Mother Nature

Hello everyone! I'm sorry I've been gone so long! I've been working since Thurs, Oct 26th on this movie. (Not counting weekends, of course.) Seven 12 hour days total, five in a row last week. For most of those days, I've had a little black cloud of frustration and negativity over my head regarding this production, which is a big part of the reason why I didn't make a bigger effort to write here. A lot of the negativity was due to my own frame of mind, and it was really bothering me that I was so grumpy, I usually have much more patience on a set than that. Perhaps I am simply getting frustrated with the whole background actor experience, sitting in holding for 12 hours and being in the deep background isn't much fun anymore. I'm ready to do more. "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille!" They weren't using me very much on this set, and I finally figured out at the end it was probably because I looked too feminine and too much like a normal party-goer wearing a costume (as opposed to a lesbian party goer), despite the fact that the wardrobe people and all the background actors loved my costume.

I wasn't allowed to wear my faery wings because one of the principle actors was wearing huge, beautiful, purple butterfly wings. So, all the people I talked to were guessing that I was either a bride or Mother Nature. I decided to go with Mother Nature, closest thing to a Flower Faery.

So anyhow, here is the positive. I met this amazing man: Mystery Mike -- He is so warm and positive and giving! He threw an after-Halloween party for those of us who had worked together on set the last 7 days. I also met a few new friends I can look forward to meeting again on other sets.

I've also got a couple of leads for new projects: A composer (who I'd actually met on a couple of other sets before this one) wants me to do voice-over for his new album. He's an amazing composer, I heard him play some of his music on the piano at Mystery Mike's party, and he is every bit as good as Yanni and Danny Elfman. I'm really excited about working with him. And Mystery Mike wants me to be the Nanny in his Mary Poppins-Nanny McPhee-type children's play that he wrote several years ago and wants to bring to the stage again. It was very successful the first time around.

The meals served to us on set were amazing, and they supplied us with H-To-O bottled water (Hope To Others), and also provided special recycling trash cans for empty water bottles and soda cans.

They also provided us with sides (copies of the scenes from the script) that we would be filming, I guess because same-sex dancing, and anti-gay protests can be touchy subjects, they wanted us to be prepared and make sure no one was uncomfortable with the subject matter.

Another new experience: The paparazzi were all over this movie and this actor, and none of us background could figure out why. We were filming on location in downtown LA. Our first day, one of the ADs came and got a big group of us from holding, saying "Come with me please, I'll explain what's going on when we get there." So he walked us down the sidewalk, and had us stop in a single file line in the driveway where the VIP trailers were parked. He said, "We just want to check out your costumes." So they looked us over, and then as we were sent back to holding, the actor walked with us between him and the street. There were a bunch of paparazzi on the other side of the street waiting to take pictures of him. We were used as a sheild.

Then later in the production, we were filming a gay pride parade scene. Once again, the paparazzi were there, but much more sneaky. They stood in the crowd with us Parade Watcher extras. One even managed to get a prop gay pride flag from the props guy so that he'd blend in more. Every time I saw someone that even looked like they might be paparazzi, I let the nearest PA or AD know, and they asked them to leave. One guy came back three times and stood right by me each time, even though we had been moved to different areas of the street for different shots each time. I felt proud of myself for catching him and a few others, I dubbed myself the Paparazzi Police.

And so this weekend has just been spent catching up on my sleep and the chores I was not able to get to while working. I haven't booked myself on anything else yet. I'm PMS-ing (sorry if that's TMI) and so am extra-exhausted and grumpy. I'm being nice to myself by staying home and resting.