They Are Among Us

The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent the day after this shoot:

I’m certain this experience will make it into an Ashleigh Raine book. In fact, Jen would kill me if we didn’t put it in. Before I continue, let me just remind you that this really did happen… No matter how absurd or weird, this is a true story. I jotted down some of the dialogue while I was on the set in fact. And after calling Jen during my lunch break, she couldn’t stop chuckling for an hour.

Okay, with that said, here goes. I’ll spare the boring details like trying to figure out where the hell I was supposed to park and then who the hell I was supposed to check in with. There were only three extras. Usually, there’s at least fifteen and everything’s clearly marked.

“Background, we need you to stand by near the set.” That was my cue. In my blue jeans, green turtle neck, tweed jacket and sensible shoes, I stepped over to the 1971 RV on the soundstage and waited with the other two extras while the lighting guys did some finishing touches and the director talked to his First Assistant about the rehearsal they were about to do. The lead female–her name is DeeDee–was being touched up by make-up. The next sound is “Rehearsal’s up…And…Action!” And DeeDee starts her first line as she steps into the RV.

Mind you, us extras still haven’t been told anything about what this movie is about or what kind of characters we are playing. We’re just standing by, ready to go…wherever going might take us.

“Follow her. Follow her!” The First AD says to me and I obediently follow DeeDee into the RV. We walk slowly to the back where there’s this guy laying down on the floor screaming at us like we’re gonna attack him or something. The guy is in great shape in his fifties or so with stunningly gorgeous blue eyes. His line when we were halfway in was something like, “Get away from me, you buttfuckers!” And he’s really afraid of us. Like we’re gonna eat him or something.

The director shouts, “Cut!” and we all pile out of the RV as the guy on the floor starts laughing. Once off the RV, us extras are looking at each other and saying, “I dunno what we’re doing. Do you know what we’re doing?” Just as we’re standing there scratching our heads, the director goes on the RV to give some notes and the First AD walks over to us.

“Okay. You guys are aliens. You eat collagen. Dr. Norbert on the floor in there is covered in gooey collagen and you’re going to eat him. So look hungry and walk slow and real creepy, okay?”

So us extras look at each other questioningly, but we all realize that yes, we did hear that right. We are aliens and we’re about to eat the guy in the back of the RV.

Then the First AD gets everyone back to where they started from and from there it’s the usual–Director says, “Rolling!” then “Action!” And DeeDee says her line and we all follow her in…

And then as I’m walking toward the terrified, collagen covered Dr. Norbert, I realize that’s he’s Corbin Bernsen. Yes, the very same Corbin Bernsen who was on LA Law and in all those movies, etc. Yeah, him. And I got paid to walk toward him like I was gonna eat him.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting night. I was sad when it was time to go home. I think I’m gonna have to rent the movie when it comes out. It’s called “They Are Among Us”. I mean, after all he’s done, what the hell was Corbin Bernsen doing being eaten by aliens?!

Oh, and as a funny little aside. (I get these from time to time.) On that first rehearsal, when we ran in there without knowing exactly what we were doing, I vaguely heard someone say something like, “…And now they eat him.” And laughingly, Corbin exclaimed, “Start with my penis!”

Here’s a bonus shot from the other scene I was in. As I walked toward the door just before the first rehearsal, I heard some guy sort of ranting to himself. Upon arrival, I discovered it was Mr. Bernsen and he was just practicing his lines…

Carnivale (2)

I didn’t write anything about this episode at the time, but now that I have some screen captures from the DVD, I’ll do my best to remember everything I can about this day.

This episode was called “Hot And Bothered”.

I recall having to sing a hymn as part of the congregation. They’d written it out on cue cards and had us practicing it before we went into the church because they wanted us to memorize it.

See, they did a wide shot where nearly the whole room was in the frame so if there’d been cue cards, the camera would have seen them. The song has faded from my memory, but so far that was the only time I’ve had to memorize something longer than maybe a few words for a scene.

At least I got a better hat this time!

I recall having a character made up in my head such that when Brother Justin accuses the woman in the reddish dress of stealing from the cashbox at work, I was afraid he was talking about me!

The most unfortunate thing about this shoot was that part of the scene landed on the cutting room floor. It was probably in the interest of time, but I’ll probably never know for sure. At the end of the scene as shot, nearly the whole congregation stood up and surged toward the priest, asking to be baptized. I was one of the people from the back who crowded the aisle. What was particularly nifty about that bit was how eerie it felt after the director said, “Cut.”

We’d been randomly hollering “Baptize me!” for what felt like a minute or two waiting for the scene to end. And when it did, the silence after our fervor was eerie, but powerful all at the same time. I mean, we’d been so ‘in the moment’, it really felt like we all really wanted to be baptized. Like we’d come under some religious spell overcome by the urge to be baptized a second time. Crazy, but I absolutely loved it.