Volume 3 Number 04

Copyright 2007 Phillip Moon

Show: Raigne
Date: October 31 and November 1, 2007
Episode: Meet Juan Doe
Location: Raleigh Studios

Catch up time here. I missed a few reports.

On October 31st , Halloween, not so bright, but still early in the morning, (beating the sun by several hours) I pulled into a cemetery parking lot in Hollywood between the Paramount Studios and Raleigh Studios. Several of us had already circled the Hollywood Forever Cemetery several times trying to find our way in. The place was dead, and someone had forgotten to open the gates for the background, but in short order, there were cars lining the lanes near some final resting spots, and background were getting out and loading into the van that would carry us to Raleigh Studios.

There was a double geek alert for me on this show. The star of the show is Jeff Goldblum, who's done quite a few science fiction movies (Jurassic Park (1 and 2), Independence Day, Transylvania 6-5000, The Fly, to name a few) and quite a few non-SF movies as well. During the shoot I had several opportunities to be near Mr. G, and I can tell you that most people would get a nose bleed if they had to be in his orbit all day. Jeff is 6 foot, 4 and one half inches tall. You could get a crick in your neck trying to carry on a conversation with him while looking him in the eyes.

The other person there of interest to me was Linda Park who was Ensign Hoshi Sato on Enterprise (later to be correctly titled, Star Trek: Enterprise). Now put the 5' 5” Enterprise star next to Jeff, who's nearly a foot taller, and you have a sci-fi geek moment.

On our return to the “lot of the dead”, we could not help but see a pattern to the day. On Halloween, we parked in a cemetery, worked on a show about a guy that talks to the dead (though they are not the real dead) and then back to the graveyard to pack up and go home. But at least we get to go home. Many of the folks that go to Hollywood Forever Cemetery make it a one way trip.

Show: Greek
Date: December 15, 2006
Episode: L.A.
Location: Pilot

This was just an odd little shoot. My original call time was bumped up 2 ˝ hours early so that the Director could shoot a scene with the engineering students and teachers (me being a teacher). So having gotten there early, the Director changed his mind, and instead, we sat around for several hours until lunch time.

Not having done a darn thing, we were still fed a nice lunch, and I sat with one of several of the principals and the Director. During lunch, my cell phone received a text message and the Harry Potter theme pierced the noise to alert me of the message. One of the young ladies in the cast heard the ring tone and asked me how to get it, so of course I sat there and explained it to her. She had other things on her mind besides the ring tone though. She was caught in a dilemma as to what she wanted to happen. Did she want the show to be picked up, or did she want to go to China? Sheesh! I should have such dilemmas.

After lunch we went to the set, and discovered holding was in a privet residence. Yep. Someone rented out their house till early evening so we poor background had someplace to sit besides outside. But the shoot runneth over, and we were removed from the house so that they could have a Christmas party, so off to the church next door. I'd like to say that the church was comfy, but I never found out because I was on the street working. But have no fear, because it wasn't too cold and the guy I was with enjoyed talking as much as I do, so we were fine.

At last (and I do mean last) we had our chance to go indoors and shoot the scene for which we were brought in hours early. The scene involved geeky engineering students and teachers who spent much of their time watching two lethal robots rip each other up on a table. One of the robots was made up of buzz saw blades, and the people controlling them (and I use the word loosely) were off camera and safely away from the table, while the background actors were up against the edges just tempting fate. I, at least, was across the room a safe distance from all but the worst of flying limbs.

Show: 7th Heaven
Date: January 3, 2007
Episode: Gimme that old time religion
Location: Santa Monica Studios

7th Heaven is a show I've done a few times now, and it seems always during episodes with cold weather, thus the need for a winter coat, or in this case, my trench coat. That and my hat, make me easy to spot, assuming the Editor doesn't cut me out.

The transient nature of things is once again brought home with the disappearance of the garage that was so artistically created on the stage my last visit. Talk about the need to not form attachments. You spend weeks building a garage, and weeks later, you take it apart and build something else in its place. Now that's job security.

Show: The New Adventures of Old Christine
Date: January 5, 2007
Episode: Undercover Brother
Location: Warner Brothers Studios

This was a day of things. You know. When “things” happen? That kind of thing. The first thing was, that after my near heart attack on my last visit to the WB, I didn't spend all my time wandering all over the studio trying to get from gate 8 to stage 5. I took the short cut, and it was actually short.

Ran into Dan and Debi today. Both are friends that I've made on set. Dan gave me my first tour of the WB, and Debi and I started near the same time. Always nice to run into friends on set.

The crew had wind troubles today. The first “thing” to happen was with one of those thousand dollar flags that soften the sun, block it out, or reflect it, and require a crane to lift, move and position it, got caught up in the wind and swung around ripping a nice sized tear into it. Glad it wasn't me controlling that thing.

The second wind problem was with the “tent” that covers video village. Wind took that down when no one was in it. “Guess we should move that inside.”, someone said. Yup.

The last thing was the trials of a background actor (and having run into this fellow before, I use the term loosely) who came to work late. At the gate, his name wasn't there, so security called in and had him approved. He was told that production said, “Get to the set fast. We need you.” When he got to the set of Old Christine, the first thing he did was get food. He never saw wardrobe, and didn't bother to get his voucher from the AD. In short, he didn't check in.

One hour into the shoot, we have been walking up and down the sidewalk, and this guy stops me and asks who the woman in the red sweater is. I look over, and sure enough, he is talking about Julia Louis-Dreyfus , the star of the show. What's she doing here, he wants to know, and I point out that, well, it is her show, so she has to put some time in, and he turns to me and says, “You mean this isn't Studio 60?”, and I just look at him like he's sayin' “Here's my sign”.

Next thing we know, he's off down the street, runs into holding, gets his stuff, and heads off to who knows where. He shore don't. The AD asked where the guy was going, and we told her, in three part harmony with guitars for backup. I bet this will make a great episode somewhere down line.