"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!!!