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November 30, 2005Episode: Daddy's Little Girl Location: Universal Studios The sound stages that these shows build their sets on are big. The demisions of one stage, as stated by a sign in the stage, are 119 feet long, 195 feet wide and 41 feet and 4 inches high. You could put a few good sized two story homes with yards in there and still have room for a mother-in-law out back. The large access doors are almost 23 feet by 23 feet. Big enough to get most anything you need, into or out of the stage. The people access doors are a little bigger than normal, but also much heaver, thicker than a normal door, and they all come in twos. An inner door and an outer door, all to keep at bay, the outside world and it's sounds. By each door, inside, in between, and out, is a red light. Some of them flash, others just shine a steady warning that when they are on you don't open the door. You don't open that inner door, even if you are in between them. Can't go in, can't go out. Not until that light goes out. Set pieces are large and heavy, made of two by fours, plywood and what ever else is needed to make them look good. Many of them have removable walls, so that cameras can be placed outside the room and still give the impression that you the viewer is standing in the room watching the action. Those walls are often, but not always built with wheels that make the job of moving them easier, but more than once I've seen grips disconnecting and carrying away one of these walls with out such advantages. Another thing that is removed often is the door. Sometimes it is just easier to film without a door in the way. Another of the things I have notices are the windows, glass dividers and glass walls. Reflections are one of the cameras worst problems. How many times have you shot a picture at home or elsewhere and had the flash flair back into the lens, or caught your image in the window. Now while that does sometimes happen on a T.V. show or movie, it happens less than in could because the crews have a very simple solution to this problem. Pivots. The windows, glass walls and dividers are all on pivots. Almost all glass surfaces can be tilted off center to get rid of an unwanted glare or reflection. On one set I was on, I noticed that most of the glass panes were tilted, not flush with the walls. If necessity is the mother of invention, then she has mothered quite a few inventions on the Hollywood set. Phil... |
November 29, 2005Episode: Sex Kills Location: 20th Century Fox House is a medical drama and so the set is the hospital where the show takes place. There are four floors to the hospital, and if you exit the elevators through the front doors, you enter the lobby, and by exiting through the back doors, you enter the fourth floor where the offices of Dr. House, M.D. reside. All of our filming took place on the fourth floor. I was an Administrator, though that really just means, I was a business type with a briefcase. The briefcase while not glued to my hand, is always near by, because if I went on stage, it always went with me. Sometimes in my right hand, sometimes in my left. Arm bent just a little, or extended and swinging, the briefcase becomes part of who I am when I walk the halls. I've noted before how these sets often look so real that you forget you are in a sound stage. As I walked the halls of the set, I came across a vending machine with candy bars, a news stand with papers and chips, and a hall way with stairs that went up to nowhere and down to naught. I found my self wondering where the steps went and if I had change for a candy bar. BG holding was in the cafeteria set. It looked like a hospital cafeteria, but no food was allowed in there because it is a set, and not a place for eating. Not unlike real hospitals. Many of the Background actors have been with the show from the beginning, and as a result, they have name tags with their pictures and names on them. Some of them have their own lab coats and stethoscopes. Over time, they become as much a part of the show as the people who are featured, known by cast and crew and clearly having a sense of belonging. My big task on this show was to walk toward camera in an opening shot, look at my watch, and peel to the right off camera. Peel is the operative word here, as I was doing what is called a banana. A wide right turn with a bit of left spin at the start. This type of turn makes sure that you are in frame or get coverage by the camera before you slip out of picture. None of that gave me a hard time, though the looking at my watch part did. My instructions re the watch were, on action, walk toward camera, look at watch and peel off right. In the first few takes, I started walking, looked at my watch and made the turn still looking at my watch. The 2nd AD told me to make the look at the watch faster, and so on the next take, I tried to look faster. Alas, I was still trying to read the watch, making it hard to just bring it up, glance and put it down before I was off camera. All of this was remedied by moving me back a few steps, giving me more time to look at the watch, drop my arm and make my banana turn. Who knew that banana peeling to the right while watch watching would be such a slippery slope. Phil... |
November 28, 2005Episode: Pilot Location: Farmers and Merchants Bank - 4th and Main, LA Here is a new show, and this is the pilot. Cops and robbers show in the style of “24” and other shows today that take the whole season to complete the story arc. Bad guys plan on pulling off a million dollar Heist and the cops want to stop them. Think Oceans 11 meets Beverly Hills 90210. We were shooting on location in Downtown L.A. at 5:00 AM in the morning. I got lost. There are streets in downtown L.A. that I don't belong on that early in the morning. I got to see some of them before finding my way to set. Yippie. We were filming both the scene before the robbery and the aftermath. I was so far away from the camera in the first shots, we couldn't really hear the action call, and finally stopped before we were completely out of range of hearing cut. On many of our shots, the streets would end up with extra bodies that didn't belong to the show. This is a live location on a downtown L.A. street, and while you might get some of the folk to wait until you're done shooting a scene, many people will just walking into the shot and keep going. During some shots, that's O.K. because it really doesn't interfere with anything, and what can you do anyway. As long as they just walk through no harm, no foul. During the second scene I was in, we had a fellow in a world of his own, dancing and talking as he walked down the street. The on site police officer walked toward him, but the fellow kept moving, so he didn't try to rush him along. On this scene I was involved in a crossing action called a foreground wipe. This is when a BG person walks so close to the camera (with in inches) that you could be nude and no one watching the footage would ever know. The last scene I was in was of the dance school. The school was on one of the corners of the block were were on, and the cameras were inside looking out or into mirrors that would show the people outside the big showroom windows. Our job was to make it a busy street. They really didn't need us, what with half the population of L.A. passing the windows and getting on the buses on the corner. One poor fellow ended up behind a bunch of us BG waiting to make our crosses, and finally asked, “What's with the line?” I told him we were shooting a T.V. show. He asked if he could be in it, and I told him to just keep walking and he'd get there. His wife poked him in the ribs and told him to, “Just get a move on.” Phil... |
November 22, 2005Episode: The Ghost Next Door Location: Universal Studios  This is one of those nights when nothing much happens. Often a show needs certain shots that do not involve a major character in the shoot, but end up linking the star to an action elsewhere. In this episode of Ghost Whisperer, the main character of Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) will look out the window of her antique shop and see a man enter the Java shop across the town square. He will park his truck, enter the shop and come out a moment later with coffee to sit down at a table. Jennifer Love Hewitt is on set at another stage and will never be seen by those of us on this set.The main idea in this kind of shot is to get the first part, where he parks his truck and enters the shop, and then the second shot of him coming out and sitting down to drink his coffee. The background on this shot is just making crosses until the director calls “Cut”. I have been at this almost four months now and it shows, because I didn't need anymore than my start mark to do the crosses. On the first shot, (wearing my hat) I walk across the foreground near the camera and wait a few beats and then cross again, and then cross again. Because the camera is focused on an event fifty feet away, I am a blur. Add to this that I removed my hat the second pass, and it looks like a different person. Honestly, I could be wearing a wolf man costume in that cross and no one would know. The second shot, I walk away from the camera, around the fountain, meet up with another BG person and march off camera right. Then I took my hat off and crossed from right to left until the director called cut. All of this took about an hour. All the BG folk sat in holding on New York Street for about three hours before they came back and grabbed about six of us and sent the rest home. I get a lot of reading done on set. Phil... |
November 21, 2005Episode: Wasted Location: CBS Studios This is the first time I have worked a CSI show that put me as background in the lab. I was a CSI Tech. That means I got to wear a white lab coat and make crosses. I made a cross in front of the Star of the show Gary Senise at the top of one of the scenes as he leaves the elevator. It occurred to me that I could write a coffee table book about how to make your home look thousands of dollars posher, with plastic, wood and tape. Alas, it only looks that way on T.V. If you check out the steel girders that make up some of the structure of the CSI: NY office (new this season) you would notice that they were make of wood, not high grade steel. The etching in the glass that makes up so much of the office is tape, and the marble walls are sheets of plastic. But it looks like a million dollars. What is real are the fun little electronic gizmo's and microscopes. That office has many of the devices that make up a real forensics lab. I suspect some of the really expensive stuff may be shells with the works left out, but most of it is the genuine article. Oh, by the way, after walking around as a CSI tech for the first half of the day, I changed into my second costume. That of a CSI corpses.  That's right, I am a dead body on CSI:NY. I am in two scenes in the coroner's office and I am almost certain that one of them will be cut up into a montage of images that may or may not pick me up. When the Coroner is examining a young lady with green paint all over her body, you may or may not see me in the background on a rather cold metal examination table. The sheet is from ankle to chest, and I sport a nifty toe tag (which I asked to keep, and is in my collection of things I have from my BG experience.)In the second scene, the Coroner is examining another young lady with bullet holes in her, and I am on a table behind him being examined by another tech and a policeman. At some point I hope I am visible.  Being a dead body on CSI requires that one shed one's clothes so as to appear to be totally without. There were four bodies in this episode, mine being one of them, the afore mentioned young ladies and another male who ends up in a drawer at one point and on the table at another point. He and I were the less pampered of the four bodies. We jumped onto cold tables, where as the young ladies had electric blankets to warm up the tables. Of course, where I wore boxers about the size of swim trunks, the young ladies wore bikini briefs that were skin toned and marginal, and while they did not have tops to wear, they did have the latest in state of the art pasties for a measure of modesty. I am also pretty sure that both young ladies were being paid a lot more than I was.In truth, robes were on them within seconds if they were getting up for any reason, and there were never any breach of good behavior on the part of anyone on set. Though...  As I lay there in a scene that seemingly took forever to shoot (over and over) I was submitted to an examination each time the camera's rolled and the young lady BG artist playing a Coroner Tech and the fellow playing a cop. The sheet was lifted, arms and legs were poked and prodded, as was my head and torso. By the time we were done filming the scene, she was in line as only the third person who has been that up close and personal with me, right behind my wife and doctor. She admitted that it has been a while since she was that intimate with man. Ah, what one does for one's craft.Turns out the crew has a somewhat warped sense of humor. While the montage was being filmed, music was played in the background (it will be replaced by something suitable for T.V.) that reflected a twisted frame of mind on the sound mans part. Each time the song was different, but I clearly recall hearing “Good Vibrations” as one of the song choices. The crew were more up on the music selection than I, and would shake their heads as each piece was played and identified. Much of it fell into the category of boy meets girl type of music. You know, boy meets girl, boy autopsies girl, boy lives happily ever after! Come on. There's a chick flick in there somewhere. Phil... |
November 18, 2005Episode: Patient X Location: Warner Brothers Studios Here's what you see. The scene opens on an elevator and people come out. The guest star steps out and sees someone she works with. They meet and walk to her office. People pass by, or walk behind them as they pass, and it looks like a very busy office. Not too noisy. Here's what you don't see. The Director calls action and background start walking. Then the director yells the actors name. She steps out of the elevator and stops to look around. Then the director yell the other actors name and he steps into view, they see each other and start the walk to her office talking. The camera operator, his guide, the sound boom guy, and another person whose job escapes me, are all walking backward avoiding walls and lights. The camera man is carrying a steady cam (a rig that has counter balances that keep the camera from jiggling as he walks) and the pace is such that if his heel caught on anything, he would come tumbling down. The director, Timothy Busfield (of Thirtysomething fame) can yell at the top of this scene, because he knows that the sound of him yelling will be replaced with an elevator noise, and the sound of people walking and talking. Only the sound of the actors dialog will actually make it to the screen. In this scene, I step into the hallway just after they (and this camera and sound crew) pass my position. Until then, I stand only about two feet from the hall next to a light stand with a three foot light extended into the hallway near the ceiling. I step into the hallway walking as if I was going this fast all along, and go to the end of the hallway and turn a very tight corner. The corner is tight because this is the fourth floor of a Warner Brothers Studios office building and people are really working here. The end of the hallway is a ply-wood and plexiglass construct that looks real, but hides the rest of the hallway and offices just beyond it. Several times during the filming, people who work on that floor had to wait around corners and behind doors for the shot to finished before they could go on with their day. Funny how we are all just waiting to make our entrances. Of course, not everyone has a director to yell action. Phil... |
November 17, 2005Episode:#104 Location: Sony Studios This is episode four of In Justice, a new legal show that will air next year as a replacement show. That is assuming that there will be a show canceled by then on the network they normally work. The scene I was involved in was shot in a small room with eleven other people. We were the happy jurors who send an innocent man to jail in a flash back scene. There are four actors and eight BG actors in the deliberation room, along with two cameras/operators and the people who wrangle the cables so no one trips over them. We are seated around an oblong table, the jury foreman at one end (me at the other). Next to him on one side is the guest star who plays the jury member who is browbeat into going with a guilty verdict. On the other side, just two seats down is the unsure juror, and almost across from her just a seat away from me is the angry juror. These are the actors. The rest of us are background. We nod, frown, sake our heads and do our walla walla's. What is a walla walla? Well it is the same as a rhubarb and a plastic avocado. No these are not new dances. They are words that are useful for creating indistinguishable mutterings or background “talk”. If my voice is heard in the final production saying, “Look, up in the sky...” then the film company must pay me more money. The way to avoid that is by having BG people saying a word or words that just become noise. The other advantage to this is that the BG actor can say this word over and over, and still do whatever action is needed and not have to try to remember what he/she is saying or for that mater focus on “talking” at all. Just keep saying walla walla, and your good. By the way, another technique that works is to say your ABC's. You don't have to think to do it, and it is easily repeatable. Who knew that all those years ago, when I was learning my ABC's, I was preparing to become a background actor. Well, walla walla walla, Phil... |
November 16, 2005Episode: Privilege Location: Sony Studios You will have heard me say this before, but sometimes BG actors have a lot of time on their hands. On some shows, you come in, get food and go to work. Sometimes that is not the case. Today was such a time. I showed up at noon, and because the filming unit was still on location, I waited until almost 1:00 PM to get my voucher and go to holding. At 1:30 PM we broke for lunch. At 2:30 PM lunch was over and during the next thirty minutes the crew got things set up for the filming to be done at the studio. Around 7:00 PM I was called to the set, by 8:00 PM I was done. At 9:30 I was signed out and by 10:00 PM I was home. Sony Studios is two miles from my home. Nice and close. This is not an untypical day. They do happen like this enough that BG actors come prepared. Most of us have books or magazines to read. Puzzles are popular as are some of the hand held games. There are also those who come prepared to enjoy their own brand of entertainment. Today, one BG actor had her personal hand held DVD player and was watching the making of Star Wars Episode 3. Lap top computers are also big. They are good for games, DVD's, writing, and in the case of the 2nd 2nd AD on this show, excellent for editing the movie your directing. I take books, magazines and my Pocket PC, which I use to keeps notes that end up in these logs. But still this is Hollywood, and some things make it fun to work a set even when you sit around all day doing nothing and getting paid for it. The guest star on this episode of Close to Home was Connor Trinneer. To those of us who are Star Trek Fans, he was Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III – Chief Engineer on Star Trek: Enterprise. I sat in a cubical just behind the actor in the only scene I filmed today. What was funny was I recognized the directors voice. I had heard it before, but I was having trouble placing it, and why would I recognize a directors voice anyway. It's not like I know many directors. At one point the director came onto set where I could see her, and she even looked familiar. Short and petite with brown hair and ... and that voice. And then it hit me. That voice belonged to another Chief Engineer. Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres of Star Trek: Voyager played by Roxann Biggs-Dawson. That made the day for me. Ahead warp factor 5. Phil... |
November 9, 2005Episode:? Location: Sony Studios There were a few things about this set that were different from other sets, and that is what this log is about. Most of the sets I've been on have been good sets. They treat background well and you leave feeling like you could come back and be happy with that. King of Queens was not that kind of set. When all was said and done, you left feeling like you would like to come back. The first person I almost always run into is the 2nd 2nd AD. This is the person who deals most with the background people, signing them in and keeping charge of them. Jerri was our 2nd 2nd AD. When I went to get my voucher (this is the form that is used to get me paid.) Jerri also handed me a sheet of paper. Here are snippets from the paper. Background Artists Wednesday, November 9, 2005 Welcome to King of Queens! 2nd 2nd AD is Jerri 2nd AD is Chris 1st AD is Steve You will be working in one scene (Scene P) which is a night exterior that we will shoot here on the lot.... From here, she explains the rest of the scene and also where the restrooms are, notes on wardrobe, where the changing areas are, notes on craft service and meals, and then ends it with: Most importantly HAVE FUN! You are a very important part of our show and we respect you as professionals. This was a first. I have never had a show do this before, and there was one other thing she did that was unique. It had to do with the voucher. There are two kind of vouchers on a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) show. Non-Union and Union (SAG). I am not in the SAG union. Not because I don't want to be, but because you have to get three SAG vouchers to join the union. Of course, the way you normally get a SAG voucher is to be a SAG member. (Anyone remember that book/movie Catch 22?) You might also get a SAG voucher if you are hired to play a featured background role and if you are given lines to say on screen, you automatically are given the right to join. But there is one other way to get a voucher. If a SAG member who is hired as background does not show up for the shoot, his or her voucher may be given away to a non-union BG actor. Jerri had a rather neat way of handling this. Once we were all signed in and roll was taken, there was one BG person (a SAG member) who did not show up. She put all of the names of the non-union BG in a sack and had a SAG BG actor pull a name out. That person turned in her non-union ($56) voucher for the SAG voucher ($122). I am ready to go back to King of Queens. Phil.. |
November 7, 2005Episode: Long Days Journey into Stan Location: Warner Brothers Studios One of the things that happens a lot on sitcoms is the prerecording of a segment or scene. Some things are easier done that way. The car scene in That 70's Show I was on is one example. It took quite a few takes to get it, and better to do that without a live audience. The Auction scene in Freddie, and the outdoor scene in Crumbs were a couple of others that were best shot w/o an audience. Come tape night, when the audience is there, the prerecord scene is brought out and the folks get to see it as it will be in the final cut of the show. Add in their laughter (one hopes there will be laughter) and you have an hour cut off the time the audience has to sit there for taping. That is what we did on Old Cristine. We shot the movie theater scene without an audience. Of course, we were using the audience seating (commonly referred to as bleachers, though they almost always end up being seats, or chairs) so if we had done it on the night of taping with a live audience, we would have had to reserve one third of the bleachers for background, or kicked them out for the shot. An the two scenes shot took a couple of hours, which would have tried anyones patience. Worse yet, we would have had to share. Yes, we had something to share. We were shooting a movie theater scene, and what kind of scene would that have been w/o popcorn, candy and drinks. Too bad I had just had dinner. Most of us waited till “action” was called to eat our popcorn or candy and drink our warm coke, sprite or diet cokes, but who can just sit there and not nibble on popcorn when it is sitting in your lap. I practically had to push the car seat back just to drive home. And when they were done shooting the scene and were checking us out, they gave away all the candy. Boxes of candy. Think of all the happy little tykes who were on set that day, attending the theater with us. More than one of them were likely bouncing off the walls when they got home. I saw one cool act of kindness, during the shoot. One of the kids dropped his popcorn between takes and littered the floor with it. Now BG actors will tell you that this is the kind of thing that makes them nervous, because we are so low on the food chain that it is not unlikely that we will get yelled at, or even fired for such things. One of the principal actors standing near by, called over one of the AD's and pointed out the spill, saying he had bumped into the kid and caused the spill. That' class. Phil... |
November 4, 2005Episode: My Big Bird Location: An L.A. Collage The nice thing about a car call is, I am driving my car to the set, so if I am an “attending Dr. with Car”, I get paid $15.00 extra for doing what I was going to do anyway. When we started filming, the first shots were of one of the doctors being caught up in traffic. There were fifteen of us with cars, and our job was simple. Seven of us (myself included) blocked the good doctors car in, and the other eight drove by keeping us from moving, thus keeping the good doctor parked against his will. A few takes and we were done. That takes care of the “...with Car” part of the day. The attending doctors were attending a tribunal involving the four young stars of the show. Drs. J.D. Dorian, Elliot Reid and Christopher Turk, and nurse Carla Espinosa have let a patient die, and must sit through a hearing to determine their level of culpability. Zach Braff (Dr. J.D. Dorian) stood upon his chair and suggested to all who could hear, (and it was a captive audience) that going out and seeing a movie this weekend would be a good way to relax. He personally thought we should all go see “Chicken Little”. I suspect that his doing the voice of Chicken Little may have something to do with his choice of pictures. During the next six hours of filming (all of it sitting in the stadium seats of a collage lecture room) the four stars entertained the cast, crew and background with songs, comedy riffs and assorted silliness. Zach (as Dorian) referred to his tendency to sum up events in the characters life during several shots. While not scripted, it could still make it into the show. Donald Faison (playing Dr. Christopher Turk) would break into song, and the occasional comedy bits. He spoke of having to be Lando Calrissian when he and his friends played Star Wars, even though he wanted to be Han Solo because he (Donald) was black. He had real hopes of pretending to be Darth Vader until Vader blew it with the line, “I am your father Luke.” Back to Calrissian. I rather enjoyed the fact that the director encouraged the cast to ad-lib and try out their own lines. One of the actors playing the hospital's morgue doctor wanted to try out a few lines of his own. He comes in with information for the panel of doctors and makes an excuse for his tardiness. Here are some of his takes: Take 1: Sorry I'm late, I got my thumb stuck in the blood drain, and usually when that happens... Take 2: Sorry I'm late, I got my pirate costume stuck on a cadaver and couldn't get it off. Take 3: Sorry I'm late, I dropped the keys to my Miata in a body, and couldn't find them. And last but not least, Take 4: Sorry I'm late, I got in a wedgy war with a cadaver... I lost. Phil... |
November 1, 2005Episode: Christmas Location: Northshore Studios This is a tight set. We are told when we arrive, that the security guards watch BG actors to make sure that no one wanders off where they do not belong, i.e., you are either in holding, or on set. Anywhere else and you will not be allowed back to shot other episodes. That said, it was a good set to work. The crew treated the BG well and fun was had by all. I don't watch 7th Heaven, too saccharin for me, but the cast and crew seem happy and work well together, creating a nice set to work on. Wardrobe was the biggest surprise to me. One of the wardrobe men was a fellow that looked like he could play a biker, complete with tattoos, long hair and beard. The kilt, however, was vary unbikerish. Wardrobe people as a group tend to dress in styles that make you scratch your head. It is hard to describe the look, but it usually includes conflicting styles worn at the same time. Not all of them dress this way, but enough that it seems like a uniform. These are the people who make sure that the rest of use are wearing clothes that are appropriate for the show, and, as a general rule, they do a fantastic job. If you pay attention to what they say and how they make their decisions, you will learn to dress just right for whatever show you are going to shoot on. Still, Kilts? This was 7th Heavens Christmas show, and they were shooting on the downtown set. The normally outdoor set had dark covers over it to lend it an overcast Christmasy look, and water was sprayed on the ground to give it a wet, overcast Christmasy look. At the end of the downtown set, there was a manger set up, complete with angel, and wise people. The baby Jesus was being held between shots by one of the teenage girls who calmed him down before handing him back to a bearded Joseph who scared the poor thing. Mary had yet to arrive. She would be riding up to the manger on a donkey. There was a donkey handler who donned a beard to lead them into the scene. The donkey performed flawlessly, never being a cause of yet another take. There was a sheep, or to be more accurate, a dog in sheep clothing. The dog was well behaved and was rewarded often by its trainer. The baby did a few takes and decided he would no longer put up with Joseph of the big beard, and the girl took him off stage, and replaced him with a twin. The twin was more co-operative and in a much better mood. Still, between planes, car alarms honking and babies crying, it took a while to shoot the scene. There were shots of happy shoppers going from one store to another, and smiling inanely. I tried to tell the AD's that not everyone was thrilled to see the holiday season. Some of us who have worked retail for fifteen years were just as pleased to see it pass, but in 7th Heavens world, everyone smiled when they shopped. Talk about make believe! In the end, some of us lucky holiday shoppers became holiday singers, and standing before the manger we cranked out “O' Come all ye Faithful”, with candles in hand and a recording to match. It took a few tries to remember all the words and keep time with the recording (which they turned off so it would not interfere with the shot). Myself and a woman BG seemed to be the only two with choir training, and we took it upon ourselves to force the group to keep time and start on pitch. The poor sound man knew sound, but couldn't direct to save his life. And I thought retail started celebrating the holidays early. Phil... |
| Copyright 2005 By Phillip Moon |
