FilmRoar

I was on set again yesterday. The day was miserable with strong wind and incessant rain that varied from light to heavy showers. The temperature only got down to 45 degrees but with my jeans soaked through after standing in place for two hours while they blocked the ‘funeral’ shot I was pretty miserable. They kept me on set all day though I only had to stand-in for the one shot. During the rest of the day I either searched for the shelter of whatever production tent was available or more often resigned myself to being cold and went and wondered near set (I could not wonder far since I had to be able to hear the call for second team and report to set). I finally got a readable call sheet (now unreadable because the rain soaked through the first layer of my rain coat) and found out the actor I was standing in for is Jay O. Sanders who according to the IMDB is actually 6′4″.

The director (who I am no longer sure was Brent Shields since I could swear people were calling him ‘Sean’ on set) was yet again being a dick though you could tell the crew was pretty much used to it and had developed ways to dealing (like one crew member said on set: his name begins with ‘d’ and ends with ‘ick’). I also found out one of the reasons why people were so stressed out on Friday, it turns out a local woman known to a lot of the extras had committed suicide in her house mid-day. A lot of people were shocked and upset and could not be kept from wondering through set. I also found out the sound and camera crews were up from L.A. while the grips and gaffers were local. There is a definite set hierarchy that I don’t see on our small budget productions. A new stand-in almost accidentally sat with the actors and was warned that would be incredibly bad. I also tried to breach protocol and talk to one of the ADs on set and was shot down. In general it seems the higher up in the chain the more of a jerk the person. The key PA Anne and another PA Sarah, as well as the caterers and extras handlers were all quite wonderful though. I am curious if this rule of “higher up = bigger jerk” is true on all or most sets.. guess I will have to keep my eyes open and find out. All in all, still a good day though. Weird.