Even Extras Go On Vacation!

Well, with the punishing nature of extra work, and when you have a full time job on the side, you need a vacation every now and then. This week finds me down and out in North Carolina, walking Topsail Beach at night, listening to the sounds of the ocean, as the waves break and the wash glints white in the light of the moon. A week to leave the world behind. A week to forget. A week by the ocean...

"Retaking Pelham- The Filming of Taking Pelham 123."

Sunday, May 5th, 2008.

Another opening, another show

In Philly, Boston, or Baltimo'

We're taking Pelham, we're on the go

If you can't keep up, you're reading too slow

Another opening, another show.

I'm back in Manhatten for another movie filming here. "The Taking of Pelham 123." A remake being directed by Tony Scott, brother of Ridley Scott and starring Denzel Washington, John Travolta, and James Gandolfini.

I received the booking call from the casting office last afternoon, and I have to say, I was pretty excited to get it. "The Taking of Pelham" was a project I really wanted to be a part of. So I left work, and got home to pack a bag, thinking I'd catch a 3am train to New York. Except, as I found out, there is no sunday train at 3am. Only one option left. Driving into Manhatten. A first for me. Never driven there before.

I drove through Times Square at my favorite time to be there. The black streets were bathed in the glow of all the huge lit up marquees. Quite by happenstance, I also passed Rockefeller Center. Familiar with the grid pattern of the city. I made my way over to 63rd & Park Ave, where extras holding is again...a church. Universal extras holding.

I was a little startled when I first arrived at holding. The church was closed still, and I was the second extra to arrive. There was a woman sleeping in a doorway, and a square tube of cardboard. Once I started talking to the first extra there, the cardboard began rustling and a face popped out from beneath. Spooked me. "Uh, sorry sir, I didn't know you were there. Just go back to sleep." The head dissapeared back under the cardboard.

There are about 270 extras here today, camped out here in chairs in the gymnsium below the chapel. Very packed space. Signed in, and got some breakfast. Apple slices, orang slices, and some oatmeal to munch. In wardrobe, I was given a tie to wear with my dress shirt and suit.
Forty minutes later, we all walked a few blocks over to set: an intersection, for three or four hours, until noon.

The scene was James Gandolfini coming out of subway steps onto the street, playing the Mayor. The steadicam operator does a trademark Tony Scott move (see Spy Game) where the camera spins around the actor's face. Somewhere in the background, as a blip of a blur, I'm walking the opposite sidewalk as a pedestrian.

Crowd control on set was impossible. Especially on a New York street. Pedestrians kept walking through and staring at the filming. Two black suv's pull up in the scene, some authorites jump out, James Gandolfini confers with them, and they then jump in the suv's which take off.

James Gandolfini has quite a legend and recognizable face in New York, having played Tony Soprano on The Sopranos in NY & NJ. So when he sat for a while in his star chair, many passer-by's were taking his picture and wacing to him.

They did two or three takes from another angle on two grounded cameras, then wrapped that location. Half the extras, mostly the non-union ones, were also wrapped for the day. But the last hundred of us got bussed over to a second filming location in the Bronx. I took the occasion to sleep a little on the bus over, waking up in the Bronx.

Our new holding was a middle school. Much spacier then before's trappings. Grabbed some lunch, and took the pork chop and the pecan pie. At the end of lunch, I got upgraded to be a stand-in. As far as firsts go, that was a big one to me. First time as a stand-in! I was matching a day player who had one line in the scene...well, one line and two sneezes!

So, upgraded to stand-in, I was rushed quickly to set ahead of the extras. The set was a subway train in a station. James Gandolfini was on set for a scene taking place in a subway car where he, as a Giuliani-esque Mayor of the city, first learns about the hijacking of Pelham 123.

I wasn't really needed for standing in. The day player, Jordan, did his own standing in. So I watched from the platform as the crew scurried for half an hour to prep the interior of the subway cars for filming, out of their way. once they started closing the doors, and it looked like the train might be taking off soon, i jumped aboard, being set in the adjacent subway car as they filmed in Gandolfini's car.

Prior to the train departing, there was someone who sat down in our car, trying to nonchantly pretend he was one of the extras. However, the bright yellow and blue clothes he was wearing just screamed "not one of us!" and he was told he'd have to leave, which he did with no fuss.
While they filmed next door, we played passengers riding the subway. The train took off, and we spent the next four hours riding the train as it went baqckwards and forwards along the track between four or five stations in the Bronx.

As we commuted, we got sleepy. Since the cameras were never seeing into our car, we were sitting down and started to drift off. Me too. Everything became a a drowsy haze, blending foggily as drifted in and out of sleep. Wake up. We're travelling forward. Wake up again, we're travelling backwards.

So after I reckon, four hours (can't be sure how long, really), they finished with the interior filming, rushing to complete it by a ceartain deadline. We all left the subway station, and soon hopped on a bus to film at the turnstiles of another subway station. But the sky was clouding ugly, and turning darker, so they decided to film that scene another day.

We were wrapped. Hopped off the bus and walked back to the school holding. Signed out, and took the bus back to 63rd and Park Ave. And new York City's parting gift to me...a $115.00 parking ticket...despite it being a Sunday.

Made my way back to the Lincoln Tunnel entrance pretty easily. Good, because I was worried that I would have trouble finding it, or there'd be a traffic jam ten blocks long. Not the case. Drove home, and that was my day on Pelham 123!!!

Thanks for Reading!!!

Scrambled Extras

It's a mad scramble when you're an extra. Constantly have to be somwewhere at the last minute. Last night I drove home from work after midnight, packed and drove to New York right away to make a 6am calltime. Coming into work at 3:00 that afternoon, I had no idea I would be doing any of this at the time. That's the world of an extra. It's a mad scramble.

Don't Get Short With Me.

I am reminded that not all blog posts need to be long ones by definition, so in the spirit of that I will give any who read this a break. So here goes:

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

That's all. Short, with apologies to William Shakesphere.

A New York State of Mind

There are four constants for any trip I make to New York. 1. There will be a lack of public bathrooms available. 2. I am guaranteed to get lost at least once trying to get somewhere. Every time, I come out of a subway, I am disoriented about which direction is uptown and which direction is downtown. Ergo, I usually end up going the wrong direction for a block, and then the backtracking gives away the game that I’m not a New Yorker. 3. My feet will be killing me from a day of traipsing all over the island, and finally… 4. My trip to New York will be acting related.

Tuesday evening I was down in Greenwich Village in Manhattan working on a film called “Duplicity” starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Tom Wilkinson, and Billy Bob Thornton. I arrived an hour early in the village, and signed in once they had everything ready. It was a slower shoot. I was only used as deep background for the night shoot, walking on a street, and quite literally, walking in circles. Although Julia Roberts and Clive Owen were both on set for the scene, but I was so far back, that I never saw either.
The reality is that not every job is going to be as fulfilling as the last. It’s not possible. They are going to be variances. Not as exciting, but that’s the truth about extra work, and you take the good with the bad because you love doing it!

Towards the end of the night, standing on my mark a block away from the scene, the punchiness of a long night awake began to get with me. Where you just don’t care. Not a lot of extras around me to talk to in between takes, I kept pacing back and forth singing Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” quietly. The punchiness. It’s like being mildly drunk without drinking, and it’s common on a set. Some of the good things that also happened during the shoot, the casting director came around and greeted each of us, and it was nice to meet her, and look forward to working with her again in the future. And also for the new friends, fellow extras that you meet on set. The extra community seems to be a small world. For DC and Philadelphia. New York is a world unto itself, and I’m only scratching the surface there! Good things to come, means New York. It’s becoming more and more my center of attention over the past year and a half.

With that attention, comes the second half of my trip to New York. Getting over to 88th street…eventually. Once we were wrapped at 5:30 in the morning I made my way up to 79th st and Riverside. The bike path there along the edge of the Hudson, with New Jersey on the other side is one of my favorite places to be in the city. At night, with the skyscrapers of New Jersey lit up and reflecting on the water, it’s very beautiful, very peaceful. Unfortunately, I didn’t get there until after sun up, but still I strolled a mile along the edge of the Hudson, singing Billy Joel again along the way. Another favorite spot is Times Square at 3am-5am when the streets are empty, and the huge lights on signs reflect and blink on the black pavement. And lastly is St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A place where I enjoy going to for a little peace and prayer. I wound up there after Riverside, but didn’t have much time to stay before heading out again.

I arrived back up around 88th st. just in time for the open call Sylvia Fay Casting was holding for the upcoming movie “Brooklyn’s Finest.” Starring Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin and Richard Gere. In addition to being an open call, it also turned out to be an open enrollment into Sylvia Fay Casting. So this has been a productive trip for sure! After that I visited the Screen Actors Guild office, and then the office of castingnetworks.com which were stops I could have done without. Hopped back on the NJ Transit for home, and when I did get home, being awake and walking around New York for 24 hours, you better believe I crashed for a long time!!!