Mirage or Oasis?

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

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."

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

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

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

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.


2015 UPDATE, I'm down to four:

• Me to Emily-Rose (Haven - Season 5, "Perditus")
• Emily-Rose to William Shatner (Haven - Season 5, 4 episodes)
• William Shatner to Eric McCormack ( "Free Enterprise")
• Eric McCormack to Kevin Bacon ("Will & Grace")

Holding Pattern

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

"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

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

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

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 the hairy eyeball. 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 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 rat-fink ingenuity 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, surely that was purely accidental! (Okay, yes, I was funning with you for a sec.) At one point there she was sitting quietly and by herself in her director's chair, me only a few paces behind her. A chance to chat her up, did you say?

Well, see, what do you say? Hey. Having a good time? Liking our town? Still in touch with that rock 'n roll guy? All good ways maybe to get your butt kicked off the set (some maybe better than others). So you stand there, silent, and most of all: employed. Be a professional, godammit!

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. Also, you shouldn't.

(Also, alos: I'm severely socially handicapped, the subject of a different kind of blog. Help me, please help me!)

She is a sparkplug, by the way, that Valerie. She's not tall, not physically imposing or anything, but boy, when she speaks, she becomes the center of the universe. She's got that little girl voice that, somehow and pardoxically, explodes into a 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. See Rule number two above, 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 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). They even provided me with sneakers and white socks. I got to keep the socks. The perks!

There was snow in front of the building, this in the middle of July. On the hottest day. There it was. A front-end loader carted it in, more and more ice-as-snow to 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 got up and made a little speech. It was the man from behind the set, Mr. Blatt. He thanked his 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

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.

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 with head clamps attached. 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.

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

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

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.

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

• 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

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

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

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.

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