Expired

I worked on Expired yesterday after all, but as an upscale Christmas shopper instead of a coffee shop patron. Turns out this is a low budget independent film, which unfortunately meant that everything was unorganized setting up for the shots, and a lot of time was wasted. Our call time was at 6:30 am, we were brought to set at 7 am, but nothing was filmed until nearly 10 am. They only had one camera, and no lights. I have no idea why it took so long to get started with the scene. It was less than a minute long, a guy walks up to his car and begs Samantha Morton not to give him a parking ticket, then he gets in his car and drives away.

After that, they finally set up a holding area for us near the outdoor mall we'd be shooting the next scene at, but they neglected to give us chairs. So I sat on the ground with my back against a giant plant pot and dozed off until they served us lunch.

Lunch was interesting, I almost couldn't find a seat, but a friend I'd met earlier invited me to sit at her table. There were six of us, one was a guy at the other end of the table who I'd seen earlier in the parking lot, he was handsome, but I hadn't had the opportunity to talk with him. And across from me was a very tall, skinny fellow with black hair from Bulgaria. The six of us at the table were all chatting, and then without any encouragement from me, the Bulgarian guy starts talking directly to me, ignoring everyone else. Next thing I know, he's leaning forward over the table, looking straight into my eyes and telling me that once he gets married, he's never going to get divorced. I hear myself saying, "Well, good for you. That's a nice goal to have." Holy cow! How am I supposed to respond to that?? I'm trying not to make too much eye contact with him, but at the same time I don't want to be rude. I join back in to the general conversation, which has turned to where everyone is from. I ask the handsome guy at the other end of the table where he's from. Next thing I know, the two of us are having an exclusive conversation from opposite ends of the table, but not as intesely as the guy from Bulgaria. Just chatting about where in the Los Angeles/Hollywood area is a good place to live. (I'm starting to mentally plan to move closer, even though it probably won't happen for another year or two.) But the handsome guy seemed just as interested to talk to me (yay!) as the Bulgarian guy, but at least he wasn't pushing himself on me.

So then lunch was over, and we were brought to set for the outdoor mall scene. The crew had spent all morning decorating the front entrance to the mall with Christmas trees, bows, poinsettias, etc. Just as the PA is placing us on set, this older middle eastern man with salt & pepper hair comes up to the PA and starts yelling at him: "Who said you could come in here and take over? These businesses are open! Who gave you permission? I want you all to leave right now!" The PA said, "The owner gave us permission." The guy said, "I am the owner! I want you off my property right now!" So the PA got the PA in charge over to talk to the guy, I heard the owner yelling something about needing permits on paper and such. The PA leads the owner away from us as they talk.

As soon as they are out of earshot, I hear the director yelling. She's a short woman with olive skin, and long, straight black hair, dressed in a shapless black dress and black combat boots. She's upset because they're loosing the light, and why is it taking so long to set up the shot? They've been here since 6:30 this morning and now she only has three hours left to get this complex shot. The scene is supposed to take place in the morning, not the evening, she yells, and the sun is already low in the sky.

I guess everything got straightened out with the owner, because I didn't see him after that. Then, Jason Patric arrived on set. I'd been been waiting all morning to see him. You have to understand that I've only ever seen him in The Lost Boys when I was in high school, and I had a crush on him at the time. So I had no clue what he looked like now. When he arrived on set in costume, his hair was short, he had a thick mustache and was wearing dark aviator sunglasses. My initial thought was, "I used to have a crush on him?" But, I've realized it's very difficult to tell what someone really looks like when they're wearing sunglasses. Both on the parade scene and this shoot, a lot of the people I met were wearing sunglasses, and it wasn't until lunch time when we were sitting in the shade that people took their sunglasses off that I looked at them and realized, "Oh, that's what you really look like!"

Anyhow, after a while we got ready to shoot. I had been placed deep in the mall, walking towards the front entrance. The first take, apparently they cut before I ever got near the front, I didn't hear them say cut so I just kept walking, and all of a sudden there was Patric sitting in his chair right where the PA had told me to walk. I was like, "O00h-kay, I guess I'm going back to one." On the next take, one of the PAs moved the couple that had been placed a little in front of me closer to the front, but apparently didn't realize I was also part of the shoot and walked away. So I decided to move myself closer as much as possible without destroying the continuity that had already been established, because there was no point in my being hidden in the back where the camera would never see me. I was being paid to be in the background, so damn it, I was going to be seen in the background.

During one of the breaks, I was standing near a bench minding my own business and all of a sudden Patric is walking directly towards me. Holy crap! I drop my eyes, looking at my feet. Patric flops down on the bench I am standing by. I glance at him, try to smile (probably unsuccessfully), but he doesn't respond and I can't tell if he's looking at me anyways because of the sunglasses. (Yes, I have a Walter Mitty fantasy in my head called "The Secret Life of Isabelle Palmer" in which on any movie set, any of the handsome male stars notice me in the crowd, and are intrigued by my beauty and charisma. Stupid, I know, but I haven't figured out how to turn it off. Mostly I just try and ignore it as best I can.) Anyhow, Patric is sitting on the bench not smiling back, so I don't look at him anymore. I try and act non-chalant, pretend like he's not there, thinking the whole time, "Breathe, Isabelle, just breathe." After a minute he gets called back to his place, and that was the end of that. *Whew!*

Later in the afternoon, my feet are killing me because I'm wearing boots with 2 inch heels that I only wear occasionally and only for a couple of hours at a time. The Bulgarian guy is sitting on a bench nearby reading a book, he invites me to sit down, so I do. Big mistake. Next thing I know, he's leaning into me, his arm on the bench behind me almost around my shoulders, reading to me out of his book. ACK! I lean forward, and he leans forward to, his shoulder touching mine. At this point, I feel like saying, "DUDE! You're just coming on way too strong!" The handsome man from lunch walks past and stands nearby. So I turn to him and say, "What's your name? I didn't catch it at lunch." He seems very happy that I asked, and he introduces himself (I'll call him J. for now), asks my name, and we shake hands. He says, "It's very nice to meet you." and smiles warmly at me. We maintain eye contact and the handshake for several seconds, smiling. I had noticed that he wasn't placed on set with the other extras, that he'd been hanging out with the crew, so I asked him about that. Turns out he is Patric's stand-in.

At this point, the Bulgarian guy taps me on the shoulder, and starts discussing the paragraph he's just read with me. I talk with him about it a little bit more to be polite, but in spite of my feet hurting I finally stand up just to get away. And then I finally manage to drift away from him and over to J. We start talking about his stand-in expericence, how it's so different to work on a movie from beginning to end, watch the filming, watch the actors work up close, get know the crew, etc. I say it must be an awesome experience with so much learning opportunity. But then after a few minutes, it's time to film again, and I return to my place.

Once we were finally wrapped, I was so glad that I had brought my sneakers with me to set. I had driven in them that morning, with my boots in their box. After I changed into my boots in the parking lot, I almost left my sneakers in the car, but at the last minute decided to take them with me to set. So when we were wrapped, I went to holding, and immediately put my sneakers back on. My feet were SO happy! Then as I walked to the shuttle, I ran into J. walking the other way. I said, "Look, I've got my comfy shoes on, I'm so happy!" He smiled, and said, "It was very nice to meet you today," and shook my hand, making eye contact. My initial (and habitual) response was to take that as a dismissal, that J. wanted no further contact with me in spite of his friendliness and apparent interest earlier in the day. So I just nodded, smiled, and then continued walking to the shuttle.

There wasn't enough room for me to get on, along with a couple of my friends, so we decided to wait for the shuttle to come back, which we had been told would be in 10 minutes. But looking at the traffic after the shuttle left, I realized it would be a lot longer than 10 minutes. That was okay, I was wearing my comfy sneakers. Just then, J walked up. I smiled at him slightly, and he smiled back, but didn't come over to talk to me. One of the day players (who looked a bit like James Franco, but more like singer Josh Groban) came up right after, and J. started talking to him. So I was too braindead at that point to hold a conversation with my friend, so I just lost myself in thought, wondering if I had interpreted J's actions correctly. I decided that maybe I hadn't, I could have said, "Yes it was wonderful to meet you too, let's keep in touch." So I decided that when we got back to the parking lot, since J's car was parked right next to mine, I would casually talk to him about keeping in touch. We'd be riding the same shuttle, so it would be easy to talk to him there.

Then some of the crew walked by and offered the Josh-Groban-look-alike a ride back to parking, and he asked if there was room for one more. There was, so he invited J. to ride back with them as well. There went my whole idea of talking to J in the parking lot, he'd be long gone before I got there. I believe in signs, and that sure seemed to be one.

When I got back to parking however, J. was just leaving one of the trailers. I smiled when I saw him, I was so happy. So I said, "You're still here!" He said, "Yup!" And I said, "You know what?" and he said, "What?" I said, "I'd love to keep in touch! What do you think?" He seemed stunned momentarily, then said, "Yeah, sure!" He pulled out his cell phone. "What's your number?" I gave him my cell phone number, he dialed it right away to give me his number, we confirmed each other's names, and he wished me a safe drive home because "traffic is really heavy out there." (Aw, taking care of me already!) Anyhow, I hope we can be friends at the least, but he seems like a really nice guy so I'm really hoping it can turn into more. I really want a boyfriend. Even if he does live in LA.