was hoping for too, whattaya know. I'm going to be the Medical Examiner for a scene in the new Jesse Stone movie.

It's Tom Selleck. Again.

The shoot is outside of the city in Sambro, a small fishing village that's a half hour or so from my place. The first big decision of the day was what to wear to set and at the last minute I panicked and removed the clothes I dressed in to start the day - tan shorts and an orange, cream and rust coloured "Charlie Sheen" shirt (we FINALLY have a warm and sunny day) - in favour of a cooler looking shirt and jeans combo and my leather jacket. After my earlier excursion, I needed to feel confident about myself. And earth tones just weren't going to cut it.

The second decision is whether to drive to the spot for crew parking or Extras Holding. Small, stupid things like this are why I need to dress with confidence. I correctly decided on crew parking and after a brief chit-chat with the security guy (who talked about "Tom" the gypsy who has so many different locations to travel to for this movie), I'm shuttled to Base Camp where Extras holding, I'm told, is behind the porta-potties.

Well of course it is.

We're in a 16 x 20 shed with a concrete floor and a long, oval conference table with about 10 office chairs, a telescope and a computer table with a small plasma screen showing static security video from a nearby wharf. The talk is about some forewarning of "interaction" we've received where some of the forensics people might be ... what? Talking with Tom? Who's also the writer apparently? There are implications here.

And then everyone else is gone to wardrobe and I'm alone here typing this out to you.

What will the day bring? That's the excitement, the anxiety and anticipation in the room. It's a beautiful sunny day fraught with potential.

After a short period of being forgotten by the P.A., I walk across the gravel parking lot to the wardrobe trailer where my own best suit is picked (it's the Hugo Boss, Christine) augmented by a shirt and tie not my own. I'm sent to the "five-banger" to change. This is a new term for me, five-banger. It's the long trailer divided up into five dressing rooms, hence, five-banger. The doors are labelled with paper signs: Tom Selleck Stand-in, Doc Perkins, Tom Selleck stunt-double, Stunts. The last door has no sign. It's door #5 where I've been told to change but wait because there's a girl inside.

I wait.

It's so sunny and warm.

The sun washes over me and as I wait, I have some growing appreciation of the logistics of all this, just to back up and arrange all these trailers along this Government Wharf. Setting up Base Camp.

Time keeps on ticking and I begin to suspect that maybe there's not a girl behind door #5. I knock. No answer. I open the door and peer through the gloom and the screen door, taking the first step up into the trailer.

In the deepest part of the room, my eyes adjusting to the dark, there are four men sitting in a single row. They're looking at me. No one says a word. As I start to gasp for something to say (they've scared the piss out of me), I realize they're dummies. Foam dummies. All of them dressed in the uniform of a "Paradise State Trooper".

Things like this don't happen in my real job.

Dressed and having won the Wardrobe Department's seal of approval, it's back to Holding, but not for long. We're travelled by van the short distance to the set. Piling out of the van we head up and over a grassy knoll where a man sits off alone to my left, obscured by a black baseball cap, his features hid by his hand as he talks on the phone.

It's Tom. Of course it is. As people talk and joke creating the hubbub of conversation and crowd noise, Tom's voice, even pitched low, cuts under it all like a strong bass line. I can't make out words and I don't try to. But there's that voice. Again.

And I confess to the thrill of getting to hear it in real life.

The new place for Extras is outside an old, grey, two-story fishing shack. The wooden deck that surrounds it is newer and extends out over the start of the shoreline. Folding chairs are set up for us to sit and look out over the bay. It's quite beautiful. Seagulls croak and call above us. Today my room over here is the great outdoors.

Tom's director's chair is now empty. He has left to shoot a scene.

We wait.

Tessa (the girl who wasn't behind door #5) and I stand by ourselves around the corner of the deck and lean against the wooden rail, looking out over the water. She tells me about working with Hillary Swank and her excitement over the prospect of getting to work with a woman, a strong woman, a tall, strong, important woman - and then she met Hillary who was all of 100 pounds.

I tell her my theory of economy of movement for cinema. Tom Cruise is small. Dustin Hoffman is small. There's a grace and elegance that goes with being slight of frame. It's physics, I say. Put two pennies on a rotating record, the outer one has to move faster than the inner one to travel the same distance. So here's me, tall and maybe gangly and maybe awkward on camera, lumbering my way through space where a shorter, slighter person would move through the same space looking more graceful and much more elegant. Economy of movement. The camera likes smaller people.

About 30 yards away, 6 foot 4 Tom Selleck looms in a silent rebuttal to my theory.

More waiting and minor conversations until 3:15 when someone decides we're not going to do anything before lunch and so we're travelled away from the set to where catering has been set up. As is protocol for a film set, we, the background performers, will sit at a table or two by ourselves and wait until the crew has gone through the lunch line before we get our turn. I have been on movie sets where this protocol was not properly observed and the result was UPSET.

(There are lots of people who work really long hours in this business. I do this for a day here and there and they can be long days. Standing around growing tired feet. The crew does this the same as me only their days are even longer and they do this for a whole lot of days in a row. So it's understandable when people get cranky.)

So we sit and are patient. I've been resisting the craft table so far today and now the aromas of impending lunch waft over and make my mouth water. Tessa, the cheater, breaks out a baggie of trail mix.

At the other end of the room, there's an actor at the lunch table that I recognize but can't immediately place ... until several minutes later when I realize it's Stephen McHattie who, among his host of credits, recently played Hollis Mason, the original Night Owl in "The Watchmen". The cool factor of this goes way up.

After lunch where the conversations were more about our children than anything else (me strongly missing my Boy) we returned to the set and our Background shack and the wooden deck and the water and the views. A small breeze had come up from the water and the air felt a little cooler. It's a very good day to be paid to sit outside.

I reflect how, at this point in the proceedings, Tom and Stephen are like spirits; you don't see them around very much but you can feel them like a presence. Or maybe it's just me.

Time goes by. The sun starts to move around to the other side of the shack.

At this point in the writing, the cameras are being turned around. I've been to set. We've rehearsed and then shot the scene one way with two camera coverage and now the crew will switch around so that the cameras look at it from the other side. With this angle, we'll see the body hanging from the rafters. They're getting the stunt man ready to hang by his neck but not really.

But before, this is what we did:

At around 5:20, I got my "potsie", my buzzer, the tin, my gold sergeant's shield that hangs on a chain around my neck. An hour after that we blocked the scene for rehearsal. Apparently from the script, my name's Herb. So as we start rehearsal Tom, out of character, says to me, "Hi Herb".

Deep, rumbling voice. Casual. Friendly. "Hi, Herb."

After a pause of about seven very long seconds, I reply, "Hi. Jesse."

I'm so fucking smooth.

Once we've rehearsed the blocking, we clear the space for a while and get propped up: purple rubber gloves, a medical clipboard and some pens, a shiny, very sharp silver poking instrument thing that I will use to point at things and REALLY try not to jab anyone with ("How to forever earn the nickname: "Prick").

My cousin is working the shoot as the second assistant director. We've met once before and today we have a pleasant re-introduction. Stacie, who plays one of the forensics detectives, says she could already tell we're related by our eyes and nose. I think to myself, "But Jason got all the cool genes." He's doing very well in this, his chosen career. I'll cop to a fair amount of envy. Jason tells us there's even more Shipleys now; he's just had a new daughter. Another cool moment.

We run the scene and now it's for real, cameras roll, about a half a dozen takes or more and I settle nicely into my M.E. business. Preston, the 3rd A.D., comes over after the early takes to offer suggestions. I do better. Tom gets us out of the scene with a really great line, and CUT. Between takes I'm caught up in the (and, sorry, I have to over-use this word again) coolness of doing a scene with Tom Selleck and Stephen McHattie. Tom stumbles over some words during one of the takes and laughs. Do you say "hung" or "hanged"? It's weird that I remember a very similar conversation being played out in an 87th Precinct novel between the two homicide dicks, Monaghan and Munroe. From reading this I know that the correct usage is "hanged" but Tom decides to say "hung", not because it's the right word but because it sounds better and there's the difference between books and TV.

The sun is creeping toward the horizon and I hear that they are shooting again, without me or ANY of us for this take.

Just the hanging body. The Hanging Man.

The cameras are repositioned and reset. We shoot again. Little bits of business are added to the front of the scene, an extra cross (which I made up on my own, he says proudly), and wow! I'm given a mark! Orange tape on the carpet to nail down EXACTLY where I have to end up when I've finished walking around the Hanging Man. I think the camera is getting good close-ups for cutaways; holy crap it's pointed right at me.

The sun has set. The dog is wrapped (good dog!). The cast is wrapped. The interesting parts of the day are all done. The rest is dénouement. The background is held back and presently we shuffle around the garage space, moving around The Hanging Man who is more comfortably perched atop a step ladder as the camera is also wrapped and we're there to record "wild lines", audio of our footsteps crunching and scraping on the gravel now that the sound-muffling carpets we used to be walking on have been rolled up and put away. At the end of it, the 1st A.D. pours out a bottle of water to the ground directly under the boom mike. Maybe it's the Hanging Man who's finally pissed himself. The last drops dribble out and there's a CUT! and then laughter.

We're wrapped. Before heading back to Base Camp to take care of some final paperwork, change back into my street clothes and get one final startle from the gang of police dummies, I have a brief but nice farewell with my coolest cousin. It was a great day with a fine group of people: Tessa, Stacey and Stacie and Chris and Paul who is also Chris, you had to be there.

No. Really.

Me at the Mental

2010-07-17T14:17:00.002-03:00

The room is about 8x8 which is to say SMALL. There is the suggestion that this is the good room because there is an air conditioner here and the rest of the facility is HOT. There's a cold fog outside but by afternoon it will be gone - and this is July so the entire rest of the facility is HOT. Our small room is the only one air-conditioned.

The facility is a mental hospital.

In this small room are seven people, six women and me. Five of these women will play residents. One of the five is Michelle with whom I've done a play and played golf, but we hadn't seen each other in years. It's a nice little reunion. The other, a young girl named Cathy) is a nurse and I've just learned from the director, Thom Fitzgerald, I'm supposed to flirt with her while we watch a horror flick. Hallowe'en 2, he tells us. As the day goes by I wonder if maybe he was just fucking with us.

The name of the movie is "Cloudburst". I'd seen lots of background calls for it from Erin Hennessey's Facebook messages as well as a piece in the paper just the day before yesterday which suggested they were almost finished shooting it. I felt a regret over never having got a chance to play from ALL those opportunities, but here I am today! The call sheet says it's day 33 of 34. So I feel very lucky.

Craft arrives. I debate putting a banana in my pocket. The whole flirting thing, you know.

I travel to wardrobe and I'm fitted into a set of industrial green scrubs. Between our little room and the wardrobe cubby, the crew is setting up the shot and I discover that it will take some self discipline today to keep from gawking. The two principle actors in today's scene are the stars of the movie. Both have both won Academy Awards. I've racked my little brain and I cannot ever recall EVER having worked with someone who's won an Oscar. And here I am today (day 33 of 34) and there are two! Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) and Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot).

A new addition arrives to our tiny room. Her name is Doreen and she tells Michelle that she's the grandmother of David Carol of Sons of Maxwell who famously has written "United Breaks Guitars". Doreen doesn't want to be here but her grandson David coerced her into being here and I, sitting across from her, appreciate the great irony of her being forced to be here in the rest home. I tell her this and she laughs. I like Doreen and I will spend a lot of the rest of the day making her laugh. She calls me naughty.

Ruth is another in our tiny room and she tells me she's 90 years old. The wardrobe mistress comes by and Ruth balks at having to wear a hairnet that's in the script. I say to her it's because she grills burgers for the group and health regulations would require the hairnet. She believes me utterly and is pleased to have a role to play. Flipping burgers!

I have no shame. I let her believe the lie for longer than I should have. Long enough for the director to have come over and hear it. Whoops.

I reflect on the difference between last time with the provocative French maids and this time with all these lovely old dolls. I think of this but politely say nothing.

There is a very happy vibe on this set.

Given the extremely long days that so many people have to work together putting one of these things together, it's understandable how the mood can get generally surly. But not here. I noted it when I arrived, felt lost (as usual) and carefully asked someone how to get to Extras Holding and the girl I spoke to brightened and said to me, "Oh, you're Ken!" She introduced herself as we got in the elevator. The guy carrying all the sound equipment did likewise.

The sign outside the door to our little room (now populated with four ladies made up to look very geriatric, one nurse and me) says, in fact, "People Holding- now with more cool A.C. than ever before".

Just outside and around the corner from our cooled room, Ms. Fricker runs lines with Ms. Dukakis which is even cooler. Surreptitiously, I watch from another room. I think how neat it is I get to watch this mini-performance for free.

Presently they shoot it for real and following the director's call of "Cut!", I overhear Ms. Dukakis bellowing belligerently about wondering what fucking side of the fucking frame she's supposed to be on. But it's all in jest. Nicole, the nice lady from the elevator and the 2nd a.d. informs me that Ms. Dukakis' character is very gruff and the actress had confessed on an earlier day that she was impressed with how her character swore ALL the FUCKING TIME.

Time began to pile up as it often does. Ennui follows. Doreen confessed a wish to me and then the director that she wished not to be here. The director was ready to let her go, it would be okay if she left, he said (kindly) and I said gently that I hoped she would stay with us. In an example of art imitating life, Doreen and I walked slowly through the hospital, eventually to stand outside on the front steps to get some fresh air, her with her cane and dressed in a nightgown and robe, me in my orderly scrubs.

We talked. She told me a story about her husband who's now dead. "I didn't kill him," she added quickly.

"Because that's the first thing I thought," I said. "You said your husband was dead and I immediately wondered if it was you that killed him."

Doreen laughed, delighted.

For a while, like Noah's ark, they brought ladies to the set two by two, Doreen first with another of the ladies. For the time we'd been waiting, there time in front of the camera was over almost in an instant. Shoot two women in their room, wrap them, shoot two more. Then wrap THEM. After these two scenes, lunch (at 4pm) and the plan was then two shoot the two old men, a mysterious duo who had arrived on set some time ago but on whom we had never laid eyes. I was starting to suspect they might me saving me for last, which in terms of personal revenue was a good thing.

6:46 and the nurse has had a scene, but not me. I've finished the book I was reading (80 Million Eyes), reviewed this here little transcript and threatened to open the second book I brought with me. I arrived at 10am and now the first hint of darkening dusk has crept into the sky.

Ruth is wrapped and she and I (gently) shake hands and say goodbye as she gets set to leave, pushing her walker ahead of her. On the way past, she shares another goodbye with Ms. Dukakis who places her hand over the other woman's and says that it was a pleasure working with her. Olympia says. With an honest smile. It's been a long day and one of the wardrobe gals is massaging a knot from Ms. Dukakis's shoulder. She makes appreciative noises. Later, she's finished a take and is sitting talking to members of the crew about how she used to do a jigsaw puzzle every summer and apologising for having been too tires to come out with them last night. I stand eavesdropping behind her and remembering what I wrote years ago about Tom Selleck and how remarkable was his voice that first preceded him into the room. Olympia Dukakis has the same remarkableness to her voice, at once authoritative yet friendly, vibrant yet weary. That weary, New England accent an aural trademark. She's wonderful just to listen to and I wonder how much is it - that quality and distinctiveness of voice - that makes an actor something beyond regular, that makes an actor great. It not something that's put on for the cameras, I realize, standing behind her, listening to her.

It's just her voice.

My son called at 8:30. I only note this because at 9:00 we were wrapped and on the way home. In that in-between time Cathy and I did one rehearsals and two takes of the two of us coming around the corner, flirting and then me walking off back where I came from around the corner and out of frame. Sitting there looking up at me after every take was a 78 year old lady in a pink bed-robe - Olympia Dukakis.

Looking me right in the eyes with a little smile.

You might think that I would have felt intimidated, but no.

Only inadequate.

Happy Times

2010-06-05T11:51:00.011-03:00

Wait a minute... I get a trailer? I'm here for background work and I get a trailer?

This is an interesting beginning to my day as an extra on the new series "Drunk and On Drugs: The Happy Funtime Hour".

So, sitting in my trailer, all I'm thinking about is getting breakfast. My call time was for 7:15 in the morning and I'm about a half an hour early, just to mitigate whatever parking issues I might run into. It turns out there was reserved parking - orange traffic cones blocked off a section of Robie Street by the Commons, the yellow and black placard declaring "Crew Park". Background Performer is an extension of the crew, right?

Gee, I sure hope so.

Now with time to spare (and a trailer to sit in) I start this entry and from somewhere nearby, through the foggy, grey, heavy, drizzly air of the morning I can smell breakfast cooking. And I'm hungry. But a PA (production assistant - or maybe she was an AD, an assistant director ... I never did get a really good look at the call sheet) has alerted someone over the headset that I'm here and wardrobe should come and check what clothes I've brought, so I dare not move. First things first. A keen sense of priority is a good thing to keep about you on a film set.

I'm writing mere moments later! She's been here and I'm dressed as they want me. Let's see about breakfast!!!

I got the last burrito. Don't tell anyone.

Down the line a bit, there are three others also here as background players who are sharing another section of the trailer. So far I have my part to myself. It doesn't feel like a special consideration, it feels like being ostracised - but maybe that's just a glimpse into my personality. More of that to come....

So the waiting begins and with it a vague uncertainty of "am I where I should be?" At this moment, to my moderate relief, the PA comes back to shepherd a few of us "diners" to hair and makeup. We're intercepted on the way by the hair and makeup lady who lets the PA know that for the shots we're doing, we don't need anything done. About face and back to the trailer but not for long. It's time to be travelled to Extras Holding.

Now that's more like it.

The shooting site is "Cousin's Restaurant", remade to be the Stoned-Os Cafe. Across the street there's an Inn (the Commons Inn, actually) and the first hurdle is: find a door that's not locked so we can get in the Inn.

With the departure of the driver we're suddenly a collection of Extras who've been left entirely to our own devices, never a good thing. We loiter through the bottom floor and then wander up a staircase and eventually run into a guy straight out of Central Casting, "The Manager", who collects and pleasantly let's us know that our room is over HERE, room 209 in the Inn and it has a sofa, two armchairs a bathroom and a queen sized bed.

Wow this is better even than the trailer! What's going on?

Next to me is an ice bucket that's sadly missing its bottle of champagne. And ice. Across from me is a young girl with Lulu Lemon sweats covering her waitress costume. She doesn't seem at all nervous about sharing the room with the bed and three good looking guys. One of these guys, Glen, also has a blog and we swap URLs. The other introduced himself as Andrew and it clicks - the reason he looks familiar is that he's Andrew Gillis aka Les Ismore, the newsman-bluesman from the radio station I used to listen to several years ago. I mentioned how I found his Sunday night Blues show one night coming home from the movie "Crossroads" where I'd fallen in love with that brand of Blues music. That was more than 20 years ago, boys and girls.

The PA is back and wouldn't you know it we're in the wrong room. We're travelled outside of the Inn and across the street to a nondescript apartment building where there's a sign that's the best clue that we've FINALLY found the right place.

The sign says:

Washroom
&
Holding

Perfect.

Inside is a cramped and dim space, one hundred and fifty year old wooden floors and the smell of must and mould. Some grey fold-out chairs are lined against the wall and a dingy blue couch is set at the other side of the room. This is it all right. Inside are a couple other players who have found their way without us. Two are dressed in French maid uniforms and I try not to look.

I'm only here for a moment before we're called to set, me and two others. The set is a diner across the street. Inside is a mini-city worth of film crew. All the Trailer Park Boys are there, but Mike Smith (Bubbles) is the only one you might recognize. He's wearing a long blonde wig, a moustache and vintage 70s aviator sunglasses. And powder blue short-shorts. JP is the most eye-catching guy there with a receding hairline, a long black ponytail and dark sunglasses. It's the hair-lip that grabs your attention though. Rob Wells spent the whole time sitting with his back to me. All of his lines would be mumbled like Marlon Brando's godfather. The last guy at the table I didn't recognize. In front of him was a blue cookie that he was trying to snort like cocaine.

I was at the luncheonette counter with my own blue plate special: remnants of a sandwich, the bread flecked with green and blue, blue-stained lettuce and royal-blue salami. Complementing the dinner is a glass of mysterious blue liquid. During the scene, I do two things: one is to keep my face hidden from each of the two cameras and the other is push the toasty crumbs around on my plate in my best imitation of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano. Have you every watched that guy eat on camera? Pay attention next time.

The biggest problem with the setup (while I was there) was the view of traffic through the door, a door that was eventually covered with placards on the inside and a thin white sheet of paper on the outside. From time to time I get up from my round luncheonette stool to stand and stretch my legs. I complain to Glen that by the time we're done my bum will have gone completely flat. It's just after nine before we get everything the director wants from that first scene. He has re-adjusted the camera shots and is cackling to the guy next to him, "We're breaking the rules!!"

"What are you, like six years old?" the guy says.

"I get excited about stupid shit," the director says with a grin.

Yes, I think and I'm reminded of a Japanese management professor I met once in my real life. He spoke with a classic Samurai accent and cadence telling us, "Old business model: Start with customer. NO!!! New business model: Start with joy."

Yes.

Start with joy.

After returning to Holding, updating my entry and filling out my paperwork for the day (ensuring I'll get paid), Glen and Andrew are called to set as soldiers. They undress and then dress in vintage uniforms (we actors are an immodest lot) and I'm left behind with an apple and the two French maids, Tina and Veronica, who resist coming over to sit with me on the couch.

So now, waiting. One hour. Three hours. I listen to the French maids tell tales. One spent a season with The Actor's Studio in Los Angeles. The other dated Matt Mays. They each have splendid stories to tell, stories populated with Names of People You Know and they tell them back and forth as I listen in, rapt, attentive and silent, hearing about different parts of this business that I know very little about. There is a vocal style to the telling of their stories, a gloss which maybe comes from being young and female and maybe has something to do with being in the Biz. A third girl, Jackie, arrives wearing even less than the maids. Later in the day as part of the scene, one of the actors will dip his fingers into her cleavage (she says: "I have to act like I'm happy about it"). She shows off her costume at the girls' request and then bundles up again in a black jacket. She looks naked from the hips down because she is, except for a pair of beige and brown cowboy boots. She's the perfect blonde with that carefree, happy look emanating from wide, blue eyes, a look that may or may not be part of the act. At this point, from this thought, I reflect over my OWN impressions of all this: the girls, the Biz, vive le difference and all that, and I wonder over the possibility that I might be so cynical and jaundiced and old.

I work really hard at not being impressed by how pretty all girls are.

At 12:00 noon I go back to the set. The French maids follow a little while later and I notice all the guys noticing them which sets off a whole other series of metaphysical thoughts about this male-dominated biz. As the day goes on I'm reminded more and more of - and this, Reader, is where the difficult part of the day begins - of how uncool I am, like seriously.

Over the space of a couple of hours it really corrodes at my psyche and already-fragile self-image. One of the other girls, Kirsten, is dressed up to strongly (like, REALLY) ressemble Kate Winslet. I say to her we could do our own show together: "The Movie Star and the Shmoe." Later, Cheryl, a lovely girl who has been my waitress in a scene on set and who is suffering from progressively worse back spasms as we sit alone together at Washroom/Holding, she and I have a nice chat about many things, including this image issue and at the end of it I feel a little better.

To end the day I stood on the sidewalk and later in the scene wearing a Hallowe'en Dracula cape, a black t-shirt, no pants except for the blue silk boxers with Santa Claus playing golf, black dress shoes and black socks pulled up to my calves. I'll leave it to you to determine whether or not this added to my cool and sexy feel.

Big Fat Media Whore

2009-11-03T17:28:00.007-04:00

I’ve just returned from entertaining myself with …. ME.

I think any artist creates just to make himself (or herself) happy. Whatever else happens after that – fame, fortune, career – is incidental. In the act of creation, the artist’s first goal is to satisfy himself. I know it’s true for me, inasmuch as I'm an artist. When I’m writing or shooting and editing video or playing my drums or whatever the hell it is, I’m doing it because I enjoy it. I write to make myself laugh. I produce little home movies to move me. When I’m done, if there’s an audience (and if there is, you’re awfully low profile) and you laugh or you’re moved too, then great. But I really did it all for me.

If I write one more time how it’s been a long time between posts, I’m going to puke. Because it’s too much of a recurring theme around here. A whole year and more have gone by since my last acting job (Trailer Park Boys – which movie I have still not seen) and I’d be hard-pressed even to think whether I’ve done an audition. My agent and I have had a bit of a row. I’m separated now from my wife and there are new contact numbers. Three times now I’ve passed them on. After two tries, audition notices were still being sent to my Z-wife (“zed” because it’s the end, but it’s not quite “ex”). So there might have been auditions except notices went where they shouldn’t have. Finger-pointing and accusations have followed.

The sun continues to rise and set.

So I’ve had this mini-post in mind for a couple of weeks and I’m finally getting around to crafting it. Immediately before opening up MSWord, I was on the blog site re-reading and, yes, enjoying the earlier posts on the main page (with little frets about spelling; perfection is the enemy of the excellent).

(Heh. In the last sentence I spelled “enemy” wrong and Word suggested “enema” which I thought was sort of a cool alternate word choice for that phrase….)

Anyway.

Hi.

There has been stuff happening and to be rid of the vacuum, I’m posting about it.

The first thing has been the release of the Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day. Gleefully now, free from the constraints of the confidentiality agreement, I tell everyone that I shot Randy! Even though I was aiming for Julian.

“Do you have any lines?”

*sigh* No. No lines. I was an actor, had my trailer and a screen credit and made good money for only a day’s work. But no lines. “Security Guard #2”, that’s me. Not number one, number two. We try harder.

When I filmed it, a year ago this past July, I was the heaviest I’ve ever been. Around this time I resolved I was going to get trimmer and that very month (I remember because it was the last family vacation) I started running. I’ve since finished two half-marathons and lost over 22 pounds. But there I am in the movie at my fattest, saved for all posterity. If in fact I made the final cut. Like I said, I still haven't seen it. But I saw the first trailer and I was in that, although I'd have to get it and freeze frame it and point out that tiny person in the background, yeah that's the guy that just fired the shot, that's me....

Also this summer, the Halifax Mooseheads called and I ended up on a billboard with my son.

Three years ago, Santa was very cool in bringing my son a jersey, the white, home jersey for the Mooseheads with #20 on the back (the number of his favourite player, Jakub Voracek) and his name on the back, “IAN”. The next year, Santa brought and left for me the Mooseheads third jersey, white with “Halifax” scripted across the front, the number 9 and my name on the back: “IAN’S DAD”.

We’ve been season ticket holders for the last couple of years (the 15-game pack) and apparently our jerseys were noted because when I asked the Mooseheads' marketing guy why we were called, he replied, “Everyone knows Ian and Ian’s Dad.”

Really? That’s pretty cool.

So we’re on a billboard. And a fridge magnet.

When my zed-brother–in-law invited me to Newfoundland to play drums with his band, I figured this was the hat-trick and should at least be worthy of a note in the Blog, even though it technically runs outside the theme of this journal. Or maybe not.

After all, what extra doesn’t dream of becoming a big, fat media whore?

Just keep in mind I’m down 22 pounds.

Mirage or Oasis?

2009-07-23T16:49:00.002-03:00

After an era of inactivity, a flurry of auditions (is four a flurry?) resulting in a job.

The job is with the Trailer Park Boys. They're shooting a 2nd feature film.

The original audition was a couple of weeks ago, fraught with its own drama; I had arrived with something extra and something missing. The missing bit was the first page of the audition script which was very vexing and leads me further down the path of believing I need to change agents. I had received two pages, but one seemed not to have anything to do with me or any character that I might read for. My inquiry to my agent about this suspicious second page went unanswered. I arrived for the audition and saw that the page I had learned was really the second page of two. Fortunately the auditions were running a little behind (they often are) and I had about ten minutes to memorize the lines from the first page. It gave me a different appreciation on how I wanted to play the character. In fact I changed my mind about three times before I went in and consequently suffered a significant crisis of confidence during my performance. I came out feeling not very good about my audition, not very good about my agent.

The extra I brought was an improv.

Remembering previous auditions and knowing how Mike C. likes to shoot his scenes, I thought about what kinds of things the character might say if we were told to improvise anything following the read-through. Sure enough, the two of us doing the audition were told we would have to get ourselves out of the scene and I used the two “improv” bits that I’d come up with.

Despite my own evaluation of how the audition went, I got a callback a few days later.

Turns out the script we read was a fake script. I had an inkling it might have been, since the title on the top of the pages I got read: “Trailer Park Boys Fake Scene”. For the callback I was told that there would be scripts available either early on the day or at the location for a cold read, but of course, no there weren’t. It was to be completely improvised.

I don’t consider improve a strength of mine. I generally am very reliant on the written word. Back some years ago as an extra on the set of “Blackfly”, Ron James was doing a scene were he was trying to make up a line that echoed the “My name is Joe” ads for Molson Canadian. Remember? “My name is Joe and I AM CANADIAN!” Well, Blackfy was set in the pre-Confederation days and Ron and the director and the other actor in the scene were trying to come up with the word that would substitute for “Canadian”. They didn’t get one so that particular bit wasn’t used. Later, I saw him outside and I told him, the word you were looking for was “Colonial”. My name is Blackfly, and I AM COLONIAL!” Ron says, “Why didn’t you say something?!?!?!” I told him truthfully because I’d just thought of it.

See, I’m funny but I’m not quick. That makes for good writing, but bad improv.

So I’m sitting in the conference room at the Lord Nelson Hotel in a suit and tie, having just come from another audition about an hour previous in another part of the city. I’m the second guy to arrive. The first guy to arrive won’t sit down. He paces. And paces. And paces some more. I’m feeling pretty relaxed and calm despite the looming requirement to improvise some scenes (in a suit and tie remember, for the Trailer Park Boys, remember) but all that pacing is starting to drive me bat shit. Two more actors arrive. One of them invites Pacing Man to sit down, but the guy declines. This is how he works, he tells us. Thankfully, he’s the first to be called in and I tell the other two guys how the stress level in the room suddenly has gone WAY down. “My God!” the guy says. “He just wouldn’t stop pacing!”

“Fucking actors,” I say and we laugh.

A couple of days later I get the call that I’d won one of the roles. Do I have to add “Improv specialist” to my acting résumé now?

The role is for a Brinks Truck driver. He’s dropped off his partner and surreptitiously detouring to the liquor store at the end of the day. Getting out of the truck, Julian runs up and breathless asks if he has a gun.

“Yes,” I said carefully, “but I’m off duty…”

I like to think this was the line that won me the role. It could have been that Mike remembers me from our Channel Ten days of pre-glory. Either way is okay with me.

As for the day of shooting, well, I’ve signed a confidentiality agreement, so you’re going to have to watch the movie to find out what went on. We were out in public, right in the core of downtown Halifax and had a lot of people around watching us. Many figured I was part of security for the shoot and approached to ask questions about what was going on. THEM I told because I hadn’t signed the agreement yet. Also, it was kind of all happening right there in front of them.

Would it be telling too much if I told you we were shooting guns?

It was pretty cool and a lot of fun. I thanked Mike at the end of the day. He let me know that there’s a shot that features me prominently. He doesn’t know that I’m very comfortable toiling away in obscurity. I’ll have to send him a link to the blog.

With a note of gratitude, of course.

(Posted much earlier than the date shows; re-posted to remove a link to a sex site. Sheesh.)

At The Trailer Park, Dreams Come True

2006-09-05T10:40:00.002-03:00

In my last year of high school, I joined the VTR club. I recorded events to an ungainly reel-to-reel video tape recorder, mostly girls volleyball.

Years later, remembering how much fun that was, I started to volunteer at the local cable station. At first I operated a camera in studio, then later I progressed to working local sporting events. Near the end of it, I was learning how to use the editing bay.

One of the people working there... like really working, not volunteering like I was, one of the people on staff ... was Mike Clattenburg. Among lots of other things, Mike was producing a show called appropriately enough "That Damn Cable Show". Mike and I would often crew sporting events together, but my involvement on TDCS was limited to one sequence where I played "The Wrangler's" dim brother who was interviewed for camera on how he hadn't seen his him since he (The Wrangler) had mentioned he was going off to try to find the Squatch.

For those of you without a program, the Squatch is the Sasquatch and the Wrangler is Dave Gaudet, another Channel 10 staffer. I was the guy who couldn't quite keep a straight face through any of the many takes we did, Mike holding the camera, the both of us cracking up. Me especially. A bad failing for a comedy actor. But we had a great time shooting it.

Dave Gaudet has gone on to be an underwater cameraman for, I think it was, Ocean's of Mystery.

Mike Clattenburg went on to create the Trailer Park Boys.

I went on to direct a Truro production of "West Side Story", mentioning this only because said production included a talented young man named Corey Bowles who now regularly appears on a show called ... "Trailer Park Boys".

Life, she is a circle.

The people in my office, those that know I do some acting stuff on the side, have been almost desperate for me to get a part on the show. In six seasons of episodes though, I had only auditioned once. I hoped there might have been some kismet going on since that part was for a guy named "Mr. Maloney" which was also my maternal grandfather's name.

But I didn't get the part.

This year I had my second audition.

Now, I can't remember quite what was going on ... maybe I was out of town, I don't know. But I ended up doing my own audition tape from home. I figured (gleefully) that this was totally unfair to everyone else who auditioned since I got to do as many takes as I wanted and then run the tape through the computer to edit a final product. In fact, when I saw it, I realized I hadn't quite played the scene the way it needed to be played and so re-recorded the whole thing downstairs producing a perfect and hilarious take. The next day, a Saturday, I took the tape downtown to drop it off for the casting agent. It was so unfair. I decided I was going to do the rest of my auditions this way.

Now the funny thing was that my son also auditioned. There were two parts that I'd read for, a crown prosecutor and a father. For the father part, I'd included my son and gave him an ad-lib line: "Yeah man, you suck!", hilarious for a six-year old and delivered with panache. He went with me to drop off the tape at a downtown hotel. The casting agent was due to come and pick it up in a couple of hours. We might hear something later in the week. My son was already counting his chickens, figuring we were on TV.

Across the street from the hotel is a park. The two of us were going to make a day of our downtown trip and so, leaving the steps of the hotel in the bright warm sunshine, I started to explain to him, enlighten him, to bestow unto him - my son - all my great wisdom concerning this audition process into which he was now included.

"See, we did the audition, now we forget about it. Pretend we didn't do it. You can't expect that we get the part. Lots audition. Very few are cast. Nobody ever gets called to say they didn't get the part. Don't think you've ever got the part until someone calls and tells us you, You got the part."

At this exact moment - and I'm not making this up - my cell phone rings.

Twenty steps out of the hotel lobby my son looks up at me and says, "Did we get the part?"

Well, no. We didn't.

I confess it was irritating the way we didn't get the part.

It wasn't the phone call - that was just my wife calling to check in at the perfectest possible moment. My agent e-mailed me to audition for a couple of roles in Trailer Park Boys, an e-mail that I didn't get until after the fact. And - strangely - it loooked the roles were the same ones I'd done on the tape. And so it turned out. But why did I need to audition for roles I'd already auditioned for? It was a head-scratcher all right. I was irritated that I didn't get better notice of the audition before it happened. I was further irritated to find out later that the tape I'd made for the audition played ... completely blank. For reasons heretofore unexplained.

"Some things are just not to be," she said philosophically.

Oh, well and a sigh.

She asked if I would still want to come in sometime as background and I said yes, absolutely. She also thought my son looked great after visiting my web site and watching the movie-of-the-moment. (That nascent editing experience I picked up from Channel 10 having exploded full into producing home movies through the home computer.)

The call came a few weeks later to come in and play on set of the Trailer Park Boys. Come for two days. Bring your son. We were both happy to oblige.

Our scene was to involve a model train convention and the special guest of the show was a guy named Sebastian Bach. I smiled at the name, ignorant me, thinking it was made up. But no. It turns out that Mr. Bach is a real guy, ex-lead singer from the band "Skid Row" and now out on his own, touring, rocking, starring in an episode of TPB. From an article in the local paper: "I told Axl Rose about the show when we were on tour in Europe with Guns ’n’ Roses," Bach tells Clattenburg between takes. "He needs you to send him some copies. When he gets into something, he just goes for it."

Of his fame, I had no clue. The girls cast as the "rock chicks" knew. At least the way they were looking at him during and between takes makes more sense now....

So I'm hanging back as usual. The treats for me are to see Mike again after almost 20 years (my god.... ) and to be there with my son. Mike is the guy to say hi first and we shake hands and both of us ignore the fact that so much time has past. I don't mention the old days and neither does he. I remember him walking through the halls of Channel 10 Halifax with texts on film-making. Seems he taught himself well.

And he's having a great time on set. After doing this for years, Mike's relaxed and unstressed, taking people through the shots easily and efficiently, sitting back at the monitor and laughing delightedly as the scene plays out in front of him. He's like a kid. I'm so pleased for his success and I'm there envying him greatly, enormously, that he gets such a kick out of his work.

Some of the dialogue in the scene is made up on the spot. A scene is done and the actors ad-lib are sprinkled in, adding to the script that's written. They do another take and they build on the ad-libs from the previous take. Then they do another. And another. Building, crafting, embellishing the scene. Mike makes a suggestion. Sebastian Bach makes a suggestion. "Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Mike says every time and laughs.

Lunch comes at 3pm. We're all to head off to The Park in our own cars where they'll serve us. The park? I don't know what's the park. I pick a car to follow and I lose them, ending up following the wrong beige van into a Shopper's Drug Mart parking lot.

Uh-oh.

I head back to the set at full speed, hoping to find someone else who hasn't left yet. Turns out there's someone I recognize driving out as I'm driving in. It's Mike Smith. Bubbles. He's driving Sebastian. I hang a quick U-turn and head off in hot pursuit. There they are, three cars ahead. A car turns off. Another. We're on the four lane artery and I close behind them. They're driving fast. It's hard to keep up. They go through a light and I'm hard pressed to keep with them, barely making the yellow. We're heading deeper into Anystreet U.S.A. as my wife likes to call it. Car dealerships, cineplexes, fast food joints. A left. Another left. A right. The park? I'm thinking. What the heck is the park?

It occurs to me that I'll be very embarrassed if Bubbles is going home and I pull up behind him in his own driveway.

It occurs to me that he might realize he's being followed.

He pulls into a parking lot and I pull up beside him. He looks at me as he gets out of the car. A bit suspiciously I think. On the other side, Sebastian Bach is getting out. I say something to Bubbles (although without the glasses and the chin, he's untransformed and just "Smith"). He doesn't recognize me from the set straight off. I tell him we were following him for lunch trying to get to "the park" and the penny drops.

"Oh!" he says. "I'm just having lunch at Harveys."

Whoops.

Helpfully, he gives me directions to the exterior location for the Sunnyvale Trailer Park. Or just, "The Park".

My son and I show up about 20 minutes after everyone else and I go in and get a chicken stir fry. My son, six, doesn't go in for that at all and ends up having bread and honey. Had we followed the rest of the extras, we would have had pizza.

But, and here's the thing, after being on set for an hour or so, my son was no longer technically an extra.

Flashback.

We've shot some inserts, establishing shots, people gaggling around looking at train sets. The camera moves around combing pictures of us looking at the different models circling tracks through miniature stations, tunnels and villlages. After this, the cast and crew set up for the main shot where Sebastian comes in (playing himself) and addressing the crowd. The rock chicks are up at the front making eyes at him. There are about two dozen others gathered around the stage to listen. People are strategically moved. Posters are hung and then re-hung to better advantage. My son and I start out near the middle, are moved to the side and then nearer the back. We're set to go and we roll. We're standing for the next take and Mike comes up and asks my boy if he can say a line at a certain point in the dialogue. The line is, "The Swayze Train!" My son does the line for him and Mike laughs. We do a few takes like this and my son hits his cue every time. Mike comes back and asks him to say, "The Swayze train. BAM!" and point his fingers like he's a gangsta rapper. My son complies to the delight of all present.

I'm completely upstaged.

The casting agent goes back to the office to draw up contracts for my son who is now an Actor and could now get into the Union should he so choose.

Six years old.

I'm on set with him reflecting that in this very blog I had written somewhere about extras who would come on set and hope to get a line and how this NEVER happens.

It happened for my little boy. First shot out of the box and he's a star. But because he got a line and was elevated to "Actor", we only got to work the one day (it would have cost a lot to bring him back for the 2nd day as an Actor where he wasn't going to say anything). But it was a good day. A very good day.

I keep asking him if he'd like to do more of this kind of work. Free juice, cookies, snacks, lunch and pretty girls. So far he remains non-commital.

When the cheque comes for the shoot, his is going to be for a lot more than mine. I may be forced to change careers and become his manager.

"The Dead Do Not Earn Residuals."

2006-05-25T14:19:00.004-03:00

I got a letter from ACTRA yesterday and a cheque. The amount on the cheque was for $39.89. The letter explained this was a payout based on revenues received by Alliance Atlantis for Season 4 of The Lexx. I'm figuring this was my share of the DVD sales that included the show where the carrot went up my bum.

As a coworker pointed out to me today, some people would be happy to do it for free.

Out Searching for the Real Killers

2006-05-01T08:59:00.001-03:00

A funny thing happened on the golf course yesterday: I got recognized.

My improperly wired brain would lead you to create the mistaken impression that I have a following. While there continues to be zero comments on this here blog site...

("Comments? Maybe you should make some posts every once and a while, never mind comments!")

... while there continues to be no comments on this here blog site, I did get a guestbook signing on my family home page with a note suggesting there was someone (a wonderfully singular pronoun) who was looking forward to reading more about of my limited acting and movie-making exploits.

She's from Germany, he said proudly.

Last year's income tax return is another reminder of just how little of that that's going on.

The guy on the golf course (whose name was Darryl) is a lighting technician as well as a very good golfer. He recognized me ... umm, remembered would be a better word ... he remembered me from the Liography show we both worked on. For some reason, I felt vaguely embarrassed and uncomfortable that he recognized me. I mused over that later. Here was a guy who works in the industry for real, and I a mere pretender. Maybe it also had something to do with my perception of the pecking order. The Crew rules. See previous posts and the title of this blog.

Darryl and I chatted a bit about "the biz". Mostly we played golf and talked about golf and had a great, sunny Sunday afternoon on the course. Industry tidbits were sprinkled through our conversation. Darryl's having a very busy year this year and it follows last year's busy year, confirmation of what I heard from ACTRA when I went to renew my dues. The film intustry is booming in my province.

Yet here's me with no acting income to report. And no blog entries. And auditions only rarely.

Availability continues to be the biggest issue. You should know that the other blog I write concerns the third person in our golfing party of three: my boy. My son. My beau petit fils. There's a hint.

It's a fair trade.

As he gets older, my boy, there's a subtle shift in circumstance which brings a premonition I'm unable to justify beyond an offering of hope. Things are changing just enough that I feel on the verge of being more able to get back into the game.

Stay tuned.

Domestic Disturbances

2006-02-23T14:40:00.002-04:00

More money for nothin'.

Originally, I was going to title this post "Hugh 2" since it's a follow-up to What Hugh Grant and I Have In Common.

To get you caught up, once upon a time I made a series of commercials for Champlain Place Mall and Crystal Palace in Moncton. They aired originally back in 2003. I remember the date since the only time I saw any of these commercials on TV was the one I saw when I visited Moncton in the Summer of 2003.

I had a really bad back. It's better now, thanks for asking.

I also have this home-grown video project that was years in the making, a one-hour and 20 minute opus called "Way Back in Aught-Three". One of the chapters related to the Moncton trip. So that's how I remember the year. The Hugh Grant post on this blog site was about a cheque that showed up in the mail about a year later. Turns out it was because ACTRA noticed Cenex re-aired one of the Crystal Palace commercials after the contract had expired. It's wildly hilarious, that blog post. You should go back and read it again.

Okay, I fibbed about the hilarious part. I just wanted to see if you'd go back again. Look. The link is right there! I put it in TWICE! It's gonna kill you to take a look?

Well, if you did go back and read it, see that part about me hoping they'd show the Christmas commercial too? Well, they didn't. And the link to watch the commercial doesn't work either, I know. You think you're disappointed. Cenex updated their site and the not-so-famous clips of ME were removed. Rats. It's all I had to show off with. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Two months ago, I'm in the cafeteria with my cubicle brethren (and sistren) when G. tells me he saw the Christmas commercial while the Grey Cup was playing. The Christmas one is special because it's the only bit I've ever done where it was just me. Special or especially horrid. Take your pick. So there's G. watching TV at home and suddenly there's my face filling the TV screen.

"Hey!" he exclaims. "I work with that guy!"

"Fuck off," says his wife.

"No really! I work with him!"

"No you don't," she says. And then, twisting the knife, "Why do you do that?"

G. is telling me this with an appropriate mix of mirth and outrage. I laugh and at the same time feel bad because somehow I'm at fault for this fight between him and his wife. I didn't mean it! Honest!

About a thousand miles away, there's a former employee of mine, S., all by herself in her Ottawa home, watching Oprah that's been taped from the satellite. She's fast-forwarding through the commercials where she notices my accelerated image dominating the picture. She bursts out laughing and rewinds to watch the commercial, yelling my name. The room is empty. She's mad as hell 'cause there's no one to tell. She should have called G., I guess.

It's a powerful thing to be on TV and be able on a widespread geographical scale to create discontent like this, let me tell you. A powerful thing.

So anyway, there's a cheque in the mail. A bit under one large. In anticipation of it finally finding its way to me, I bought a new shirt to wear into the office. I have it on now. It's a nice, royal blue.

I bought it at Winners, big spender that I am.

It's my G & S shirt.

Extra Bacon

2005-11-17T10:28:00.001-04:00

While holding at Cougar Helicopters the other night, I was reminded of this game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". Have you heard of it? Click the link and read what Mr. Bacon himself has to say about it.

Now that you've gone through the mess of following the link and reading the article (you have, haven't you?) I'll tell you (again) what it's all about, Alfie.

The theory goes you can connect Kevin Bacon with any other actor using at most six steps. I shall describe this process more clearly in a mere moment since it dawned on me one day that I, an actor who if you described me as an actor of no note at all would be overstating my noteworthiness as an actor, I can be connected to Kevin Bacon in six degrees.

And I only need five. I'm figuring the good people at UVA didn't count me when
they made this chart. Feel free to e-mail them.

Here goes.

Me to Jamie Bradley (a local actor; we worked on the same episode of Black Harbour)

Jamie Bradley to Malcom McDowell (The Lexx, 1.4 "Giga Shadow")

Malcom McDowell to William Shatner ("Star Trek: Generations")

William Shatner to Eric McCormack ( "Free Enterprise")

Eric McCormack to Kevin Bacon ("Will & Grace")

Ta-da!

A tid-bit to entertain you just in case it's another year and a half before I get my next acting bit.

Holding Pattern

2005-11-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

Perhaps by design, you never feel smart on a film set. You find yourself asking the most rudimentary of questions. Like, "Is this where I'm supposed to be?" There’s no way to ask this question and appear smart. But we try. I remark to myself that background people adopt this kind of - authoritative tone when they speak. Not bossy, more like, I-know-what-I'm-talking about. As if compensating for some inferiority complex, go figure. I'm probably guilty of it myself. I reflect on this as I park in the crew parking lot and start to look around for someone in a headset who can tell me where I’m supposed to go.

But here I am. Crane shot flying in, circling down from above, finds MAN in parking lot. Viewer asks self, “How did he get here?”

Well, I’ll tell ya.

I got a call late the night before I started writing this, asking what my work schedule was like for the next day. Good enough, as you can no doubt tell only this far into the post.

They're shooting a movie about the FLQ in our little city. This ain't going to be that movie, but I mention it because I auditioned for a speaking part in the FLQ one just a few days ago. At the time, thoughts of this blog flitted through my head.

Here's how all these universes are connected:

The Trudeau movie prequel finally aired two weeks ago. In the wake of that, a couple of co-workers excitedly asked the "Was that you?!?" question. I had two, count 'em TWO, lines in that two-part mini-series (and when they aired, I missed them – my wife called from another province, “Did you SEE it?!?!?” “See what?” I asked and then flicked on the TV, but waaaaay too late.) I filmed these historic lines a year and a half ago. Ever since then... nothing. As by now you should have noticed, Gentle Reader, from the gap between posts.

I left my FLQ audition feeling hopeful, which I'll remind you in this business is a no-no. I got to thinking that if I got consecutive speaking roles, I'd be disrupting the whole theme of this journal, dammit, it being designed to focus on the lowly caste (pardon the pun) of Extras and here I was getting consecutive Actor roles.

But when the call came last night for this, I figured...

Oops. I must interrupt myself. Sorry. Someone just told me we're all in the wrong room. Ha. Our room, apparently, is somewhere else, and so a traveling we will go. Over there.

Quick as that, I’m back. My paperwork is all done. I’m signed in. At the moment I'm actually getting my hair trimmed. For what, I’ll tell in a sec. Just let me get back to what I was telling before we moved.

So anyway, I figured when the phone call came last night I needn't fret anymore about suddenly becoming an Actor and having no more opportunities to post as a Background Performer since the work I was being called to do was obviously for background, ergo, I didn't get the role for which I auditioned.

But wait! Come to find this is a different production called "A Christmas Wedding". So perhaps there's still hope for an Actor part role in the FLQ series.

(Okay, no there isn't. Rule number one about Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. And rule number one about auditioning is you walk away and expect nothing. The numbers are always against you. Got it? Got it.)

The first room today smelled of pool. It was a large size banquet room that doubled as cast and crew lunchroom situated in the bottom floor of the airport hotel. The pool was across the hall. But we moved to be closer to set and now we’re in a somewhat cramped office space adjoining one of the non-descript hangers that border the airfield. I keep having to move my legs as people try to manoeuvre around the space. At some point I realize this is office and hangar space for Cougar Helicopters, the company that provided the helicopter for one of the early shots introducing the research ship in the movie "Titanic". This room is one degree of separation from the Oscar for Best Picture. I realize that sitting in this extras holding area in this helicopter hangar might be the closest I'll ever get to the Academy Award.

Now stay with me: somewhere in the middle of the last paragraph I went away to Wardrobe, stripped to my briefs and came back in costume. In the scene we're doing I'm a pilot. I'm currently outfitted in a blue blazer with four gold stripes on the sleeve and a set of gold wings pinned to the breast.

I got a look at the cast list after I put my clothes back on. There wasn't anyone whose name I recognized aside from one local guy. Seems this blog entry is destined not to be about “who”, but rather “how long”. Notwithstanding, somebody mentioned that one of the stars is from “The O.C.” only I wouldn’t know an “O.C.” cast member if I fell over one. That's not aspersion, just a fact.

Here’s another annoying break in the narrative to let you know that the low-battery message on my iPAQ caused a forced cessation of creation while I finished my day on set. It’s now the next day and I’m concluding this post from my computer. There’s not much to sum up from last night that can’t be summarized by me telling you that my eyes feel like two piss-holes in the snow.

To explain, a timeline:

Call time 3:30pm - arrived at Base Camp about 15 minutes
early.

3:20 pm Arrived at Lunch room, hotel airport

3:30 pm Moved to relocated Extras Holding

4:00 pm Wardrobe.

4 - 6:30 pm - Holding

6:30 - 7:00 - Lunch

7:00 pm - 12:30 am - Holding

12:30 am - Recostumed from "pilot" to "passenger"

1:00 am - Travelled to set. Rehearsal. I get headphones to pretend to listen to music in the airplane's business class. My seat mate is to pretend to read a magazine and she's handed the current issue of Cosmo opened only incidentally to where there's a sample pack of KY Jelly which is at the same time both intriguing and irrelevant.

1:30 am - Cameras roll

1:45 am - Scene and extras wrapped - returned to Extras Holding

2:00 am - Signed out. All in a day's work.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of holding.

You should know that I point it out not to be judgemental of the process but just because it's the way things go. Remember the first episode of the Lexx? We showed up at seven in the morning and never got to camera until nine-thirty that night.

There's a lot of hurry-up-and-wait in this business, you'd think it was the Army.

And I'm not just adding this caveat because I'm sucking up to whatever production people might be peeking in ... since I mentioned this website Chris, one of the A.D.s and Chris a very nice guy and all who wrote the address down on the back of his hand which got me to wondering what the heck have I might have said on this site now that my cover is blown....

Oh well.

What the heck was I talking about?

Oh yeah.

Timelines.

Those of us in the union were a bit surprised we weren't wrapped at 12:30, that being the magical eight working-hours from our call time (you don't count the hour for lunch) after which 8 hours we turn into "pumpkins" (first time I've heard it put this way). This is when union rules kick in to up your hourly rate for overtime. So when the cheque comes it will be richer.

And I'm never going to have anything bad to say about getting more money.

In the short term, I'm kind of stumbling through the day, rather sleep deprived (does it show?), having driven a fellow cast member home (she ain't no fellow, I remind myself) and finally getting to bed at 3:30 a.m. This morning I'm up at 6:00 because I'm getting a CT scan on my schnozz and surrounding area. In my fuzzy head I wonder if I'm going to kill anyone on the way to the hospital, not the least of whom might be myself - I'm so deep into zombie-land after 2 hours sleep but here I am, about to go out and operate the heavy machinery that is my Acura.

My son gets up and before I go I make a point to tell him I love him.

I do the CT scan, and come into work. I tell a co-worker I was up late and then answer why. She say, "Cool!"

No, it ain't cool. It just seems that way when the scene shows on TV.

And that's Hollywood, baby.

A Seinfeld Post About Nothing

2004-10-16T10:58:00.000-03:00

"If it weren't for bad luck," the saying goes, "I'd have none at all."

It's been very quiet on the acting front lately. So quiet that I've resorted to posting about auditions (witness my last post). Make that "audition" since it's the only one I've had in months. Well, it's time to take it up a notch and post about an audition that... well, you'll see.

Work at my "real life" job has been busy and eventful. I do continuous improvement work and lately there's been a bunch of money that's come down for CI. So my left-brain part has been quite occupied with writing up contracts and coordinating training and acquiring materials from our private sector partner. I get to go up to Toronto next week for one of their events: a quality awards gala. It's even more significant because for the first time one of our units will be getting an award. I go up on Monday afternoon next week. Tuesday is the big day and the gala dinner in the evening and I fly home on Wednesday afternoon.

There's also a strike going on at work so on Thursday I was out on the virual picket line. Back at work on Friday, there was voice mail from one of the local casting agents telling me that she was looking to arrange an audition for me with the director who's in town to do the new Tom Selleck movie.

The audition's on Tuesday. When I'm in Toronto.

So this ends up being a post about no audition.

Bollocks.

Displacement Issues

2004-08-26T08:22:00.000-03:00

I don't usually give auditions a second thought. I think I've talked about this somewhere else in this narrative. When you start, you tell all your friends you have an audition and it sounds cool. You keep doing this until you realize that this hobby of yours is based mostly on rejection and you end up having to tell your friends over and over again, no I didn't get that one either.

They're about to shoot a tourism commercial for my neck of the woods, and they were auditioning golfers. Well, this would be a dream job. Have someone pay me to hit a golf ball. I'm a golfing addict. Just spent a whole bunch of money on eBay lately to get new clubs, new shirts and other, miscellaneous golfing paraphernalia.

I show up for the audition looking very natty in my black pants and new, red Greg Norman shirt. I'm asked to talk on camera for a bit about golfing and the guy asks me to show off my swing. This I did, despite the fact that there wasn't a golf club anywhere to be seen.

So about a week passes and the audition is done and pretty much forgotten about when my new agent calls and tells me I have a call-back. "You must have impressed them," she says. Based on this short supply of information, I figure I must pretty much have the job and the ad company wants to show me off to the clients to get final approval.

But when I show up at a local hotel for the call-back, there are more people there than there were for the original audition! Granted, not all of them were there as golfers. I'm paired up with another guy who's there in shorts and carrying his driver. Eventually we're asked into the room and the other guy starts chirping about how he had - just this morning! - shot the best round of his life, an 81 at Indian Lake (only a par 59, you should know, which makes that 81 look not quite so good ... meow). So the guy's going on about his game and the director goes on about the guy's shorts ... those are the kind he's been talking about and the two chit-chat about his shorts, and then his driver and then about the director's driver and okay thanks for coming.

I'm standing there, feeling a bit confused, until the director finally addresses me and says, you too, thanks for coming.

I leave wondering what the hell that was all about, a bit miffed about how it all went, how it seemed like a waste of time since anything they had got from me (which was nothing ... except for a nicer blue and black shirt) they could have got from the original tape.

I fretted and walked away feeling like the Invisible Man, which for the audition process, ain't good.

What Hugh Grant And I Have In Common

2004-08-06T09:08:00.000-03:00

Not a lot actually.

But there was this movie he made called About A Boy where he played a character who can sit around the house all day, a really nice house, an expensive house, lives large with no job ... all because his father wrote this very famous Christmas song for which he (Hugh) gets piles of dough because the residual cheques keep pouring in.

(You can read this next part in your Forrest Gump voice. It'll sound funnier)

Well, my commercial for Champlain Place Mall got picked up. Again. And I got two more cheques in my mailbox. Again.

I'm hoping .. almost expecting now ... that my Christmas commercial gets picked up too.

Oh yeah, and I have a new agent. It's nothing I did, the reins have again been passed.

Christmas Comes Twice in July

2004-07-07T09:44:00.000-03:00

The cardinal rule of background performance is this: “Remember that you are nothing!” Running a close second is that you only get one, count 'em, ONE! role in any picture. It’s to maintain suspension of disbelief, you see. That's a fancy way of saying that the producers don’t want you, the viewer, to be a smarty-pants and point out the goof-ups. Hey, look! One of the dead guys from the beginning of the picture shows up later in a bar scene, just over the actor’s left shoulder. Look! There he is! Wait. I’ll rewind it.

Viewers are a bunch of smarty-pantses. I know 'cos I am one. Just ask me about my favourite goof-up from "The Untouchables". Sean Connery's magically opening and closing collar button.

We're like hawks, us smarty-pantses.

So anyway, I got called to do Finding John Christmas, a movie filmed here for CBS last July. I showed up early in the morning to play a fireman. I have to say that the nicest thing about showing up early in the morning for a film shoot is the free breakfast. The “Breakfast Burrito” is pretty much a staple on the early morning film set, bacon and eggs and cheese and salsa in a tortilla; it is especially yummy. I got dressed in my station house firefighter duds and went out to get me one.

Outside there’s a guy there standing next to the catering truck and he's giving me a piercing look. I look back at him. There's a moment or so before he relaxes and tells me okay, go ahead. Seems that he wanted to make sure I was really part of the day’s shoot.

Here's where I need to provide a little back-story.

There are signs that tell you when a movie shoot has come to town. Literally, signs. Yellow signs with hand-drawn black lettering. They pop up along the highways and by-ways, marked with a strange kind of code. Sometimes pictograms, sometimes initials or partial words. If you can break the code, you figure out the title of the movie. The reason for all the signs is to help the team of drivers who have been hired for the movie. The signs go from "base camp" and other pick up points (hotels for the stars) and lead to wherever the day's shoot happens to be. Need to get to the set? Just follow the yellow signs.

Well, when your city starts to be a hotbed for movie shoots (as has become our little neck of the woods), the locals start to figure this out, this thing with the yellow signs. The craftier ones (pun intended for all you film savvy folk) further realize that every day’s shoot generally requires a fresh crop of extras. Unfamiliar faces show up for work almost every day, anonymous "extras" that really aren't worth anyone's attention. Who deigns to talk to mere extras? Ignore them, please. They just aren't worth your time.

Hey and wouldn't you know, at every one of these movie sets, at a certain number of times a day, food is served. Food, glorious food.

So, putting it all together: Follow the signs, pretend to be an extra, be ignored, get a free lunch. Giddeeyup!

The guy next to the catering van told me all this. Slyness on this magnitude never would have occured to me in a million years. I marvelled at the ingenuity of others for a few moments and then chowed down on my burrito, legitimately earned. Yum.

The morning went by at a leisurely pace and I finally got to do my scene in the fire station with Valerie Bertinelli.

That is to say, she was there and I was there.

If I implied that there was any interaction between us, that was purely accidental, to be sure. Even though there she was at one point sitting quietly and by herself in her director's chair, me only a few paces behind her with perhaps the chance to go chat her up.

But what do you say? I mean, really? Hey. Having a good time? Liking our town? Wassup with you and Eddie, anyway? All good ways maybe to get your butt kicked off the set. So you stand there, silent, professional and most of all employed.

I've bumped into several movie stars and with the exception of James Rebhorn who I almost accidentally killed in the bathroom (that creates an instant sense of fraternity, I guess) I've never chatted any of them up. It simply comes down to the fact that there's ... really ... just ... nothing to say.

(And I'm severely socially handicapped I guess, the subject for a different kind of blog. Help me, please help me!)

She is a sparkplug, by the way, that Valerie. Not very tall, not physically imposing, cute but not beautiful. But boy, when she speaks, she becomes the center of the universe. She's got that little girl voice that, pardoxically, explodes into the room.

She is made entirely of pleasant energy. I found her remarkable.

For the scene, I was just there to mill about in the background. The 3rd A.D. had us going to and fro, poking through the coats and boots and helmets that were there on a rack. On behalf of the entire group of extras, I decided that we were looking for the cat (an actor must have his motivation, after all). It cracked us up, somehow - gave us our own energy. We were rooting through pockets, checking out the big rubber boots, looking for the firehouse cat. "What cat?" someone asked and we giggled.

A few weeks later I got a call to do John Christmas.

Well ... hang on. I've done that one already. Rule number two, and all that. But the casting agent was desperate. It had been a long shoot and she'd pretty much run out of people. She asked me which scene I'd been in and I told her. Given the types of shots I was in, she figured it would be safe to use me in a second scene. Given that they were looking to pay me more money, I figured I'd do it.

For the second go round, I played a doctor.

It was hot that day. I parked near to some construction on a dusty road and schlepped past all the trailers for the stars with about forty pounds of clothes over my shoulder – you bring lots of options for the wardrobe people. I get myself to Extras Holding and they gave me scrubs to wear (too small and tight enough to show my religion) and even provided me with sneakers and white socks. I got to keep the socks. The perks!

There was snow in front of the building. In the middle of July. On the hottest day. There it was. With a front-end loader there specificly to cart in more ice and keep it fresh.

We makers of magic.

Speaking of magic makers, the executive producer for the shoot was Daniel H. Blatt. During my part of the shoot, a short, almost timid looking man showed up and kind of limped around behind set. He looked at me almost tentatively and I said "Hi". I'm a friendly guy, after all (socially retarded, but friendly). He nodded back. I didn't know who he was, but in spite of his less-than-imposing presence, I kind of got the sense that he was "somebody". After supper was over that night, the last night of shooting, the executive producer made a little speech. It was the man from behind the set, Mr. Blatt. He thanked cast and crew for their work on what had been a long shoot, especially Ms. Bertinelli who was present and appreciative. Following the thank-you speeches, everyone from the film’s cast and crew received a gift. This is customary. Hats, shirts, sometimes jackets, stuff like that - a customized memento as a thank-you from the producers to cast and crew. Since I was there as a background performer, well … I’m not part of the cast and crew, so, no gift for me (not counting the socks). But I thought myself fortunate to have been there for that day, because I got to share in the vibe, that feeling of the moment.

The gift consisted of a box, a perfect cube, about 4x4x4, wrapped in white paper and tied with a coloured ribbon. Unwrap the paper and what you found was a a mini-, aluminum case (imagine the picture in the link only silver and square). Inside the case was a watch. On the face of the watch were the exec producer’s initials. The crew was genuinely impressed and appreciative. This was a group of folks I recognized from many other shoots; I heard many of them saying it was the nicest gift they’d received on a shoot.

Christmas in July.

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Still To Come
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Hey! I'm all caught up! Stay tuned for the further adventures of!!!

Break on Through To The Other Side

2004-06-15T10:20:00.000-03:00

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted. There’s the Valerie Bertenelli story I’ve been holding onto. There hasn’t been much going on in the area since before last Christmas, and maybe I’ve been holding onto that story in reserve so I won’t feel like there’s nothing left….

I had a horrible bout with back trouble in April and May. I only bring this up because, even though I was off work, I dragged my sorry butt and sore back into two different auditions. One was for a movie called The River Man and the other was for the prequel to last year’s CBC mini-series “Trudeau”.

Weeks pass. My back got better. My sinus infection cleared. A flu bug came and went. I somehow escaped being shot behind the barn, that's how rough of shape I was in. And I got my haircut, a clear signal I’d given up on anything coming from the auditions.

The casting agent called me with an offer for to play on Trudeau: The Early Years”. It was only one line. Maybe two. But it was an Actor part. Was I interested? Both interested and available I informed her.

I took my son to the wardrobe fitting. I picked him up from the babysitter and tried my best to explain to him why Daddy needed to go downtown and what a movie set was. He asked me in a puzzled kind of voice, “Daddy… are you going to be a movie star?” Very sweet of him, but I assured him I was not. We got to set and the wardrobe truck, which was actually parked inside. My son thought it was very cool, a big truck like that parked indoors. He was a hit too (naturally) and different members of the crew treated him to muffins, apple juice and Smarties.

Not surprisingly, he wanted to come back on the day. I wish I could have brought him.

So I show up on another lovely sunny and warm day in our area. I park my car and check in. I’m shown to my trailer.

My trailer.

I got a trailer. Make that "My Trailer".

Never mind it's a shared Trailer. A long, sectional thing that's divided into about four 6x6 rooms. Some people actually call it a kennel. There’s a production assistant who’s very pleasant and polite and always asking me if I want something to drink. Sometimes I say yes. Mostly I hang out in My Trailer, reading my book, killing some time. At some point I’m (interupted) invited to Hair & Makeup where I go get a haircut and my face done. The makeup lady is the same woman who was on my first real shoot for Atlantic Lotto. We’ve run into each other a number of times since. She’s always very nice. She clips my nose hairs and then it’s back to the trailer. In an hour the P.A. comes back to tell me that we’re broke for lunch. Whoo! It's been hard work so far, good thing there's the lunch break. I put down my book and have a lovely meal of pork with mushroom and bacon sauce, rice pilaf and “Colonel Corn with the candlestick in the library”. For desert there is a cheesecake cookie with chocolate and pecan pieces. Yum, and yum.

Afterward, it’s back to My Trailer. Read a bit more, lie back for a while, sit on the doorstep of My Trailer and enjoy the sunshine beating down upon me.

We’re a long way from Extras Holding, baby.

Slowly we start getting geared up to do the scene. I get my suit, a Gucci tie. It takes a couple of tries to get the right white shirt. My pants (which will never be seen on camera) need a bit of pressing, but we can do that later. So, to the set we go, chauffeured in a transport van. We do a blocking for the scene and we’re cleared so that the crew can set up the camera and lights. Back to My Trailer, now in my shorts and black socks with Oxford shoes while my pants go to Wardrobe and get a proper crease in them. Me on the stoop in shorts, black socks and Oxfords. It’s a good look, I say.

In a while, we’re back at the set, doing the scene for real. There are other folks there as Extras, all dressed in suits and ties. All of us supposed to be bureaucrats, but I’m the one with the line. Somehow it makes all the difference in the world, that line. When we finish a scene, we’re cleared from the set; the A.D. makes a point of saying “Clear for background and Ken” (that’s me). When we finish up for the day, they wrap “background and Ken”, then the 1st A.D. plucks at my sleeve and asks me to wait for a sec. Sure, I tell him. Anything you want. He calls into the room, “That’s a camera wrap for Ken everybody!” The crew applauds as a send-off. It’s a very nice moment, the first time for me. Some Extra asks me where I’m going next.

Home, I tell him.

Where’s that? he asks, and I know he's figuring I’m going to tell him I’m from Toronto. Because I had a line, see.

Home to Bedford, I tell him to his great surprise. I want to tell him, mostly I'm just like you. An Extra. But I don't.

It was a very nice day, getting to work a couple of levels higher in this fabulous show business caste system.

I’m sure my future postings from the world of the background performer will only be more acerbic as a result.

:)

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Still to Come

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Christmas with Valerie Bertenelli (I promise)
More stuff I haven't done yet but hope to.

The Old "Hide the Alien Probe" Trick.

2003-12-22T11:00:00.004-04:00

On my third and last trip to the set of "Reversible Errors", I met up with Chase, an actor with whom I meet up frequently and a guy who invariably gets called to play a cop. Chase and I have played cops together a number of times - on Task Force: Caviar, on Phase IV, sundry and various others.

On Phase IV I was one of four cops who arrested Dean Cain. On the first take my “partner” and I hadn't thought to talk about who was who for the shot - and as a result, after we loaded Dean in the back seat of the police cruiser, we both went around to the passenger side. "I thought I gave the keys to you!" I ad-libbed and the crew laughed.

That was the day I arrested Superman.

Which has nothing to do with the story I'm telling here, I only just thought of it.

Anyway, Chase and I are hanging around the Reversible Errors set reminiscing fondly over the time he was humping my leg on The Lexx.

Let me explain.

Sometimes you get to an audition and you only find out what they want when you get there. This audition was one of those times. So the casting agent says to me, "You're in a grocery store in the produce section and a third eye grows in the middle of your forehead and this eye makes you want to kill, KILL, KILL!!!

Interesting. I think about this for a moment and what comes to mind is the Tweety and Sylvester episode ("Hyde and Go Tweet") where the cat is chasing the bird through a laboratory and Tweety hides (ha-ha) in a bottle of "Mr. Hyde" formula. With much jittering and contortion, Tweety is transformed into this monstrous thing and starts chasing Sylvester around the lab. So that's how I played the scene, with much Tweety-like jittering and contortion and maniacal blabbering.

And I won the part. Go figure.

It was for the role of "Produce Manager". And even though it was an "Actor" role, there were no lines. And even though there were no lines, I was still sent a script. It arrived the day before shooting. I read it and my face went white.

In the opening scene the produce manager is invaded by a carrot-shaped alien probe which enters his body through his rectum.

("Rectum? Damn near killed 'em.")

I thought … well I can’t remember what I thought. I remember sitting on the downstairs couch dumbfounded, wondering what my parents would think should they ever see this particular part. I made a spot decision: “Well ... this might be one I don't tell them about”.

I shot my second scene first. For my first day I had already been captured by government agents and was immobilized in this thing that looked like a hot water heater with head clamps. What the thing actually was … was a hollowed out hot water heater and head clamps. What it was supposed to be was this portable X-ray tube where the chief agent could see me and then gaze up to a monitor and see how the alien probe was playing havoc with my innards. Supposedly.

Tidbits from that first day of shooting on The Lexx:

The guy leading me around to see everyone was the rectal alien probe expert, Professor Shnoog. Professor Shnoog was played by British actor Clive Merrison. Many months afterward, I saw him playing a scene with Kristen Scott Thomas in a movie called Up at the Villa. This is my one degree of separation from Kristen Scott Thomas ... with whom I fell in love as Katherine Clifton in The English Patient which is my all-time favourite movie. As I’m writing this article, I had to search for the title “Up at the Villa” and wouldn’t you know it, I find that Clive Merrison was also in The English Patient! Who knew? Had I known all this at the time, I might have been much more conversant with Mr. Merrison. Hmmm. So maybe it’s good I didn’t know.
The head of the agency was this guy Prince, played by Nigel Bennett, who despite his long and growing list of film credits will always be known around my house as "It's not Oatmeal!" I got to do two scenes with him, one in his dark and evil office, and one in the Oval Office of the White House ... which was a very cool set. On that awful evening when I first received the script, my heart sank because it read so bad on the page. Whatever anyone else thinks about this episode in particular, I thought Nigel Bennett's performance greatly transcended the material (such as it was) and rescued the show. "It's going to be good after all!" I thought. (Well, let's not get carried away.)
I arrived at the green room for my first day on set and a production assistant welcomes me intoning, "Welcome to the world of soft porn". This did little to assuage my fear of the shoot and its related subject matter. When I noticed that Season Three episodes had started showing up on the satellite network, I found out what he meant. Young, nubile, naked bodies. Directly targeting the 18-24 male demographic. Alas, there was no nudity in my episode. (Rats.)
By the way, to this day I still haven't seen the episode. I was told that they played it on the movie screen at the Oxford cinema which was rented out for the year end cast party for The Lexx. Somehow, I never received an invitation. Sheila from Filmworks told me about this later during some subsequent audition. It was a terrible episode, she told me. But your part was good, she added.

I seemed to have wandered off track. What I started out doing was telling you how Chase and I got involved in some good old-fashioned leg-humping. So here it is, my second day of Lexx's "The Bad Carrot" shoot and we're on location in the brand new grocery store at the south end of the city. It's open for business and all the customers are milling about, doing their early morning marketing. We begin shooting the first scene of the episode. Two black SUVs pull up and ATF agents spill from every door. They burst into the store, weapons drawn and at the ready, and deploy directly to the Produce section. A bewildered store manager (me) wanders over. The agents surround a display of carrots and the lead agent (Chase) pokes through them, searching them, frisking them maybe, with the barrel of his 9mm Glock. Suddenly, one of the carrots flies up into the air and whizzes around, ultimately going up the pant leg of the hapless produce manager. Undaunted, the ATF agent tackles the manager and starts shoving his hand up the man's pant leg in attempt to apprehend the evil carrot. This is where Chase and I are flopping around on the floor, him humping my leg and his hand up my pants. All this while the shoppers (both extras who are in on it and real people who are not) look on in shock. We shoot the scene and shoot the scene. When the director is satisfied he's got the shots he wants, he asks for the actors to record "wild lines"; lines that are performed soley for the benefit of the microphone and audio crew just in case there's a need for them during post-production. I'm also asked to do my lines. As you may recall ... I have none. But while all the other shoppers shop and the little old ladies and gentlemen are perusing the grocery store for Metamucil and Campbell's tomato soup way over there in aisle seven, I stand under the microphone and scream blood-curdling screams at the top of my lungs as the capricious carrot supposedly makes its anal invasion. Chase and I are on the set of Reversible Errors laughing ourselves silly over the memory of it.

----------------- Still to Come -----------------

Christmas with Valerie Bertenelli
Stuff I haven't done yet but hope to.

3rd Reversible.

2003-11-02T22:47:00.001-04:00

The phone rang at 1:00 on Saturday afternoon. It was the casting agent (who's found my shirt and pants) asking me if I could go immediately to set as a stand-in. I was there fifteen minutes later. I rushed to the set and waited for about four hours before I was asked to help out with the blocking as part of the second team. It seems there were stand-ins after all, just not enough to cover for all of the principle actors (the first team) who were required in the scenes they were shooting.

(Tom Selleck wasn't one of them by the way. Neither was William H. Macy. James Rebhorn was there, but if he remembered my name this time around (Ha!!) he gave no sign.)

Much of my time was spent succumbing to the temptations of the craft table.

Near the end of the day, Jim was sitting with one leg crossed over the other and I could see that he had a piece of bright orange blocking tape stuck to the bottom of his shoe. I went over to him and yanked it off. The tape, I mean.

Says Jim: "Oh, thanks. That was there so I could always hit my mark.”

Says I: “And you never have to look down for it.”

We both yuck it up.

I guess you had to be there.

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Still to Come

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The old "Carrot Up the Bum" trick.
Christmas with Valerie Bertenelli
Stuff I haven't done yet but hope to.

Thank God For Cable

2003-10-30T07:40:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows anything about hockey knows that watching it on TV isn't as fun as it used to be. When I was growing up, I rooted for the Chicago Blackhawks and could list for you most of their line-up. And I could list for you most of the Montreal Canadiens, even though they were the dreaded enemy. I could list for you a lot of the players from a lot of the other teams.

Today, I wouldn't be able to name a single player from the Columbus Blue Jackets. Or the Minnesota Wild. Or even the Los Angeles Kings. Part of it is that there are so many players on so many teams. More, it's because all of these "extra" players aren't as good as Hull and Makita and Esposito and even Lafleur and Dryden and et cetera and et cetera. The talent pool is diluted and so it's not as much fun to watch.

But it's great if you are a hockey player.

So, thank God for cable.

Because I got to star once on a TV show. Me.

Way up on the cable dial, on the Comedy Network, was the show "Liography". Starring Leslie Nielsen. I auditioned a couple of times for a few different parts. My favorite was for a mafia lawyer. I never got any of those parts. The last audition, I had finished doing the stuff I'd prepared for two different roles when suddenly the director became very animated. He asked me if I wouldn't mind doing a cold read for another part.

In this business, remember, you never say no.

And from the cold read, I won the title role for "The Dale Throbbins Story". The show was a Tony Robbins parody, cleverly written by Ed MacDonald. I had a great two days, doing both the filming and shooting still photos in front of a green screen. And one of those photos....

But back to that in a moment.

The way they filmed the series was like this: First, the character scenes were filmed in their entirety for all of the years' shows. Next, over the course of two weeks, all of the host scenes were filmed for all of the episodes. The result of this was that like every other actor on that show, I can say that although I starred in a TV show with Leslie Nielsen, I never had the chance to meet him.

Months later as the series was set to debut, Leslie Nielsen was featured on the cover of TV Guide. On the table of contents page, there was a second picture of him holding up a book titled, "Wake Up Your Giant Self Inside You" by ... Dale Throbbins. The picture on the front cover was one we'd taken in front of the green screen. Although we'd never shared time on set, there we were through the magic of Hollywood, together in TV guide.

Years and years ago, I graduated military college and was made an officer in the Armed Forces. My commissioning scroll was signed by the Minister of National Defence, Eric Nielsen. For two years I've been trying to get a copy of that picture so that I could have it autographed by Leslie Nielsen and hang it next to the scroll that was signed by his brother. I keep calling the production company to get a copy of that photo and they keep saying "Yes" ... which by now you know means "Not a chance in hell."

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Still to Come

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3rd Trip to Reversible Errors
The old "Carrot Up the Bum" trick.

Christmas with Valerie Bertenelli

Stuff I haven't done yet but hope to.

Union Ward

2003-10-27T13:53:00.000-04:00

I'm back to talking about history.

The last show I did without a union card was the Made In Canada show where I shared that brief bon mot with Rick Mercer at the end of a long day. It convinced me (the long day, not Rick) to go after my union card. I had enough screen credits to qualify for an apprentice membership, so I got one. Having a union card is both empowering and limiting. It's empowering for all the obvious reasons. Better money, better representation, better craft table. It's limiting because those other jobs that used to come my way, non-union commercials produced by the local television station for example, were no longer available to me. So far I haven't noticed that I've been missing out on any work that I'd like to do. And it's very nice being on a union voucher every time you go out on a shoot (mo' money, mo' money, mo' money).

Case in point: My first job as a union apprentice.

The name of the show was "Catch a Falling Star", starring Sela Ward. I was called to play in the background as a "special effects guy". Note that I was not to be responsible for any special effects for the movie, I was just to play a special effects guy. Try to keep up, it can be confusing sometimes, I know.

So anyway, I have to dress the part and so went out to buy khaki shorts and olive green short-sleeve shirt - stuff with lots of pockets. Put this on, add wool socks and hiking boots, and voila. You look like you're part of a film crew. Except for the shirt, which I've since remarked is usually a t-shirt, and often black. But I was younger and less experienced in those by-gone halcyon days so I got the Jeff Probst type thing.

The wardrobe lady looked at me and said, "Perfect". Mission accomplished.

The director had me stand up on some scaffolding where there was a giant fan and a giant box full of potato flakes. The shot was set up to be a shot within a shot. We were filming a film crew filming a movie. The director in the scene, not the real director, but the actor playing the director was actually a TV chef and in the scene had to cajole and mildly berate the Sela Ward character, spoiled Hollywood brat that she was. The character. Not Sela. The director, the real director, was concerned a mere background actor (me) might not be able to accomplish the business of the shot - that was dumping the giant box of potato flakes into the fan so that it would create the illusion of falling snow (extras not having figured out the trick of gravity and the inclined plane? I don't know). Instead the real director got a real member of the crew to play a fake special effects guy and get up on the scaffolding. The director (real) told me to hold onto that pipe right there, look like you're helping to steady the scaffolding. So I'm holding the pipe. Maybe that's what on a film set is called a "grip". Ha-ha. I made a little funny, there.

We started shooting, we did a few takes. the snow (potato flakes) fell from the clear blue sky. The director (real) at one point asked for someone with a knife (a real "Cut!" .. ho-ho ha-ha, I can't stop myself this morning).

Someone approaches. "Here's a knife."

"That's not a knife," I say in my best Mick Dundee voice, which must have been pretty good, because it cracked up the director.

It was a good day on set, beautiful blue skies, warm and sunny. I ate in the lunch tent with one of the L.A. producers, blissfully unaware of who I was chatting up. I recommended a fantastic restaurant to her in the local area; I hope she had a chance to go. Sela wasn't with us for lunch. She'd left the set very suddenly when word reached the set that her toddler son had burned himself on something. The injury must have been minor since she returned later in the afternoon. I must say that in real life, Sela is both shorter and more beautiful than she looks on TV. Being a recently accredited professional and all (the union card, remember) I tried not to look at her too much.

At the end of the day, we happy few background performers lined up to be signed out by one of the production assistants. She asked who wants to be paid now and who wants to wait. Those who wanted to wait to get paid would be put on a voucher and their cheque mailed to them. Those who wanted to be paid now could get the cash in their hand and leave now. It sounded like a good deal to a couple of people who chose to be paid by cash.

I thought this was a pretty crappy deception, but I said nothing.

Shame on me, shame on me, shame on me.

There was one woman who discovered the ruse after the fact, after she already had her cash in her hand, that to be paid later meant to be put on a voucher which meant to be paid about three times what she ended up getting. Upset more over the deception than the money, she wept in frustration.

I stood next to her and felt small.

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Still to Come
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Eric Neilsen and his brother Leslie
The old "Carrot Up the Bum" trick.
Christmas with Valerie Bertenelli
Stuff I haven't done yet but hope to.

2 Reversible

2003-10-19T18:00:00.001-03:00

Day 2 on the set with Tom Selleck and the rest of the cast and crew of the movie "Reversible Errors". Coming soon to CBS.

It began with a member of the crew asking me if the flights got out of Vancouver last night, what with all the rain. Seems she had relatives on the flight.

I had to reply that I wasn't an airline employee, I just played one on TV.

On the second day I spend almost all of the time in Extra's Holding. My call time is 8:45 am and I go to set once around 1:00 pm or so for about five minutes, three takes of a brief scene and that's it. At 3:00 I'm wrapped; it's been 6 hours from the crew call and they're not ready to go to lunch yet. The union rule is that if you go past 6 hours with no lunch, you have to pay everyone a penalty. I know this and I'm looking at my watch as it creeps up toward three, fully expecting an A.D. to come in and tell me and the others we who came in at 0845 that we're wrapped. At 3:00 pm on the dot, someone comes in and tells us we're wrapped.

But before that....

I almost killed Jim Rebhorn as I was coming out of the washroom. It was one of those moments where two people have reached the door at the same time, completely unaware that there is someone moving toward them from the other side. In George Carlin speak, "You are now an accident waiting to happen!" We narrowly missed a serious collision and laughed nervously at each other. Then he makes a gun out of his thumb and forefinger and pointing it at me he says, "Ken. Right?"

I was both shocked and awed, agog that he remembered my name after a very brief and minor encounter on the first day (I'm an extra remember?).

"Yes," I replied, pointing my finger back at him. "James. Never done Star Trek."

"Yes," he says, laughs and goes to do his business.

I opened my mouth to say something else but instead turned and went back to my own little room. He was going to the bathroom after all.

-----------------
Still to Come
------------------

Eric Neilsen and his brother Leslie
Sela Ward and Valerie Bertenelli (although not at the same time)
Stuff as it comes to me.

Reversible Extra

2003-10-18T20:47:00.001-03:00

With the customary half-day notice, I arrived on the film set for the mini-series "Reversible Errors". The shoot takes place at the airport; I'm to play an airport manager. So here I am in my dark suit and, thanks to my wife (an airline employee), I'm sporting cufflinks and an old union pin from two now-defunct airlines. Although no one will ever see them, I'm a walking "homage".

At this precise moment, the wardrobe mistress commented on how perfect was my airline pin. I read her the last half paragraph.

By the way, we'll be working with Tom Selleck today. Tomorrow too. The show also stars William H. Macy, but the call sheet today doesn't list his name for either day.

Hey, it's free haircut day! The hair and make-up people will be giving me a tidy-up haircut and patching the hole that the errant razor made (a reversible error, y'might say...). Plus, there's a free breakfast burrito. And coffee. And juice, treats, lunch and supper. As I may have mentioned earlier, it can be very difficult staying thin on a film set.

The casting agent and the wardrobe staff are the same as from the Elizabeth Smart Story, so aside from meeting Tom Selleck today, I'm hoping to get my shirt and pants back. Oops, no such luck. It's a different wardrobe van after all.

"Tom's traveling," Luke, 3rd AD, announces.

It's the voice you hear first, that rich, rumbling, cowboy voice, announcing his approach and it's somehow more imposing than his 6'4" frame. The voice. He appears from around the corner, exiting the stairwell to the set, light, brown corduroy sports jacket, dark brown slacks the colour of his trademark moustache, and eyes that look tired somehow. He looks for his chair, and then his co-star for the scene we're about to do. He's "desperate to run lines." His words. In that voice. He retires to a corner to rehearse and here I am in mine, opposite, standing amid the lights, just out of frame, trying to keep out of the way. Ready for my cue to cross.

Tom enters the set and asks for someone to prompt lines for the first few rehearsals.

I'm to walk across the frame with one file folder, crossing outside the glass office where the main action takes place. Later in the dialogue, I cross back with a different file folder reading it, going back to the place I started from.

There's another actor here in the scene, Jim Rebhorn . The call sheet lists him as "James", he introduces himself as "Jim". He looks like an actor I've seen in Star Trek, and between takes, I ask him. He chuckles and tells me, no, he's never been in Star Trek. D'oh!

The scenes go quickly. Whatever the concerns might have been over dropped lines don't materialize into extra takes. A couple three runs through and we're moving on.

In between setting up shots, Tom runs lines, discusses the scene with the director and chats with some of the extras, memorizing their names.

Later, I'm in an office that's being repainted for a future scene. The painters are working just barely out of frame while we shoot. The office looks out on the runway, and during a pause, a blue and white helicopter flies in and makes a nifty landing in an area reserved for private planes.

"That's T.C. in his new ride," I say and the painter and I giggle quietly.

----------------
Still To Come
-----------------

Eric Neilsen and his brother Leslie
Sea Ward and Valerie Bertenelli (but not at the same time)
Even more news!!

Comrade Brother Union Member

2003-10-15T12:25:00.000-03:00

My wife says that the caste system of India has nothing on the actor's union.

My last non-union job was working on an early episode of Made in Canada. My agent had set it up somehow that I was to be a vouchered background performer for the day. The difference between being vouchered and non-vouchered is about $11 an hour.

The shoot was to be done entirely in the new Electropolis, a old power generating station that had recently been converted into studio sound stages. Inside, yellow signs directed cast and crew to the different locations. There was a green screen studio, primarily used to make The Lexx, vast, high-ceilinged areas for different and various sets, the green room with sofas, adjacent dressing rooms, make up and wardrobe areas and a downstairs craft table near the sets for the actors and crew to enjoy a wide range of beverages, treats, goodies, candy, sandwiches and other assorted yummy confections.

A different series of yellow signs pointed the way to a dingy room off and around the corner from the upstairs wardrobe department: Welcome to Extras Holding.

And your room is over here.

Contrary to the spread that was laid out for the actors at the craft table, extras holding offered bottled water and donuts. About 15 people regaled each other with past glories of this job and that photo shoot, reading books, offering advice to each other about "the biz".

The day lasted 14 hours, maybe longer.

We shot a number of different scenes. I got to be in two of them and ended up with some pretty good screen time. In the first scene, I played a reporter covering a press conference. The gag was that the "heroes" of the show had campaigned and forced out an executive co-worker, only to discover that he was Keifer Sutherland's brother-in-law. Restitution was made and the executive comes back... briefly. A press conference is held to announce a new Kiefer Sutherland project for Pyramid (the production company), only to have Kiefer Sutherland appear via tele-conference and announce he and his brother-in-law are leaving Pyramid to produce the new show on their own (the new show will be about a small town vampire and it will be called the Lost Bay Boys. HA!) Pyramid execs at the head table are shocked and appalled. Cut to me, a reporter, with an incredulous (and gruesomely goofy) look on my face. The execs try to make a hasty escape to the back door, but the brother-in-law (who had quietly left as the Kiefer Sutherland statement started) has locked them in. They turn to face the stampeding press.

And in one of the takes, I, as part of the stampede, accidentally stomped on Leah Pinsent's foot.

Later, we reset and did a restaurant scene where I did a splendid job of not coughing during a take where I had sipped badly on a drink and felt it choking me. My finest work to date.

At the end of the day, everybody was signed out by an AD. Those who were on a voucher had the papers filled out and would receive their money in a week or two in the mail. Those who weren't on a voucher were paid on the spot, although considerably less. Standing in line to be processed the girl in front of me was complaining that she was supposed to be on a voucher. The AD calmly informed her that she was out of vouchers (each production has a minimum amount of vouchered performers that they must engage according to union rules … in this case the minimum had been reached and so there were no more). The girl protested and debated and argued and cajoled to no avail. The amount of money involved was a difference of about $150 dollars for the day. Behind her, I was reflecting that my agent had assured me I was going to be on a voucher. In front of me, the girl complained about how her agent had assured her she was going to be on a voucher.

Hope dimmed.

I ended up getting $84 dollars for my full day's work. I told people afterward that it had been a great experience working on that set, and that I'd never do it again. Not as a non-vouchered background extra. I'd taken a day's vacation from work and $6 an hour didn't seem to me to be worth it. I resolved that I'd get a union card.

Leaving the set, I happened to run into Rick Mercer, the star and co-creator of the show. Summoning up my courage to actually speak to him, I commented on what a long day it had been and that after a single day on the set I felt pretty tired and worn out.

"And you have to do this every day." I said.

"Yeah," he replied with that sardonic look of his, "but there's no heavy-lifting."

----------------
Still To Come
-----------------

Leslie Neisen and His Brother Eric
Valerie Bertenilli, and Sela Ward (although not all at the same time).
Future Escapades

Why I Hate Harrison Ford.

2003-10-09T11:35:00.005-03:00

There are two important things to know up-front.

First of all, I don't think I look like him. Ask me to pick an actor I most resemble, I don't think Harrison Ford makes the list.

Second of all, okay, I don't really hate him. But maybe at the end of the story you'll understand why the mention of his name gets my blood pressure up.

Cast your minds back. It's a couple of years ago, a year and a half, maybe. A call comes out of the blue from my agent saying that Harrison Ford is coming to our fair town to do a movie. The local casting agent has called to say that she thinks I would be great as a stand-in for Harrison Ford during the shoot. This would be good work. A whole lot of days on a movie shoot making some pretty good money. PLUS, (added bonus) you'd be standing in for Harrison Ford whom you'd undoubtedly meet. Han Solo himself. The venerable Indiana Jones. Holy crow.

In case you don't know, a stand-in is a schmoe who stands around on the actor's mark while the set crew spends hours lighting, moving cameras and generally setting up the shot. Only when everything is good and ready do actors (sometimes called "the Real-ies") finally show up and ... ACTION! So the cool thing about being a stand-in is essentially they pay you for doing nothing but standing around and keeping your mouth shut. The other cool thing about being a stand-in is that you've crossed over, just barely, some mystical and barely perceived dividing line that separates cast and crew. You, the stand-in, are part of the crew. Not cast. Especially not the lowly herd of extras. The crew.

At the time, my wife was still working shifts, going to work around lunch time, coming back home late in the evenings. Our son was two-and-a-half years old and in daycare. The Harrison Ford shoot was going to last three or four weeks. It was going to be impossible to get all of that time covered, but I'd been able to arrange things with work and my wife and my mom so that I'd be free to do a whole week on the shoot, which, my agent tells me, will be starting on a Thursday, some weeks hence.

So the time, she passes, and suddenly it's some weeks later and I haven't heard anything else about the film shoot. It's a Wednesday, the day before the stand-in work was supposed to start, and I'm doing this office curling tournament; I've been away from my cubicle all morning. At the lunch break I check my messages and whoops! there's a call from my agent. If I still want to be Harrison Ford's stand-in, be at such-and-such a place at noon.

Noon, she said. And the time is now 1:30pm. AAAAUGGHHH!!!!!!!!

Still in my curling gear, I scramble to get to "base camp" which fortunately is only a couple blocks away. I arrive huffing and enter a horde, a mob, a throng of people. There are Russian soldiers and sailors, shipyard workers, officers, women in peasant clothes, about a hundred or so extras dressed in costume, sitting, standing and wandering about, all of them ready and waiting to be bussed down to the set. Some of them are speaking Russian, showing off. Like they're going to get a speaking roll or something.

I push my way through the Russian crowds until I find a PA (production assistant) and ask, gee, if I'm not too late, who do I see about the stand-in role? The lady says, nope, not too late. There have been delays. She points me to a room. Go there.

In the room are about 10 other guys hoping to be Harrison Ford's stand-in.

Well, wait a minute now, I thought this was my job by acclamation.

Apparently not. And there's me, in curling pants.

After waiting an hour or so, the busses finally arrive and extras and stand-in wannabes alike are "travelled" down to the set. The stand-ins mill together in an uncomfortable gaggle, the competition among us is intense and silent and barely observable.

In a while, an assistant director (AD) comes around, gives us all the once over and says, "You and you." Wouldn't you know it, one of the "you"s was me. Turns out I'm not to be Harrison Ford after all; I'm to be Liam Neeson. The AD beckons us onward and we're drawn deeper into the set. The Russian sub, K-19 itself, looms large above with its shiny metal bow. A technical consultant is running military drill moves with some background folk, teaching them to salute like proper Russian sailors. The director, Katheryn Bigelow, comes over briefly to give final approval. She asks if we have any experience. I say background and acting, but not as a stand-in. She regards me for a second and then nods consent. We'll start blocking in about 30 minutes, she says, then turns and heads off.

Well, wait a minute. We start today? Not tomorrow? As in TOMORROW: the day I have all the arrangements in place? As opposed to TODAY, where there's nothing? TODAY where my wife is already at work and my son already in daycare and there's no one to pick him up if it's not me? That TODAY?

Today, says the AD.

"I can't do it," I said. The AD looks at me. "I need a driver to take me back to base camp please," I said.

On the way out (outwardly calm but jets of red-hot steam shooting into the brain-side of my eardrums ... I can't begin to desribe how pissed I was) the radio crackles and somebody says, "Harrison Ford just arrived if anyone cares" and I sure didn't. Mere minutes later radio conversations start to buzz about a satellite dish that was supposed to be on Harrison Ford's trailer but wasn't. Minutes after that: "Can we get a time estimate on when that satellite dish is going to get here?"

It was a lonely ride back to base camp, me and the driver. Me thinking all the way, "Somebody only has to tell me the right date. That's all. Just tell me the right date."

Were it just this one incident, the residual anguish and exaggerated hurt feelings wouldn't be so bad. For you see, as with Peter and Jesus, I denied Mr. Ford three times.

A few weeks later the casting agent calls me late in the afternoon to tell me the regular stand-in was unavailable tomorrow and could I stand-in for Harrison Ford (these calls always come in at the last minute). I said, Sure!

So I went out that evening and commented (read: boasted) to all my friends that I was going to be Harrison Ford's stand-in. It was going to be great. "Can you get a picture? Can you get an autograph?" Ha ha, we'll see (meaning: No).

I get home and there's a phone message. It's the casting agent again. The regular stand-in is available afterall. I would not be required. Thanks anyway.

I am Joe's cautionary tale. Pride before the fall.

More pages blow from the calendar. The sun inches ever higher in the sky. The temperature warms. Curling season and golfing season overlap. It's a glorious, warm spring day and I'm standing on the golf course out by point where the ocean first meets the harbour. From where I stand, leaning on a golf club, waiting for my shot, I can look out past the mouth of the harbour and watch as they film the Russian submarine supposedly at sea, a Sikorsky helicopter buzzing overhead.

I think of what might have been.

Late at night comes the third call from the casting agent. Am I available tomorrow? I check the calendar. It's a day off for my wife, but I can see that she has written in an appointment for something. I'm not sure what the appointment is for. And since it's night and since it's late (theses calls always, always, always come late) and since my wife is in bed asleep, I go back to the casting agent and tell her, No, I'm sorry, I'm not available. I hang up the phone gently.

Alone in the darkened house, I think a very quiet thought to myself and that thought is, "Strike three".

Turns out my wife's appointment was for a leg-waxing.

----------------
Still To Come
----------------

Leslie Neisen and His Brother Eric
Valerie Bertenilli, Sela Ward and Rick Mercer (although not all at the same time).
Future Escapades

Unbeknownst to you ...

2003-10-02T09:03:00.001-03:00

There has been another entry written for this journal. Half written, anyway. Mostly written, we'll say. Where is it, you ask, or maybe you don't. Well, I'll tell you.

I was asked to do some background work on the movie "The Elizabeth Smart Movie" which will appear somewhere on TV screens this coming November. I was hoping for four days work up to the time the casting agent called to say there was a mix up in wardrobe and that all the police uniforms (I was to be a policeman) were for people of 5'10" stature only. At 6'2", I do not fit the bill.

So I came in as a detective.

My call time was for 8:00. I parked in the church parking lot. The church was next to the university that was doubling as police headquarters. The church also housed an interior set and in the basement was extras holding. I parked my car in the church parking lot, went inside, had my wardrobe selected from all the clothes I brought, and then I sat and I sat and I sat. I read my book, I wrote my part of my Harrison Ford entry (which I just discovered has gone to data heaven thanks to a dropped pocket PC… DRAT!!!!) Late in the day I went on set and did two quick scenes, both outside, both with me a long way from the camera. But that's okay; the more unrecognizable you are in a scene, the better chance you have of getting more scenes.

I was asked if I was okay to come in for the next day as well, playing the same guy in the same clothes ("but bring all the other wardrobe stuff you brought just in case").

Day two started badly and would only get worse.

The call time for day two was 6:45am. I set my alarm clock for 5:45. I woke up in the middle of the night and had a bad time getting back to sleep and found myself constantly fighting the urge to check the clock to see what time it was. When I finally caved, the clock said it was 6:20am.

Whoops.

I made it to the set with 1 minute to spare. Driving quickly, you should know.

I parked in the church parking lot, but there's a security guard there this time, and he's kicking people out who are not on church business. I left the car to put my two bags of clothes inside where I met up with the casting agent. She told me don't worry about the paperwork yet, go get some breakfast. I said, there were actually three things I needed to do; park my car, breakfast and shave.

First, park the car. I ended up about five or six blocks away from the church before I finally found a spot where I could legally park my car for the day.

I step out of the car and that was when the kidney stone hit.

I remember saying distinctly and out loud to myself, "I think I might be in trouble here…"

Five or six blocks is a short enough walk under normal circumstances, but when the screwdriver that is renal colic is tearing at your guts, it's a tough slog. On the way back I saw one of the vans with "Elizabeth Smart" on the dashboard, and vainly I tried to flag him down.

I made it back to the church. On the way I had considered lying down on the sidewalk. I figured if I was just to lie down on the sidewalk, someone would surely stop and help me. I didn't. I made it back to the church where immediately people were asking me if I was all right. Seems also that the casting agent had brought too many detectives in for the day, so they were quick to ask me if I wanted to go home for the day. I told them I didn't want to go home, I wanted to go to the Emergency room.

A van and a driver were called for (not the one I'd seen, as it turned out) and a very nice woman waited with me until I finally got into a bed in Emergency. Drugs of several sorts were administered and all became right in my doped up world.

The ending of this little tale (to this point anyway) is minorly unresolved. The stone was passed and only one extra trip to Emergency was required. My car is where it belongs - in my driveway. My two bags of clothes were recovered and returned. I got a prescription for some great drugs. I haven't yet got a call back to do any more work on the set and wouldn't you know it, my shirt and pants from day one that were on a separate hanger are still missing.

(I give the shirt off my back and the stone from my urinary tract....)

When I was lying there in the hospital corridor, drugged stupid and reflecting on the day, my cynical brain was already crafting this entry with a cynical and jaundiced eye. It will end, I thought, with the sentence something like, "Since there were too many detectives, I helped out greatly by getting sick and removing myself from the set."

But later, as I'm trying to arrange to get my car home and my two bags of clothes, I met or heard from a number of people from the crew, most of whom I didn't know or hadn't met, and I was confronted with very genuine concern about how I was getting along and they all seemed very pleased to hear that I was doing fine. I have embraced with gusto this idea that Extras don't matter. It's the theme of this blog after all. Now there they were, the buggers, the crew, proving me wrong.

And it felt nice.

My initial cynicism blew away leaving a bad aftertaste for having had it.

Vomiting Your Way To Stardom!

2003-08-19T09:20:00.000-03:00

I got my first big break ....

Well ... wait a minute right there. Let’s cut that out right away.

First of all, the first big break was the Elvis thing with the lottery commercial and the second thing is that there was NO break… there was NO BREAK! …. Because here I am distracted from my “real” work at my “real job”, typing to you from my tiny little cubicle. Joe Schmoe at his desk job. A sometimes part-time actor. Not a star.

Ergo, no break.

The first time I got my name on TV, this is.

Once upon a time there was a neat little show that we used to film down here in our neck of the woods called “Black Harbour” (Go here for a picture ). Black Harbour starred Rebecca Jenkins, and Geraint Wyn Davies who, perhaps most famously, played the title character on a show called “Forever Knight”.

In Black Harbour’s second season, I auditioned for the role of “Mr. Grace”. The thing was there’s a boat tour and a guy gets really sick on the tour and the tour operator is forced to come into this private dock. A guy shows up, the guy who owns the dock. The boat operator’s father killed this guy’s father. So begins a story line that will run through future episodes. Black Harbour’s version of the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The guy who got sick was Mr. Grace, very key to the whole plot thread, you’ll pardon me while I roll my eyes.

So I’m auditioning for the role of Mr. Grace and I’m doing the lines and the direction is after saying the lines, the guy throws up. Well, let me tell you I was pretty convincing. I specialize in retching noises. Well, I don’t, but I’m really very good at it. Really. I’m sure I turned people’s stomachs at the audition, I was that convincing. Made them sick enough that they gave me the part.

When we went before camera, they'd cut out the throwing up bit. My best bit.

I remember the episode was directed my none other than Mr. Davies, himself. “Ger” if you were bold enough (I wasn’t). Playing in all my scenes were two women, one who was supposed to be my personal assistant, the other who was supposed to be my girlfriend. The really weird thing is that these were the same two girls who were in the lottery commercial with me. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years. In fact, both had left the area, one to L.A. and the other to New York. But here they were back again (one for good, the other just visiting). It was very cool. They are both very beautiful women, by the way. And so when we wrapped after the second day, Geraint gave each of them a farewell hug. I stood near to them and forlornly opened my arms. A hangdog expression on my face. Best acting I’d done for two days. Ger turns, sees me, drops to his knees and give me a big hug around my hips. Nice.

The hug notwithstanding, the two coolest things about doing the show were getting a trailer and seeing the credit.

The trailer was huge; a room all to myself, a little metal stepladder needed to get up to the door, it was so high. I was hanging out at the trailer, sitting on the steps by myself when Rebecca Jenkins wandered by and asked me if I’d run lines with her for her upcoming scene. This was the absolute high point of the shoot, I don’t mind telling you.

When I finally saw the episode on TV … I was awful. Really, really terrible. I sucked like an Electrolux. But when it was all over, there was the credit at the end of the show:

Mr. Grace …………………………………………Yours Truly

Coast, to coast to coast.

Just to let everyone in the country know who that horrendous actor was. I take consolation in the fact no one really reads the credits, that it was a fantastic experience which made for great memories and nice stories, that I got to meet Elizabeth Ann and Heather again and that if they’d let me vomit, I coulda been a star.

-------------------------------------------
THE LATEST
-------------------------------------------

Yesterday I auditioned for the role of a desk sergeant in the upcoming movie about the Elizabeth Smart story. While I was there, I was asked to come in today to read for the part of “Mr. Maloney” for “Trailer Park Boys”. One of the producers on “Trailer Park Boys” is Mike Volpe. His wife and I were both in the local Drama League's production of “Sound of Music”; she played Maria, I played Franz the butler. Coincidentally, Mike Volpe was also one of the producers of “Black Harbour”.

-------------------------------------------
STILL TO COME
-------------------------------------------

- Why I Hate Harrison Ford.
- Rick Mercer, Sela Ward, Valerie Bertenelli, but not Leslie Nielsen
- Future escapades.

When No Means No and Yes Also Means No.

2003-07-28T08:48:00.000-03:00

In what I sometimes call my "real life" world, I learn all about different theories on how to do business better. It's given me insights to the importance of customer service. Two quick stories:

My dry-cleaner lost a pair of my black pants years ago. They apologized and looked and looked, but never found them. The lady behind the counter asked me how much they were and I gave a guess and instantly that became my "tab" at the dry-cleaners. I wouldn't have to pay for dry-cleaning until that amount was reached. Years later, they are the only dry-cleaner I go to.

A couple of years ago we had some "lawn experts" do our lawn for us. They called the year after to confirm they'd be doing it for us again that year. I told them that, well, LAST year we were pretty disappointed with the results - the lawn was brown and the only green parts were the weeds. So, here again is an opportunity to make a customer for life. The guy on the phone says, "Okay," with a very brusque tone and hung up.

We do the lawn ourselves now.

In the BIZ, it's a stranger world. In the BIZ, the answer is always, "Yes." Even when it's "No", it's "Yes". This can be frustrating.

There's an arc to a person's perceptions about doing movies and stuff. At first it's glory and glamour. I can remember standing "off-stage" in the black, cables snaking around my feet, getting ready to appear in my first commercial (the lottery commercial, a background poker player with Fat Dick, just a couple of guys behind the REAL action). I was sweating and my guts were rolling from nerves. When the commercial's all done, you go home and sit and wait and finally jump up from the couch when at last it appears on TV. You call around and ask to get copies of the commercials so you can have them on tape at home to show off. You call your agent, the production company, the ad agency.

They all tell you, Yes, they can get you a copy.

And sometimes they do.

Other times you wait and wait and then call again. Yes, they tell you, and the cycle repeats.

You learn that the stock answer to any question is "Yes." Even when the answer is "No," you're told "Yes." I can only assume that it's done to keep everybody happy ... or at least to not have people be mad a YOU. You said yes, after all.

The only time I was told No, was from Agent # 3.

Agent #3 bought and assumed control of the talent directory from Agent #2 who, as you will recall, bolted town with his co-agent wife and took all the peoples' money with them. Agent #3 was from Florida and had the distinction of once having appeared in Playboy. Agent #3 has since gone back to the States and yielded the reins to her then-secretary, now-president, Agent #4. I'll wait a moment while you jot all this down on your scorecard.

So. Agents get you auditions, auditions infrequently get you work, work gets you your cheque. Woo-hoo! You're a professional!

When you receive a cheque for having done work for TV and film, you get the whole amount. By comparison, when I receive a cheque from my "real job", I only get about half the whole amount. The government gets about half in taxes and pension and unemployment insurance and all that. But the acting cheques come deduction-free, and that rhymes with "T" and that spells Trouble.

The government's going to want all that money sooner or later, see, so that's why you have to be careful with acting money.

I'm sure you've heard of people more famous than I who have gotten into trouble over this point.

So when the acting cheque comes in, I do the math. Amount divided by two. There's my half. From the other half, pay the agent her commission. Pay whatever other expenses. Whatever else is left over, that goes to mutual funds. What goes to mutual funds doesn't go to the governement as tax (not yet, anyway). All of this financial wheeling and dealing gets recorded in a spreadsheet that I maintain and submit with my taxes. Everything above board and clear as a bell. Everybody's happy.

Revenue Canada was not happy.

What happened was that the payroll company gave me a T4A, which is a declaration of earnings, for the full amount of all the acting cheques I received. I had recorded the full amounts of all the individual cheques on my spreadsheet, and from each took away all my expenses and put what was left over on my income tax form. Net income from professional services. Revenue Canada, not seeing the GROSS number, the number from the T4A, the number that they WANTED to see on my tax return, assumed I hadn't declared ANY of what I got and lo and behold, my $200 tax rebate was transmogrified into a tax-owing bill for $500.

Ouch.

This has happened three times now. The last time it was when I sent my taxes out to my mutual funds guy to do them and he got caught the same as I did. I had since figured out a better way of clearly showing that acting income and I let him know how to solve the problem. But the first time it happened, I was a little panicked and I went to my agent to ask for help.

She told me no.

Huh?

It's a personal problem, I was told. It wasn't her business.

It's a business problem, I said, related directly to my work as an actor.

No, it was a personal problem. Go away son, you're bothering me.

Frustration, bitterness, gnashing of teeth. Eventually, of course, I sorted it out on my own. But I'm still noticing how the agent (even Agent #4) is happy to take her commission … but for that you get notice of auditions and that seems to be where the service ends.

Also, Revenue Canada has me in their sights and every year at tax time I notice that they are very watchful of what I submit. They still occasionally like to tell me that I owe them money when I've declared it all in my little spreadsheet.

There's a guy in my office that used to work with Revenue Canada. I told him this story and asked him if it's possible that a person can get blacklisted. He assured me that, yes, there's probably a little red flag on my file.

Which means I'm screwed. I'll never have another simple tax return for the rest of my life. Yay.

I was on a movie set with the ex-Mrs. Eddie Van Halen about a week ago. She has her own trailer of course. All the principle actors have their own trailers. I show up on this hot July afternoon with two suitcases full of clothes, sweaters and winter coats. We're shooting a Christmas movie. "John Christmas" is the name of it. Watch for it this year on CBS. Anyway, I stroll up to the set with all my belongings to report in. The actors are here, the crew is over here and you, Mr. Extra, your room is over there. Welcome to Extras Holding. It's a big, blank room with hard metal folding chairs. In this room I will sit (stand, mostly, because of a current back ailment) for HOURS. There is no glamour on a film set. There is no glory. It's all about waiting. And waiting.

And waiting.

You soon figure out: bring a book.

There were about twenty of us there by the end of the evening in the big blank room. Almost everyone was sitting and reading.

Time passed.

I struck up a conversation with another of the extras and started talking about the "Arc of Expectation" as a movie extra. How you start all nervous, like me in that first lottery ad. How, at first, you wants copies of all the little bits you've done, then later you become less and less interested.

It looked like it was going to be a long night. It looked like I might not even get to go in front of the camera for that last scene.

I told of the time I did background work for a movie called "Magic of Marciano". It starred Nastassja Kinski (who I never saw first or last). For this movie I sat in a different blank room with folding tables and folding chairs. I sat for hours and hours and hours. Fat Dick was there too, unless my memory is faulty. Briefly, I went to the set to start to work on some blocking. I was to be a detective going through a bedroom, a crime scene. Something wasn't quite right though, the crew wasn't ready and I was sent back to Extras Holding.

The next word came hours later and the word was that we were wrapped. Thanks very much. You're done. And I had never even gone before the camera.

I was crushed. Disappointed. I had my cool detective suit on, my shoulder holster, my gun, and I never got to play.

Now, years later, sitting near the set of "John Christmas" where it appeared that once again I might not get to go before the camera, I told the "Magic of Marciano" story to another of the background performers.

And how one of the biggest lessons you learn is that whether they use you or not, the money still spends the same.

Just don't forget to give half to the government.

--------------
Still to come!
--------------

- Vomit Your Way To Stardom!
- Why I Hate Harrison Ford.
- Rick Mercer, Sela Ward, Valerie Bertenelli, but not Leslie Nielsen

I AM OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS!

2003-07-21T16:45:00.000-03:00

But from the humblest of beginnings. When some scantily-clad morsel whispered in my ear that I had good bone structure in my face. It changed everything. You could get an agent, she said. You could be a model, she said. So I did. Got an agent and everything. Life changed. Fame beckoned. I would become famous and powerful and rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Well...

See, what actually happened ....

I became an extra.

I blame it all on the weak Canadian dollar.

Not the dollar's fault that I didn't become wealthy and famous and powerful. No, no. That was a function of LACK OF TALENT. No, the fact that I got to be in an EXTRA is because Hollywood started farming out its productions to cheaper places and one of them was mine. On account of the weak Canadian dollar, you see.

So more and more, here come the movies. To my home town.

And you out there, yes YOU! You like all the behind the scenes stuff, don't you. Sure you do. My mission then is to employ this ultimate object of virtual self-importance and ego-feeding and pass onto you all the little morsels of my little successes.

No, not the scantily-clad one.

I have some back-story to catch up on, you'll pardon me for not bringing you the latest quite yet. I'm just getting started here! For crying out loud....

Cast your mind back, Johnny and Janey. Back into the farthest reaches of time.

Back, back.

Not that far.

Here's me in a dim stairwell, confidently striding up the stairs to a murky office, a dim vestibule, it was the agent's lair and they seemed to agree with the scantily-clad morsel about the bone structure and sent me out to get pictures. And so I did. Pictures of me in a white shirt and a thin leather tie. Smiling. Skinny little face on me that's still there but hidden by an extra, oh, twenty pounds of fat. Triumphant return to the dim vestible and oh my...

... the agency's out of business.

Locked door.

Big sign on it.

"Out of Business."

You know, they must have known when they sent me out for pictures. They must have. It was only a couple of days ago. I blamed the photographer, the only one who made money on this deal. A greek guy, named George. Last name also George, but greek. George with a lot of opopulopulous after it, some such thing. I couldn't blame the agent (but I did) he was gone. So I blamed the photographer. Measly, money-grubbing, rashinfrashin....

Here's me at the start. Already ground on the rocks of defeat and rejection. Get used to it, son. You're in show bidness now.

On to Agent Number Two.

Buy courses and more photos and get trained and .. hey! There's a picture of my hand in a newspaper ad, by god! And another one of my hand in a mineral water ad. Stupid little morsel didn't say ANYTHING about my hands, how do you like THAT, huh?

My agent had a policy of holding back performer's money. You needed to have a good excuse to get it from them. I had a trip to Montreal coming up, so they gave me most of mine. And so later, when the husband and wife team ran out of town with everyone's money (honest to god I'm not making this up), what they took only included about a thousand or so bucks that was mine. Little over a thousand bucks.

Agent Number Three. And I still haven't met anyone famous.

So. The first breakthrough.

A beautiful little story to demonstrate how absurd it all is.

It's a lottery commercial. This far back, the movies haven't really found us yet, so all us amateur players keep meeting at all the same auditions and compare who's done what. By and large, it's commercials for the lottery. Or for the phone company. Either - or. My very first work was for a lottery commercial. I was an extra around a card table, playing a fake game of poker with another chronic extra, Fat Dick.

Anyway, the breakthrough. There I am in the audition for another lottery commercial doing a slate (my name, who's my agent). They're looking for a Billy Crystal type for a lottery ad. I don't know what's a Billy Crystal type except that I ain't it. But I go and I slate and then at the end of the slate I mimic Elvis and say, "Thank-yuh. Thank-yuh ver much".

The ad agency sends all the tapes to New York to the director with their recommendations for the four principle roles that they're casting. The director takes three and ignores the fourth. Instead of who was recommended, he picks ME. During the wardrobe fitting (my colour will be blue) the director asks me if I knew why I won the audition. I stammered something unintelligible that I no longer can recall. He said, "No, it was that Elvis thing you did at the end of the slate." As a result of seeing it, he decided on the spot that the role wouldn't be a Billy Crystal type, it would be a guy named Eddie who thought he was Elvis.

Such are the vagueries of luck and showbiz.

I laughed my ass off the whole drive home.

It remains my best work and my biggest paycheque, that lottery commercial, even though I've since done a starring role on TV (high up on the cable dial mind you) which got me into TV Guide. That first one, the lottery commercial with Bill Carr still remains the biggest and best.

---
"Another Scratch 'Em game, Eddie?"
(me, doing Elvis, sitting on a giant , paper-mache kaiser bun): "Hit me, baby. I'm on a roll!"
---

You know, I heard later on that there's a guy in the city - all he does is Elvis work. He's a for-real Elvis impersonator. He saw our commercial and he was PISSED. How come they were doing an Elvis thing and he never even got a look?!?!?!

Because ... (say it with me, class) the role was for a Billy Crystal type.

During this, my first real shoot, I learned the two most important words in the film business: CRAFT TABLE. (Bagles with cream cheese and strawberry jam. BLISS!!!!!)

So there I am, on set. Day three of the shoot. The scene had me in this big blue 1960 Ford Galaxy convertible. Saying my lines. "Hey, Jimmy. You playing that lottery scratch and win sports game aGAIN?" Like Elvis, remember. Over and over and over. Thirsty work. During a brief pause I got out of the car and went to get a drink.

"Whoa, whoa whoa!" the assistant director (A.D.) says to me. "Where are you going?"
"I'm just going to get a drink from the craft table."
"No, no. You stay in the car and someone will go and GET that FOR you."

Cool gig.

So time passes, I'm still sitting in the big blue car, still doing my lines (new camera angle) and I'm working on a new thirst. It's a hot, hot day. I say somewhat meekly, "Can I get a water or a juice please?" In a flash there are two people there at my window, one with a water, one with a juice. One might begin to see how this type of power could corrupt the weak-minded.

Four days later I'm Joe Schmoe again. Working as an office clerk. Arranging invoice payments.

Missing my craft table.

-------------------
COMING SOON
-------------------

- Red Flagged: How to Make the Revenue Canada Black List.
- Vomit Your Way To Stardom!
- Why I Hate Harrison Ford.
- Rick Mercer, Sela Ward, Valerie Bertenelli, but not Leslie Nielsen.

... And YOUR Room is Over HERE.

Money-Making Scams

Back To School

My New Facebook Friend: Tom Selleck

Me at the Mental

Happy Times

Big Fat Media Whore

Mirage or Oasis?

At The Trailer Park, Dreams Come True

"The Dead Do Not Earn Residuals."

Out Searching for the Real Killers

Domestic Disturbances

Extra Bacon

Holding Pattern

A Seinfeld Post About Nothing

Displacement Issues

What Hugh Grant And I Have In Common

Christmas Comes Twice in July

---------------- Still To Come -----------------

Break on Through To The Other Side

-----------------Still to Come-----------------

The Old "Hide the Alien Probe" Trick.

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3rd Reversible.

-----------------Still to Come-----------------

Thank God For Cable

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Union Ward

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2 Reversible

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Reversible Extra

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Comrade Brother Union Member

----------------Still To Come-----------------

Why I Hate Harrison Ford.

----------------Still To Come----------------

Unbeknownst to you ...

Vomiting Your Way To Stardom!

When No Means No and Yes Also Means No.

I AM OZYMANDIAS, KING OF KINGS!

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