Highlights

Okay, I got 6 hours of sleep last night instead of only 4 hours like the previous three nights, so I have a little bit of brain and time to catch you all up. Every day on set has been 13-14 1/2 hours. Yesterday I was so tired, my eyes would hardly stay open, so I shut them between takes, but forced myself to stay sitting up even as my body drifted off, so that I would remain awake enough to listen for the PA's to start yelling at us, or the 1st AD to announce "Pictures up!"

Highlights of the last three days:

I am very impressed with WF and JH, they're both professional, cooperative, collaborative, and are not at all egotistical. The other day, they spent literally 45 minutes on their knees filming take after take, no complaining or getting up for breaks, they simply stayed focused and kept working. They're so much fun to watch working together, and they improvise a lot together. And I actually have a little bit of a crush on JH now, he seems like a fun guy, a kid at heart, and actually I'd love to work with him in a movie sometime in my career, he seems like he'd be a lot of fun to play with -- *ahem* -- work with. (Acting is playing, after all.) And I discovered that one of the drawbacks of working several days on the same project is that after a while, I cannot quietly observe the actors without being noticed anymore. On the second day, JH became aware that I was observing him. I would be watching him, and then he'd turn and look, and suddenly we'd be making eye contact, (him with a neutral surprised but solid awareness that I was observing him) and then I'd look away quickly, because we're not supposed to stare at the actors. After that happened a few times, I stopped watching him, which actually pissed me off, cuz he was so much fun to watch.

Anyhow, we spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday filming most of the material needed for their figure skating routine. One of my favorite moments: A 360 degree around shot: They had WF standing on a plywood platform raised an inch or so off the ground, and the platform was attached to the camera rig that went around in a full circle, to simulate WF spinning in place as JH skated around him. JH was on skates behind the camera, as well as 12 or 14 other crew members. One guy pushed the rig around on the 360 circle track, JH held on so he could focus on connecting with WF for the scene, and the entourage of other techies walked around staying behind the camera as well. Then, the guy pushing started to push faster, the entourage started walking faster, then running as the guy pushing kept speeding up. Shortly the entire entourage is running, trying to keep up, and next thing you know, they're all running behind WF, in front of the camera. All of us in the background were laughing so hard, and WF was so focused and connected to JH that they went around a couple of times like that before he realized we were all laughing, and looked around to discover the entire techie entourage running behind him on the camera side, and started laughing too.

Other fun stuff: The Zamboni wave! Yesterday when the Zamboni came around cleaning the ice, since there was background seated in the first and second rows all the way around the stadium, a small group started a wave, which went around the entire stadium, even the film crew got in on it. The first time around the wave went much faster than the Zamboni, so the second time the wave went into slow motion to keep up with the Zamboni--it was hilarious!

I met a new friend today, she was new to the set today. We connected right away, we have so much in common, personality, interests, it was almost scary. But the best part is she would randomly start singing a song, and I always knew the songs she would sing, so I'd sing along with her. At one point we discovered that we both like Ray Stevens, and we started singing "Along Came Jones" together. She sang the verse, I took the part of Sweet Sue:

She sang: "(as Sinister Sam) You better give me the deed to your house or I'll blow you all to bits! (As narrator, melodramatically) And then he grabbed her!"

Me (speaking in a high pitched, overly melodramatic voice): "Ooooooh, he grabbed me!"

Her (as narrator): "And he tied her up!"

Me: "Heeelp! He's tying me up!"

Her (as narrator): "And he lit the fuse to the dynamite!"

Me: "(high pitched scream!) He's lightin' the fuse to the dynamite!" I laughed for several seconds after this because it was so silly and fun.

Then both of us singing the chorus: "And then along came Jones. Tall, thin Jones. Slow walkin' Jones. Slow talking Jones. Along came long, lean, lanky Jones."

I didn't realize until I was driving home that I had been absolutely unself-conscious about this, and absolutely unaware of anyone around us, and I hadn't been singing (or speaking) at all quietly. Everyone around us must have thought we were nuts, and we were sitting fairly close to the ice at that point, so now I'm sure that some of the crew and cast must have heard us too. (Thank goodness WF and JH had gone home for the day already, but maybe a few minutes after we stopped singing, I noticed one of the other actors was inconspicously kind of staring, kind of watching me, even when I noticed him looking at me and looked back briefly. At the time I didn't know why he would be looking at me.) But while we were singing and after, in the moment, I didn't know and didn't care that anyone else could hear me. I was completely connected to my new friend (like in a repetition) and having a great time.

And there's so much more I wish I had time and energy to write about, but I'm getting very sleepy now and I still have to shower, up at 4:30 am again tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, the audition for the Art Institute of CA film student scene "When Harry Met Sally" didn't go. When I got my call time for Tuesday on Monday night, it looked as though 14 1/2 hours would be about a 9pm wrap time, so I called the student director to let him know, see if he still space available for me to audition, and he replied that he did not, but would keep me in mind for other projects.