Jul

Extra! Extra!

Tom Hanniger is shocked at how much fake blood a decent serial killer needs these days.

A little over a year ago, My Bloody Valentine 3D was in the process of shooting in Pittsburgh. Today, we have a report from a resident of that fair city, who had the opportunity to participate in filming for a few days, as an extra. She gives us a glimpse into the “glamorous life” thusly:

The last two days have been exhausting but one helluva lot of fun.

For the record - my actual Jensen contacts were as follows:
Tuesday June 3rd -

Saw Jensen come on the set with a very nice tank top-type shirt whilst I sat in a wheelchair.

Smiled and said “hi” to him. He said “hi” back and smiled, then walked past into the greenroom.

An hour or so later, Jensen came out another door and headed back to his trailer. Someone on the crew said “Thanks Jensen.”

Wednesday June 4th -

On my way to the prosthetics wagon, saw Jensen again in the tank-top style shirt unlocking and about to open his trailer.

Said: “Hi Jensen” and smiled. He looked at me, smiled and said “Hey!” in a very Dean-ish voice. Then he climbed into his trailer.

So for all you who are only reading this for the Jensen Report, you’re now finished.

*g*

Otherwise read on.

I’m writing this tired but wired and completely unable to wrap my head around the idea of going to bed. It’s nearly 7:00AM and I’m still feeling the rush.

When I arrived on Tuesday at the “hospital,” I was outfitted as a patient and we were herded into the “Extras Holding” space. About an hour later two of the “patients” including me and two “nurses” were picked out for the first filming of the day. My entire contribution was to sit in a wheelchair and my nurse rolled me down the corridor to balance an actress’ cross the other direction. Since the focus was on her, not me, and since I was sitting in a wheelchair, I had absolutely no screen time at all. The actress, btw, was Jamie King.

This was the instance, btw, of my first exchange with Jensen. I also saw, but had no contact with, Kevin Tighe.

The nurse and I rolled back and forth several times and were then, along with the other patient and nurse combo, were sent back to the extras area.

Then we waited
and waited
and waited…

You get the idea. Lots of talking and exchanging of info, experiences, political views, etc. during the wait. But for those who’ve never done the extra thing, it embodied the very essence of movie making philosophy:

Hurry up and wait.

We were still there for the “lunch” at 9:30PM, but in between our lovely Craft Services person kept us stocked with all manner of snacks. The sweetheart even brought in tea fixings to the coffee table when I mentioned that I prefer tea.

After “lunch” (no, Jensen wasn’t there), we hung out around the entrance to the “hospital,” went inside and out depending on how stuffy things got and generally got sillier and sillier as night rolled into morning.

The litany of “please wrap us” was on everyone’s lips. But no one from production was around to hear it.

1:00AM
2:00AM
3:00AM - still there and still waiting.

Finally about 4:30AM the wrangler came out and asked me, the other patient from the afternoon shot and one more patient if we were definitely going to be around the next day. They wanted to create an establishing shot for the next day in which we all were going to be hacked up and bloodied. We all said yes (I admit, I almost cheered - who can resist letting themselves be a corpse for a day?) and he ushered us back up to the redressed set for the shot.

We finally were wrapped at about 5:30AM on June 3rd - just before sunrise and in enough time that the sky was not yet brightening so I knew I’d be able to catch a few zzzzs.

I got less than five hours of sleep so when I arrived on June 4th for my 3:30PM call, I knew I was in trouble.

The wrangler brought us over to get our prosthetic chests and told us we’d probably be the first or second scene filmed.

And if you believe that, I’ve got some great swampland in Florida that you’re going to just *love*!

I predicted to a couple of my fellow future corpses that we would *definitely* be around for lunch.

Remember all that waiting from June 2nd/June 3rd? Double it.

Luckily we were all used to entertaining ourselves and each other by now. I brought along my mini DVD player and we watched a couple of movies. One of the actresses, determined to watch the hockey game, ran out (with her prosthetic still in place but covered up) to find a place to buy a set of rabbit ears and a remote control for an old hospital TV set she could turn on, but couldn’t switch channels on. It took over half an hour, but she was successful and the most popular person in all of Extras land.

As for me, I and a couple of other non-sports people watched “The Devil Wears Prada.”

“Lunch”time came, still in our prosthetic chests and still waiting for that first or second scene to be filmed, we ate at around 10:00PM.

And waited some more.

This time we had a little more outside entertainment - they’d moved some of the filming to an area right outside the building near where we were hanging out. The actors involved with the scene were directed to run into the building and finish their run in the Extras Holding area - which, besides the extras, included Tom Atkins - one of Pittsburgh’s BIG NAME ACTORS.

Around this time was when I began to make a bet with myself that we wouldn’t be wrapped until 6:00AM.

The scene, since it involved about ten actors, took a *lot* of takes. We got to joke around with Atkins quite a bit - our open bloodied chests tickled him something fierce.

*Finally* at about 4:00AM, we were escorted to the redressed hospital corridor for our big moment in the film. I sprawled in my bed and was heavily doused with “blood” (partially made of some kind of syrup, I was told) and instructed how and when to hold my breath and keep my eyes under my eyelids from moving.

While laying there unmoving, Atkins came by and remarked about the sheer volume of blood I was soaked with. I pointed out the pink teddy bear also drenched with blood at my bedside. He laughed and said “That’s just *wrong*!”

To their credit, the shooting of the scene went fairly quickly - one rehearsal and about three takes (IIRC). It was the setup that took the longest amount of time.

When I was finally told I could get out of bed, I discovered the blood had seeped into my hair - bleaugh…..

We showered, changed and were clocked out at 5:45AM - whereupon I lost my final bet with myself about our actual wrap time.

I arrived home just as my upstairs neighbor was leaving for work. Ah the mundane life of 9:00 to 5:00 - how I loathe and despise it.

A funny thing, btw. One of the other extras was blissfully unaware that Jensen was in the movie despite being a complete and total geeky fangirl for Supernatural. She and I had a *great* time gabbing about the show and she was *very* disappointed that she hadn’t seen Jensen at all.