Brothers and Sisters

Good golly it has been ages since my last gig.

Okay, Brothers and Sisters. It’s a new TV show with a huge ensemble cast. There were familiar faces plus a few I recognized: Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Balthazar Getty.

And I must say everyone was looking wonderful–despite the shot being a funeral.

This was my first trip to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and I wish I’d had more time to explore. I suppose I’ll have to go back in order to pay my respects to William Desmond Taylor, Rudolph Valentino, Florence Lawrence and others. I did, however see Mel Blanc’s grave. That was the street I was instructed to park my Viper on when I arrived.

My trip through wardrobe wasn’t surprising. I always try to wear something that might spark interest in diversity, so it was no surprise when I had to change. Every show loves my plain black pants. (Thanks Mom for buying those for me in, like, 1990)(They’re good pants, and I wore them so infrequently that they’re still black!)(And now that every costumer under the sun loves them, I dry clean them to keep them black!) The costumer gave me a black shirt with beige flowers. She sounded apologetic when she gave it to me, but I really didn’t care. It wasn’t ugly. It was considerably more conservative than I usually wore, but it wasn’t a bad shirt.

My biggest objection to anything was simply that I didn’t want to be wearing black on a 90+ degree day outside in the sun, but as this was a funeral, there was no chance of wearing anything other than black.

Once through wardrobe, I was instructed to stay with my car. No biggie. I pulled out my blanket and layed it on the grass over some nice people’s graves and sat down to read a book–A Horrible History of England by Terry Deary. It wasn’t for another hour or so that I pulled out my folding chair. And then, of course, it was time to go to the set.

All the cars got turned around and in line to go about a block down the cemetery road to provide a backdrop for the memorial. It was going to be a day of leaving the car parked while I worked. Cool… ‘Cause ‘drive-forward, back-up’ in my Viper can get super expensive.

When everyone was being placed, I did my best to get in the shade. At that, I succeeded, however, during the first shot, I was literally behind one of those standing bouquets of flowers. I’ve learned never to take offense and to just let the day go on as it will.

Wise choice. As it turned out hours later, there was even one shot where they gave me my very own mark on the grass. Oddly enough, in order to frame the shot properly, I was standing in front of the line of cast members. Weird, very weird. But nifty in the same manner.

There were several shots of the memorial itself and several more shots of everyone breaking up and going to our cars. And I think I really had the toughest job of all. See, once the flowers were gone, I had a straight shot of Balthazar Getty. So there I stood, for hours on end, forced to look at such a beautiful man. Oh, the hardship! (OMG I wanted to call Jen just to tell her how hot he was in person. Very intense in his acting, yet easy with a smile and a joke between takes. I have one word to describe him: Yummy!)

Anyway, somehow, I ended up working in every dispersal shot except one. Depending on the footage they edit together, you might be able to see me walking away in both directions!

I mentioned it, but no one seemed to care. And because of that, I assumed the shots weren’t very wide and if I’m seen at all, I’m only a blur. Fine by me. I get paid whether I’m on camera or not. It’ll just be funny if can pick myself out of both directions.

I wish I had more action and adventure on this one–seeing as how it’s my first one back from that bizarre, extended hiatus I unintentionally took. Oh well… I still have yet to cash in my ticket to stunt driving school (And I gotta do that this year!) Hopefully, I’ll get a few more exciting gigs soon.