Learning From Ghosts

I’ve shared a lot of my paranormal experiences here already, so if you missed them, please scroll down. Those are the biggest ones so far.

Anyhow, what I want to post about this time is a particular ghost I met in college. Being a theatrical lighting technician, I spent a lot of hours alone in darkened theaters. Because I worked in the Lighting & Sound shop, I had keys to various parts of the building that I’d need to get into in order to do my job. There were three theaters and I designed lighting for shows in all three.

Being a lighting designer means that when rehearsal is done at 11PM it’s your time to program the show over the night hours. The stage needs to be dark and it was best to work alone. I could get the show programmed faster without distraction that way even if the show needed more than one night to get done.

Usually, the light board was set up in the middle of the audience until opening night, but sometimes, I did all the programming from the light booth even though the sightlines weren’t the best up there.

Now imagine being the only person in the whole building…and being locked in. Sure, I didn’t have the only key, but whenever I thought I heard someone else, I investigated. Darkened theaters are dangerous and I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Whenever someone would come on stage (sometimes the costumers worked late, too), I always brought up enough light for them to see whatever they needed until they were done and back out of the theater. Common courtesy.

Okay, during my time in this particular theater building, I’d heard a lot of different ghost stories–one night, myself and another lighting technician even got into a very long and interesting conversation focused solely on how creepy that darn place was around 3AM–but I never physically experienced anything major the whole time I was there.

Psychically…well…that’s a different story.

To my knowledge, every time something unexplainable happened, it got blamed on a particular ghost. Apparently, the guy had committed suicide on stage in the 70s. I posted a little about him earlier.

I did not, however, post what I learned from him. The most important part of his haunting of that building. Just the other night, I was talking about him with my husband and he found it fascinating, so here I am posting about it.

The very moment I set foot on the property, I could feel the ghost. As I walked closer to the building, he got stronger and stronger. Once inside the building, he got overwhelming.

Unless I acknowledged his presence.

Yeah. If I looked at him and said hello, he left me alone.

Once I figured that out, it seemed so absurd, but I tested my theory the next few days when I’d go there and sure enough. No matter where I sensed his presence, if I acknowledged him, he’d leave me alone. Whether I was outside the building or all the way in and down the hallway. The moment I said hello, he would fade.

So, I asked around to see if anyone knew more about his legend. Apparently, in life, he felt invisible. Had no friends, no one noticed him.

I guess that was all a million times worse in death.

He wasn’t mean, though. Just quiet. He wanted to be an actor, but that wasn’t going so well and he had very low self-esteem–which also didn’t help much. I don’t recall the particular incident that sent him over the edge to suicide, but still. Poor guy was stuck there even more invisible in death than he had been in life.

I really felt for him, then. And never failed to greet him each day. Of course, if I didn’t or was a little slow on the greeting, he’d be the most annoying person anyone could ever meet.

Imagine a two or three year-old under your feet, constantly jabbering to you, even singing something like “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” (…starting somewhere around infinity) and doing cartwheels and hopping and skipping and making faces at you and shouting on either side of you. “Do you see me? Hello? I’m here. Hello? Can you see me? Why aren’t you seeing me? Say something. Please, say something. I’m right here. Just say hello, please. I’m not leaving until I know you know I’m here. Where are you going? Hello? Hello? Hello? I’m here. Hello?”

Freakin’ unimaginably annoying…(but only if you’re sensitive.)

And then the moment I said hello, he backed away, satisfied, even pleased.

Day after day, I experimented with him. If I was walking in alone, I’d take the time to either ask how he’s been or tell him what I was going to be doing that day and to come visit me later on or whatever. As our ‘relationship’ progressed, I was able to tune him in more clearly, but never crystal clear. My ability just isn’t that detailed all the time. I do the best with what I’ve got, but it’s far from perfect.

He’d laugh at me on days when I really couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. He’d usually say something like, “You’re not having a good day with me today, huh? That’s okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then he’d fade away.

Whenever I saw him in my psychic sight, he was mostly a head and torso with legs only to just above the knee. For some reason, I rarely get arms past the elbows and legs past the knees in my psychic sight. Faces also don’t always appear and when they do are somewhat vague…as though only there for showing emotion rather than what the person actually looked like.

Sometimes, he was just a cloud of energy that I recognized as his without needing to see him at all. Like he learned that I’d know he was there whether or not he looked like a person.

I haven’t been back to see him in about eight years. I wonder if he’d greet me the moment I set foot on the property or if he’s even still around. Perhaps someday I’ll go visit him and find out. Consider that a reason for an update to this post.

I am still trying to piece together my theories on person-shaped entities versus those whom I sense as energy clouds. The ones who appear person-shaped when I first meet them, but then fade into cloud shapes tend to be the most sentient. Strangely, the ones whom I see fully (with legs below the knee and arms below the elbow) tend to be non-sentient or residual. The ones whom I sense as clouds when I first meet them are usually a lot weaker than the ones who appear person-shaped at first and sometimes I can’t tune into them at all other than simply recognizing their presence.

I don’t know what any of that means, but given my experiences and ability, I plan to piece more of it together so that I might understand it and help others understand as well. Like, is there really a correlation between the shapes entities take on or has it just been coincidence all this time? It’s not like my sight is crystal clear. It may just be the way my brain processes each event that gives the shape. I don’t know, but I hope to find out so that I can use that knowledge.

That’s another thing… I know that just because I sense something or get an image, voice or emotion from something, doesn’t mean it’s concrete. Just because I think the ghost is trying to shake my hand doesn’t mean he’s not trying to bite it or yank it off my arm or even something else entirely which has nothing to do with my hand. I honestly don’t know what the ghost is trying to do, but I do know what is being projected.

Just like when I ‘danced’ with “James”. For all I know, he could’ve been trying to throw me out the window, yet I felt like he was laughing and dancing with me. I sensed him and his movements and what he was saying, but I fully accept that I could’ve been totally wrong. The difference is that I also ‘felt’ I was correct in what I was sensing, so I went with it. At no time did I sense danger, so I interacted with him.

But really, for all I know, that icky thing in the storage room could have been him, too. He could’ve killed himself in the storage room or been a murder victim in there and didn’t want me to sense that residual energy. It’s not like I ever got a clear answer on how and when he died. There were contradictions on that topic. There are just so many possibilities and not many ways to check my answers. Therein lies the issues of credibility and scientific collection of paranormal evidence.

Which has always had me wondering whether if everyone was sensitive, would there still be the quandary of the existence of the paranormal. And wouldn’t that also deem that which is now considered paranormal…normal? And would that be a good thing or a bad thing?

In the mean time, all I can do is just go with what I feel and hope for the best.

Me and the Ghost (Part Two)

Okay, I’ve already shared the beginning of this story–the icky thing in the creepy storage room where I did lighting for a week-long symposium. Now, I’m going to get into the stuff I really don’t talk about. I’m weird enough, I don’t need to claim I see ghosts, too. But I do feel it’s time I write it all down–or as much as I can remember.

The writings I’d done at the time seem to have disappeared, but I hope they resurface in one of my old files or binders one day. I found some later writings that referred back to what I’m about to post. Unfortunately, they aren’t as detailed as what I wrote during the experience. I suppose everything happens for a reason and if they’re important, they’ll resurface later.

This is a long one, so grab your favorite beverage and get comfy…

I explained that the big room where the symposium was taking place had two storage rooms, each with a ladder up to the catwalks–and one of the rooms had something very powerful in it which made me not want to be in there. I still don’t know what was going on in there and I’m not sure I want to!

However, I haven’t mentioned the room where I spent four eight-hour days in semi-darkness (which is more light than the average light board operator gets while running most theatrical shows).

The light booth could not be reached from the big room where the symposium was going on. I had to go out, down a hallway off the lobby (which was shared with a movie theater next door). This part of the hallway was on the circuit for the theater which wasn’t in use at the time, so only the single emergency light bulb was lit.

I was given one of only three keys to that particular light booth: the janitor had a master key (but given all the dust, I doubt the room was on his list of rounds), my boss had a single key and Operations had the spare. My boss took the one off of her ring and I put it in my pocket.

The door to the light booth was marked Authorized Personnel Only. The lock itself was hard to turn and sometimes it was necessary to jiggle the key a little. The door was always locked. There was no way to get it open from the hallway without the key. Once through the door (which was hard to push open and wasn’t adjusted very well so it slammed if you didn’t hold the handle and fight with it)(this was particularly important to notice because if I needed to make a run to the little girl’s room during the show, I couldn’t let the door slam or the audience could hear it), there was a cinderblock room with a hardwired fluorescent light that could not be turned off and a set of metal and concrete stairs leading up.

The framework was metal with railings on both sides, so if you put your hand on the rail on the left, it could get smashed between the rail and the wall. The stairs were also very narrow. It wasn’t possible for two people to walk on the same step at the same time. There were twelve stairs after about four plus a landing and number eight was loose. When I stepped on it, it wiggled and made a bit of a noise. Not a lot, but definitely a recognizable sound.

Even on my first ascent, I thought those things were dangerous. Between smashing my fingers once (it only took once to learn that lesson!) and the disorientation caused by the shaking, loose stair, I did not have much confidence in their safety and always took them one at a time and with much care. They weren’t rickety, but they shook as a unit and the idea of falling down concrete stairs while my flailing arms and legs could get caught in the rails wasn’t comforting. Also, if that step number eight decided to crack open and break away, I am small enough to fall right through…onto the cement floor. No fun, either.

At the top of the stairs was another landing in front of an opening that led to the light booth itself. The carpet was maroon and brown with a ten-inch lattice and flower pattern that reminded me of the 70s. Right next to the doorway was a light turquoise fiberglass and metal chair. Straight ahead from the doorway was the sound rack. There was a reel-to-reel machine, a graphic equalizer, some speaker patch panels, a few amps and a rack-mounted, ten-channel sound board. None of this equipment was to be used for the symposium. Their audio was handled from an auxiliary board downstairs and didn’t hook into the house system at all.

The room was about twenty-five to thirty feet long and about fifteen feet deep. There were windows on the long side overlooking the room below. As customary, one pane was missing nearest the sound rack in case us technicians needed to hear what was going on in the room below or if during load-in or load-out upstairs and downstairs needed to communicate. Near the back wall, there was a miscellaneous pile of lighting gel–some in an accordion file and some in a messy heap around the file. Many were cut as circles for followspots, but some were square for regular stage lighting.

On the opposite side of the room was a chair and table with a small light board set up next to a house light panel built into the wall. That was where I got to spend my time.

On the first day, about an hour into the symposium, I noticed that I kept glancing back at the chair near the door. After the fourth or so time, I started to really wonder why I was doing it. On the fifth, I realized it was because I’d thought someone had come into the room. But I was the only one around who had a key, I didn’t hear the downstairs door in the echoey concrete entry and step number eight didn’t make its wiggle noise. (Would you believe that during my time up in the light booth, I went into the stairwell specifically to figure out if it was possible to step on step number eight without it making noise and couldn’t do it silently!?)

Well, if all that was true, maybe I was sensing a ghost. The thought no sooner crossed my mind than I had a gut feeling that yes, ‘someone’ was in the room with me. Hmmm…

The symposium was pretty boring for me and it was easy to figure out when they needed the lights up or down, so why not see if I could tune in and figure out the presence?

On the next time I turned around, I didn’t just glance, I stared right where I felt the largest concentration of energy. Then I smiled and whispered, “I know you’re there.”

The energy in the chair went from sitting to standing and moved toward me. The words, “You know I’m here?” came into my mind. “You really know I’m here?”

Remember what I said about reading this for entertainment value if you’re a skeptic? Well… from here on out, you really have to suspend your disbelief. I’m not writing fiction here, I swear it. I’m writing what I experienced. It’s entirely possible you’ll think that this is just my imagination. Feel free, but I’m going to go on with my story anyway.

“Yes. I can feel you. I can’t see you exactly, but I can feel you.”

Remember how in previous posts I said most of what I sense are emotions or I sometimes get vague imagery or sound? Well, this case is no different. But because I had so many hours up there alone with this entity, rather than be afraid, I tried to tune in, to understand, to be receptive and hopefully make a new friend. I did not sense any danger.

The entity started moving around the room and I turned my head, watching its movements.

I chuckled. “I can’t see you exactly, but I know you’re moving around.”

“Wow.”

“Wow?”

“No one else who’s come up here has done that.” The entity stopped about three feet away from me.

My mind’s eye started to tune the spirit in as a sort of light shadow overlaid on my physical sight. The entity was shaped more like a man than a woman and I realized that his voice was more masculine than feminine even though it wasn’t exactly clear in my head. I kept smiling. “Did you want them to know you’re here?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes. Maybe.” It was like he’d never really thought about it before. “No one really comes up here much anyway.”

“What’s your name?”

Okay, this is once again where I have trouble. I’m terrible with names. It took probably four times of me trying to interpret his name and he may have given up on me and just settled on “James” because it was close enough to whatever his real name was, but when I called him James, it seemed to fit the best. It felt the most correct out of all the names I struggled with. (See why you need to suspend your disbelief! My ability gets hard to interpret verbatim, so it’s reasonably unreliable when I communicate. As for sensing location of the energy, I’m usually right on.)

The next four hours with James were mostly about me trying to tune him in when I wasn’t bringing the lights up or down as required for the symposium. I felt zero danger, in fact I felt pretty good up there alone, locked in with a ghost.

The following day, I opened the downstairs door and went up the stairs to ghost the lights in order to do my dimmer check. I greeted James and told him I’d be right back. He seemed glad to see me and glad I knew he was there again.

I needed to adjust the focus of one of the lights, so I went into the creepy room to the ladder, climbed up, did the adjustment and went back down. I lingered in the creepy room just to see what would happen. Visions of the black, jagged, clawed, wicked thing this time with red eyes flooded through my head, so I left. Who knows if there really was something that looked like that in the dark corner in the back, but that’s the image it gave me to chew on, so rather than piss it off more than it already was, I walked out. Whether it knew I was there, I don’t know. It seemed so wrapped up in emanating hatred and vicious disdain that I couldn’t tell if it was sentient or not.

I went back up to the light booth and the symposium got underway. That day, I’d brought a binder to write in. I wasn’t writing stories at the time, just my thoughts, journal entries basically. I wrote about James a little bit. He looked over my shoulder and laughed and asked me to write a few things. I got them wrong and he laughed harder.

That afternoon, I got really tired of sitting at the table, so I went to the pile of lighting gel in the back of the room. There was a swatch book and a grease pencil, so I started picking up unmarked gels and matching them in the swatch book so that I could mark and file them. James had left for a while, but he came back when I was sitting there on the floor with the gels.

I picked up a bright Barbie pink one and couldn’t put it down. James seemed excited. I tried to tune him in because it seemed like he had something to say about it.

As best as I could interpret, he said, “That’s the color pink my girlfriend wore when we went to our high school prom. A strapless dress with a big flower.” Although, I couldn’t figure out if the flower was in her hair or on the waist of the dress or maybe the dress had a flower on it and she also put one in her hair. He was so excited that he was going too fast for me to keep up. “Do you know where she is? I miss her. I was going to marry her.”

My needle skipped off my record. “What?”

“I miss Annie. Do you know where she is? Can you find her? I want to see her again. I want to be with her. We were going to get married…” And then my interpretation skills started sucking again, but it seemed like he was trying to say that he died just before they were about to be married. (At a later time, I’d written that he said he’d died as a result of falling down the cement stairs in 1978. I don’t know what to believe other than that he knew he was dead and it had been untimely.) I felt a borrowed sense of longing and knew I was picking up James’s emotion because at the moment, I wasn’t really missing anyone.

So, there I was, still holding the pink gel and trying to tune in to James. I explained I wasn’t sure I could help him find her. He left for a little while and I kept going with identifying the gels.

I got to another pink one and he showed up again. “Thank you.”

“What? Why are you thanking me?”

“You’re talking to me. It’s okay you can’t find Annie. I miss her, but that’s okay. I’ll find her someday.” His emotion went from sort of sad to a disguising happy. “Stand up. If you can hear me, stand up.”

“Stand up? Why?”

“Just do it. I want to show you something.”

Uh-oh, in the past, when a ghost wanted to show me something, it wasn’t particularly something I wanted to look at.

He sensed my apprehension. “I just want to dance with you…like I did with Annie.”

Okay…write off my sanity completely now! I stood up and good golly I swore I felt his hand on my hip, his other hand in the air, waiting for mine.

So, I danced a few bars with a ghost. Go ahead, laugh, make fun of me, whatever, but bottom line it was fun. Even during the experience, I was laughing. There was a certain kind of happiness and whether I was really dancing with him or not, who cares? I had nothing else to do at the moment.

(But answer me this, would you think I was crazy had I just danced by myself for the sake of dancing? Not so much, I bet. But because I think I was dancing with a ghost, you might think I’m nuts. Funny how that little detail colors the event. Now do you see why I don’t talk about this experience much?)

I broke away because I needed to change the lights. He thanked me and either left or I simply lost track of him.

At the end of the day, I thanked him for helping me fight away the boredom. There were only two more days left.

That next day, not much new happened. We talked a little about various things. This was when I tried to figure out how he’d died and still couldn’t make heads or tails of it although it really seemed like if it wasn’t because of falling down the stairs, he’d somehow died in that building somewhere. He did, however, know he was dead. He said it had taken him awhile to figure it out. “At first, no one saw me and I started to really wonder what was going on, but after awhile, I kind of figured out that I must be dead. I believed in ghosts when I was alive. This must be what it’s like.”

I asked him more about ‘what it’s like’, but couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. The emotions I got were happy at times, sad at others, a little frustrated, but ultimately content and okay with it. He said mostly, he just missed Annie and that I reminded him of her. There was a sense that perhaps time where he was and time where I was were totally different things, but he didn’t actually say that.

At the end of that third day, I told him that tomorrow would be my last day up there and I didn’t know when I’d be able to come back. “I’m gonna miss you, though. And whenever there’s another event in here, I’ll try to get on the crew for it.”

“Please do. You know I’m here. No one else can see me.”

“I don’t actually see you very well, I sense you.”

“Whatever. You look at me. No one looks at me.”

Wow. That seemed so important to him. His loneliness finally clicked with me. (I know, I know…took me long enough!)

“I’d like to really see you, James. Maybe tomorrow you could show me.”

“I’ll try. It’s really hard, but I’ll try.”

“Okay. Oh, one more thing before I go… What is up with the stage left storage room? What is in there?”

“Don’t go in there.”

“I don’t like to. I don’t want to. What’s in there?”

“Just please don’t go in there. It’s not good. Don’t go in there. Please don’t go in there. I really mean it. It’s not good in there.”

“I know it’s not good in there. I hate it in there.”

“Don’t go in there.”

“Sometimes I have to.”

“Use the other ladder or run, don’t walk if you have to go through there. It’s not safe.”

“What is it?”

“Just don’t. Please don’t. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“It’s just a room.”

“Don’t go in there, okay? Do you hear me? Don’t go in that room.” He was adamant.

“Yes, James, I hear you. I’ll do my best to stay out of there.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“Yes, see you tomorrow.” I smiled and felt him give me a hug. It was kind of strange, but I felt his energy surround me completely. Seriously, I felt him just like feeling any other friend giving me a hug.

The next day was the last day. I wrote more in my binder journal but aside from him greeting me when I arrived, I hardly sensed him around much at all. He popped in and said hello, even made me laugh a few times. But for the most part, he just wasn’t there.

About an hour before the symposium was to end, I was writing in my journal about nothing in particular. I’d brought the lights down low because they were watching a movie that was to last about a half an hour.

All of a sudden, I got the distinct feeling that someone had come into the room. As I lifted and turned my head, I reviewed the fact that I hadn’t heard the slamming door downstairs, nor the wiggle noise from step number eight and then clearly, but still in my peripheral vision because my head wasn’t all the way turned toward the doorway yet, I saw a man walk from the doorway to the sound rack.

I stood and walked toward the rack, wondering if I’d just zoned out and missed the door slam and step wiggle and someone affiliated with the symposium or perhaps Operations had come up to see how the show was going, “Can I help you?” or maybe someone was just lost, “Hello?” and maybe they didn’t see me over there in the corner when they walked in. It was rare that anyone who wasn’t part of the crew would walk into a light booth alone during a show anyway, so why was this guy up here?

There was no one there.

But I swear I saw a man wearing faded blue jeans, 70s-style Nike-type running shoes, a baseball shirt with a white torso and yellow diagonal sleeves. There was even a number on it which I couldn’t read and on one sleeve, there were two red stripes, a black one on the other. He had blonde shaggy hair that came just below his ears and he was young–college age or so.

And good golly, he reminded me of the stuff I’d talked about with James.

I stood there, staring at the whole-lot-of-no-person next to the sound rack and swallowed hard. What had I just seen? Someone had walked in. I knew it. He was three-dimensional and far from imaginary. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention. Maybe I’d just seen a ghost. Had I really just seen a ghost? No. Wait. Yeah, it sure as hell seemed like it. The more I replayed it in my head, the more I knew that since there wasn’t a human standing next to that sound rack, I had indeed seen a ghost.

“Did you see me?” James asked.

“Yes. Yeah, I did.” I was still in shock.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I’ve never actually seen a ghost before.”

“Well, now you have.”

I laughed. “Thank you, but next time, could you give me a little warning? I wasn’t expecting you. I was kind of scared.”

“Don’t be.” He faded away while I stood there dumbfounded for another minute or so.

I didn’t feel him much the rest of the day. During the load-out, I avoided the creepy room as much as possible. When I went back up to the light booth to shut everything down, we said our goodbyes and I really didn’t want to go.

The following week, I was back to work in the live theater next door–the one I normally worked in. That symposium was kind of a fluke and I sadly never worked another gig in that big room.

But one night when it was quiet up in the other light booth, I was programming the light board for a jazz concert and I felt James behind me. Faintly, but he was there. I turned around and let him know I knew he was there. He was very difficult to tune in to communicate with him, but from what I could understand, it was hard for him to really be there in that particular theater even though it was only about a hundred-fifty feet from the other light booth.

I worked in that space for a few more months before finding another job. On nights I was up there alone, I felt him come and go, but yeah, it was hard to clearly tune in to him there.

I haven’t been back to those spaces in about ten years, but as you can see, our time together hasn’t faded much and I hope it never will.

According to the writings I found from a few months after the symposium, James was always comforting, kind and compassionate. I always felt good around him. That’s one of the ways I knew he was there. Just like Tex in that other theater, James confirmed that ghosts aren’t bad, they’re just different.

If I ever get the opportunity to go back to that space, you bet I will. And for James’s sake, I’ll stay out of the creepy storage room.

Raising The Bar (3)

I really want to start this entry: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” but I won’t.

Good golly, it’s true though, I swear it.

Anyway, this was a two-day call. I played the assistant to the prosecutor in Episode 2 and was miraculously called back for this one, Episode 4.

Extras rarely get called back like this. I must’ve done something right somehow.

This show shoots about ten minutes from my house, so there was no hardship getting there, parking, and getting shuttled to the sound stages. I wore the only dark suit I have because that’s what wardrobe wanted, but they didn’t like my suit, so they gave me two others. That’s fine. I’m not picky.

The only bummer was that one of the suits had pants so long I needed to wear heels and they didn’t have my size…or if they did, they were buried. I ended up in three-inch heels that were a full size too big for me.

They were dangerous, but I made them work. I’ve walked in ill-fitting shoes before.

In the first shot of the morning, we were in the hallway outside the courtroom. I was instantly picked on for my purse which I’ll admit didn’t match my suit very well, but I’d forgotten to get it approved and it did match the other suit I was supposed to wear. It had been approved the last time I’d worked the show, so I knew it wasn’t the bag itself, it was the fact it didn’t match. Whatever.

The AD wanted me to put it back in holding, but I’m sorry, no. Especially not when there’s a plethora of hiding places off camera. I don’t want to be separated from my purse. Who knows what could happen? There are a lot of stories of things being stolen and I did not want my purse to be the stuff of a story like that. After much back and forth, we put it in the room off camera. I felt bad for having to argue, but I had no choice. I wasn’t going to be separated from it.

Then, I was handed a briefcase. I tried to explain that props may already have one in the courtroom for me. Last time, I had a filebox and a stack of folders. I didn’t want to end up with a pile of briefcases this time.

Well, the same AD thought I was full of shit and just trying to be difficult. She did not understand that I was looking out for the continuity of the show because if the camera saw me walking in that hallway with that briefcase, that case would be married to me for the duration.

I argued a little and then she said this scene was different and the other AD told me to make sure that I’m facing away from the camera and that I’m covered by another of the extras when I do my cross. At that point, I considered it a mini-victory. Yeah, I was stuck with the briefcase, but they understood why I was being difficult, it was for the better of the show. They had my back to the camera and mostly covered so that I wouldn’t be recognized playing a role other than who I was inside the courtroom.

Okay, so once we were in it, that shot went off okay and it was time to work in the courtroom.

I took my place at the prosecutor’s table like usual. The props guys used the briefcase I’d been carrying in the other scene. I was fine with that and having a great time.

There was a different director this time, but the one from last time was there, too. I guess maybe he was producing this episode instead. At one point, I smiled at him just to say hello and he told me that I was “allllllllllll over episode 2” and “call all your friends and family over and bust out the popcorn”.

So, everyone out there who wants to actually spot me in one of these shows, watch for me in the second episode of Raising The Bar. Apparently ya can’t miss me in the courtroom scenes!

Okay, so the day dragged on as usual. I spent much of my time in the hallway outside the courtroom. I ended up sitting on the wooden prop benches because I knew I wasn’t allowed on any of the canvas directors’ chairs. That was fine, even though painful. My ill-fitting shoes gave me blisters and I almost tripped a few times, but for the most part, I was okay.

During the coverage of the prosecutor’s table, in one of the setups, they did a two-shot (which is exactly as it sounds…the cameras have both Marcus and myself in frame) and then they were doing Marcus’ closeup, but it was intricate because he had to stand up for part of the scene and there was no way to have two people in the frame. The director actually told them to put one camera on each of us. Holy schnitzel!!!!!! The moment was priceless for me. I doubt it’ll be used in the finished product, but to have it done in the first place was awesome.

The cameras were about three feet from us. The first time, on episode 2, I was intimidated and terrified, but because I’d survived that, I knew I’d be able to do it again.

And I did.

The rest of the day went fairly well. Much of the same even though it was getting ridiculously hot in there. I mean, like, 80 indoors. I was okay, though, for some reason, even in my suit.

The next day, I realized that wardrobe hadn’t liked any of my suits, so I left them at home. Sadly, I forgot my bag of shoes which was right next to my suits. Doh! I knew there’d at least be the ill-fitting pair if nothing else…

But when I got to wardrobe and he asked me why I didn’t come wearing a suit, I explained that he’d seen all my suits and couldn’t use them. At first, he huffed, but then realized that I’d at least tried because I’d brought a couple shirts that might work under another suit. He picked one of those and gave me one of the suits I’d worn last time.

Then, I realized I’d forgotten to bring that pile of shoes I’d set aside. I was mortified. I expressed such to the wardrobe guy. Of course he wasn’t thrilled at first, but after awhile I think he realized that I really was embarrassed and really did just forget to bring the bag of shoes with me. Plus, there were plenty to choose from under the truck…and this time, we even found my size. Yay!

This day, it was more of a sandwich for me. I worked a lot in the morning and a lot at the end of the day, but in the middle, I was in the hallway most of the time because they’d wanted me to stay close. I was stuck on those godforsaken wooden benches.

In the morning, there was a point when the DP told me that I looked really pretty on film. He’d seen the dailies from episode 2 and I’d looked really pretty. I was flattered, but honestly, he’s the Director of Photography. He’s the one who made me look pretty, so I told him it was all his fault and thanked him. I don’t think he’d had an actor tell him that before.

Oh, by the way, I love J. August Richards. He plays Marcus McGrath and is so awesome. He really is. He even helped me through some of the coverage of our table. See, there are rules about what a director can say to an extra without having to upgrade the extra to a day player. Honestly, I don’t care about all that crap, I just want to get the eyeline right so that I’m looking where Marcus is looking when we’re supposed to be listening to the judge or whoever’s talking. No one would talk to me, but Marcus did and for that I’m so appreciative.

Things went well during the first part of the day, but during that middle section, my ass was starting to hurt something fierce. First it fell asleep and I had to walk around to wake it up. Then, the bones started to hurt. But 1) I couldn’t go far and 2) couldn’t sit anywhere else. After a few hours of sheer pain, I finally decided I needed a break and I wasn’t going to stand up in 3-inch heels for any length of time if I could avoid it.

So, there was no one around and all of the cast directors’ chairs were empty save one very nice day player. I figured I’m almost cast. I don’t have a line, but I’m featured in frame. There’s no one around. I’ll just sit in a cast chair for a few minutes to hopefully get my ass to quit hurting. If someone important needs to sit there, I’ll jump up immediately. I wasn’t even leaning back in the chair.

I was there for about two minutes before the AD who’d argued with me before starts yelling at me: “OH NO, NO, NO! YOU CAN’T SIT THERE. WE HAVE TO HAVE SOME PROTOCOL AROUND HERE. YOU’RE JUST AN EXTRA. YOU CAN’T SIT THERE. OTHER EXTRAS ARE GOING TO START THINKING THAT THEY CAN, TOO.” she kept going, but I’d already gotten up at the first “Oh no”.

As she yelled, I explained that I was only sitting there because it was more comfortable and I was in pain. And get this, I was sitting in the chair DIRECTLY next to a bench. It was utterly ridiculous. I moved the six inches over to the bench, still in shock. She finally quit yelling at me, but I was humiliated. Utterly humiliated. She could’ve just said, “Hey, don’t sit there.” or even “You know you shouldn’t sit there.” and I would’ve moved.

(On many shows, no one cares who sits in the cast chairs as long as the chairs become available when necessary. I’ve never sat in them, but I’ve seen other extras sit in them. I’ve sat in them as a stand-in, though and have been invited to sit in them by cast members and producers before. It’s just a freakin’ chair. I have certainly NEVER seen an extra get CHEWED out like I was for sitting in one. I’ve seen them told not to sit there, but NEVER yelled at for it.)

Trying to fix the awkward situation and maybe ease it, the day player whispered, “You can sit in my chair. I don’t mind.” But I declined. I was about ready to cry anyway and I didn’t want to be yelled at anymore. I don’t do well with humiliation like that.

I guess the AD thought that I thought I was as ‘good’ as the cast and ‘privileged’ enough to sit in the cast chairs, but that wasn’t it at all. Not even remotely. My ass hurt. And I ended up so humiliated, I could hardly keep from crying. This is why I’m background, not featured. I don’t like the center of attention…especially in negative situations. I don’t do well in confrontations and being humiliated.

So, there I was, my ass hurting as well as my pride and the coverage of my table still hadn’t been shot. I could hardly keep myself together and somehow I was supposed to act like I was following the case and totally absorbed in it. I almost asked to go home because no matter how I tried to get back into it, I just couldn’t pull myself back together.

But then we broke for lunch which gave me a break from being near the set. I talked to another extra during lunch. She was really sweet and I hope I see her again. She shared a story about a friend of hers who was booked as an extra and ended up with a speaking role. I shared the story about how I got chewed out for sitting in a cast chair. Even she was shocked. The PAs on this show were really cool, really nice, real advocates for our comfort, too, but now that I think about it, they also had an underlying attitude that extras are stupid and should be treated as such.

Whatever.

After lunch, I was together enough to do the scene. I wasn’t at 100%, but I was close enough to pull myself together.

While we were waiting to do the scene, I ended up talking to J. August Richards. And I couldn’t keep from mentioning what had happened and how I didn’t want it to jeopardize my chances of coming back. He saw that I knew what I did was wrong and that it was the fact I was chewed out for it, not politely asked not to sit there and really felt for me. He liked having me as his assistant, I guess. He said he didn’t think that what I’d done would keep me from coming back. I reminded him I’m an extra. Nothing’s set in stone.

We did our coverage and then I went back to the wicked, hard bench. Also, by now, the set was heating up. Literally. It was easily over 85 degrees in there. I was starting to get light-headed and needed a lot of water and to use the little girls’ room.

When I came back, one of the stand-ins was sitting in my chair. When I went to replace her (I’d worked with her on Changeling), she told me that I could rest for a little while because it was hot. That was so sweet of her. I went back out to the bench and tried to get my sanity back. It was freakin’ hot.

And, of course, guess who started yelling again and made me go back in there.

Now, normally, I didn’t mind standing in for myself even though stand-ins make more money than extras. I didn’t bitch about not being paid proper rate or anything like that. Hell, I could call SAG and get them in trouble. I don’t usually mind standing in for myself, but dammit, I was about to pass out and worried that my makeup was melting.

The makeup lady came by to touch me up and I asked her about it. She said that I handled it well and didn’t look bad at all. I thanked her and told her I trusted her even though I felt like I looked awful, if she said I looked good, then I wasn’t going to stress it. And honestly, that made a huge difference. I didn’t want to appear unhealthy during my coverage. That would look bad on the show. I don’t care about the way I look as long as I look right for the part.

So J and I did our coverage. He was sweltering, too, but they let him use a little personal fan. Honestly, his suit was warmer than mine. He needed the extra cooling.

After that, I went back to the dreaded bench. And as I look back at the day, something must’ve happened. When I first got there and the day was new, everyone was treating me not necessarily like one of the cast, but at least with a little respect. By the time I got chewed out, I was scum and I don’t know why.

Once I was signed out, I thanked the PA who took care of us extras and headed outside to catch a shuttle back to my car. J waved at me and I couldn’t help but run over to him and give him a hug. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again. He seemed to think I would, but just in case, I wanted to tell him what a pleasure it was to work with him and all that. I mean, he’s really that awesome and I wanted to tell him that.

All in all, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

I have no idea if I’ll ever be called back on that show. They can’t use me on a jury or in the gallery because I was so featured, so if I ever get called back, it’d be as Marcus’ 2nd again. That’d be great. I’d love to come back, but honestly, if I’m going to be treated like shit, I’ll happily give up the featured part and everything. I don’t need the money that badly.

When are people going to learn that if you treat us like stupid fucking extras, we’re gonna act like stupid fucking extras and not want to help out the production at all. We’ll fuck off, we’ll mouth off, we’ll be difficult to work with. We tend to mirror the treatment we receive.

When I went into this, I wanted to give 110% of myself. Now, I want to give zero, but I’ll do it anyway and probably not be happy about it, which will undoubtedly show in my onscreen and offscreen performance unintentionally.

Treat people with respect and they return it…even stupid fucking extras like myself.

This was still the time of my life. Too bad it got tainted the moment I got chewed out for sitting in a chair. I swear, I’ll never do it again. Hell, us extras are hardly allowed on the furniture anyway. We’re all such animals, y’know… 😉

Raising The Bar (2)

I was in the pilot of this show and was quite surprised to be called again now that episodes got ordered. This is the first time I’ve been in both the pilot and the series.

I was a public defender in the pilot. I was booked as a public defender again, but when I got there and the AD was signing us in, I noticed my name was separated out all by itself near the court reporter and clerks. As I got further through the line, I saw that I was supposed to be “Marcus 2nd”. What the hell did that mean?!?

In essence, I was instantly terrified. As far as I knew, I was about to be paraded around naked. No, wait. That’s a role I could figure out on the fly…

Anyway, I stressed all the way through check-in, all the way to the wardrobe line and then even more when I was pulled out of line because apparently I was someone important that might be needed on the set first or something, so they cut me in front of the rest of the extras. Aaaack! I hate it when that happens.

It took three tries. None of the suits I brought were appropriate for what they needed and two of the suits they gave me didn’t work right either. During all of this, I heard, “She’s going to be right there at the table the whole time. Right next to Marcus.” And the Costume Designer was being exceptionally picky.

Great, so I was about to be playing a heavily featured role that I didn’t know how to do. Nice.

I readied myself for the snake pit and dove right in.

Sure enough, I was seated in the courtroom, at the prosecutor’s table. Then my one big moment happened… The guy who was clearly the legal consultant walked by. I gathered up the courage to flat out ask him what it was that I was supposed to do. Do I take notes? What?

I was to be the prosecutor’s assistant. I was to do whatever the prosecutor wanted me to do. Note taking was optional.

Finally, there was meaning in my life. I knew my purpose. Everything was going to be okay. Well, mostly. There’s still that bit about being featured and having to act.

Why was I freaking out so much? I’m a background ACTOR, so why should this be so crazy to me?

Well, because I’m not ‘looking for my big break’ or ‘wanting to be a star’ or any of that kind of stuff. I just want to be part of the Hollywood magic and hopefully be in frame in the finished product so I can do a screen capture and put a little arrow pointing to me. Y’know, being recorded as part of history even if no one outside of this blog knows that tiny little blur is me. I don’t have big aspirations. If it happens, great, but I’m not going to seek it out. I don’t have that kind of stamina and rejection as a writer is hard enough. Rejection as an actor is far more personal.

There are several actors who would’ve been instant hams in my particular situation, too, and mentally rehearsed lines they’d make up and try to slide in so they could get paid more or try to show off like this was an on-the-job audition.

I’m not that kind of girl. I was there to be the prosecutor’s assistant and not steal his show. I was to work with him, not over him…and also not make him look like an idiot for supposedly hiring me.

That’s where all the nerves come from. But once we were rolling during the first take, I realized that mostly I’d be listening to the court case. There wasn’t much interaction necessary between Marcus and I. And what was necessary was on his lead, not mine.

So I went with that and everything grew from there. I started to scowl at the other lawyer, I got engrossed in the testimonies, I silently rooted for Marcus whenever he was addressing the jury or questioning a witness. It was awesome. For a role I had no idea how to play, I got it figured out pretty damn well if I do say so myself. (I just hoped I impressed the director, too…)

After much of the testimony of the three witnesses was done, there were still turnarounds to do…and then my chance to really shine. I gotta admit that sitting at a table with two big cameras about three feet from my face–which moved back and forth and side to side during the take–was both terrifying and exhilarating. Both the hair and make-up people had been touching me up between takes all day and that really boosted my confidence because at least I knew I was looking my best…now if I could just act my best, too, without looking fake…

In college, I majored in Theater Design and Technology. Basically, what that entails is about three-quarters of the acting classes that Actors had to take plus a few specialized stagecraft classes. In those acting classes, I was always near the top of the class. Aspiring actors used to ask me how I did so well since I didn’t even wanna be an actor when I grew up.

I flat out told them the truth: “I just go up on that stage and get the assignment done. I’m there to do a job. No more, no less. I don’t care what I look like or how I’m doing. I don’t care about any of that. I just get the job done according to what the teacher wants.”

My own advice paid off… That plus a little bit of paying attention when I watch movies and stuff. Ever notice how when they cut to someone who’s listening, they always use the clips where the person scratches his nose, shifts in his chair, sniffs, rolls his eyes, bites his lip, swallows, tilts his head, etc.? With that bit of knowledge in my head, my advice to myself about a job to be done and an interior monologue about the case at hand going through my head, I was good to go.

And then it finally hit me pretty hard that it was a two-shot with myself and Marcus. He knew the script. He had worked through his character. He was being directed. As an extra, if the director directs me, they have to pay me more money, so directors usually stay away from background actors. Sometimes, they have the 1st AD relay direction, but only when it’s really necessary. Good enough is good enough when it comes to extras.

This being a two-shot suddenly had me scared again. We were to be looking slightly to the right, so that put Marcus out of my peripheral vision. I’d be mostly winging it, so hopefully he’d make a few big movements so that I could sort of copy them. Not exactly, but if he shook his head, I at least wanted to match him with a scowl or rolling my eyes…something that had the same sort of connotations. That way we looked like a team–two people who had put a ton of work into this case together.

As soon as I heard “Action!” I just started making it all work. I did the best I could to match Marcus. I went really deep into my character…and realized that my shoulders were somewhere up by my ears because I was so stiff. How did that get past my mental inventory? Well, since I didn’t give a shit about what I looked like, I made that tension work, too and shifted at an appropriate spot and did a few other movements–even played with my pen a little.

That first ‘listening’ take was crazy, but I could tell by the director’s smile and the excitement of the camera operators plus the Director of Photography introducing himself to me between takes that I must’ve done something right. Yay! Go me!

Two solid minutes of nothing but listening can seem like an eternity–especially when you have to react to words you’ve heard a million times as though it’s the first time you’ve heard them. It gets hard to fight the anticipation sometimes.

Good golly, I was so thrilled. I mean, what was supposed to be just another extra gig had turned into so very much more and I’m so glad for that. I really am. It’s these little things that really spur me on, keep me going back to face the hours of boredom or the comments like “Stupid fucking extras…” and waiting until the crew goes through the lunch line before us extras are allowed to eat. It’s the kind of adventure I thrive on. It’s why I have been doing this for the past five years.

As a general note on this gig, though, I just gotta mention that another personal record was set for me. The trial took place over the course of four days…three of which were being shot on the same day…which means that us extras had to have three different outfits. This was a first for me to have three outfits that required an area for me to change in rather than just putting on a jacket or taking it off. The other part of this first is kind of funny.

Due to how long it takes to move cameras and rearrange a room to cheat stuff to look right in frame, sometimes, they’d leave the cameras in place and have everyone go change clothes. I swear it, we must’ve changed clothes at least thirty times by the end of the day. It got so hectic at one point, that I forgot which was which and changed into the wrong outfit. I had to ask the wardrobe people because I felt wrong, but couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be wearing. After that, I started going by who was on the witness stand rather than what scene or what day it was because I just couldn’t keep them straight!

I’m betting that’ll make for a good story for all of us extras when we’re in holding on whatever show we work next. We’ll all have an “On Raising The Bar, we had to change clothes a million times” story to share in exchange for a “On War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise refused to work until production put heaters in the extras holding tents because we were freezing” story.

That’s another thing I love about being an extra. The stories are fascinating…and I’ve lived some of them!

Oh yeah, and the other surprise for the day was that I was to be recalled for the following day. Yay!

While the make-up lady was putting my face on, she said, “I just gotta say that you looked really pretty on camera yesterday. You did really good. The way you were lit… You looked really great.” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe my ears. I mean, yeah, the director shook my hand and thanked me at the end of the day and that was really, really, really freakin’ cool, but no one said anything about my performance or how I looked. I just figured that since I wasn’t being yelled at or directed, I must be at least passable…y’know, for a stupid fucking extra.

Then, she said, “And over by the monitors, one of the people there said, ‘Who’s she? The camera’s all over her? Does she have any lines?’ and when they said no, he was really surprised. ‘She’s really good.'” Yeah, I was beyond the valley of ready to do happy dance cartwheels. For a role I didn’t know how to play and didn’t even know I’d be playing it until about an hour before I did it, that ain’t too shabby a thing to say.

However, that also meant I had to do a repeat performance. No pressure or anything…

And at least the second day I didn’t have to change clothes. That was such a relief! The first day, my suits were polyester, but this second day, I was wearing wool and thought I was going to pass out from the heat a few times when I couldn’t take the jacket off. At least it was a skirt suit. That helped a little.

I did more listening and there were a few times when Marcus leaned over to say stuff to me. That was fun. Also, when the verdict was read and we won the case, it was fun to react a little, too.

But the absolute most difficult shot of the whole two days was the shot where Marcus and I leave. He and the other lawyer have some lines while we’re picking up our paperwork and stuff. Somehow, miraculously, I was able to carry my purse, a legal-size, inch-thick accordion file and two of those file box briefcases…and do it like it’s no big deal…and get through the swinging rail and out another door.

Somehow, it all worked out and I didn’t disrupt the scene too much, but wowie, now that was acting! I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like if those file boxes had been full. Ah well. That’ll make for another good story to tell while in holding next time I hear someone talking about how much stuff they had to carry in a scene.

Keep your fingers crossed that I get to work on this show again. Sometimes, they don’t bring extras back if they’ve been featured. Hopefully, I’ll get a recurring role as Marcus’ assistant throughout the series. That would kick ass, but I’m not gonna hold my breath. *sigh*

My First Past Life Regression

Last Friday, I went to a workshop about past life regression. I hadn’t researched it or experienced a regression before, so naturally the night was quite interesting. I’ve been threatening to blog my paranormal experiences and I assure you, they’re on their way. I need to write them all out first and put them into some semblance of order first. I dunno why. I just feel I should.

Anyhow, I also feel I should blog my first past life regression since it is a sort of important occasion, I suppose.

Apparently, I was a rather large, dark haired man…in the 14th century. The toes of my armor were very, very thin and pointy. I was rather burly and apparently had a few servants or at least male friends to help me prepare for battle.

What battle? I have no idea. It was quite urgent that I get ready quickly and get on my horse and go. I recall something about an invasion, like there was land at stake in the skirmish, like I was part of the defense. I was near the battle, but not near enough to see it. I didn’t seem like an asshole, but I also didn’t get much of a flavor of myself to really know for sure. I did feel as though I was noble and in the right to defend whatever it was that I needed to defend. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I was a good guy.

The man leading the regression then asked us to go to our home to see what it looked like.

My house was made of stone and rather large. It was not a castle…not even a fortified manor. It had several multi-light windows and appeared to be two stories high. The door was thick wood and quite tall although not like the kind on a castle. It was also not ornate.

I had a beautiful, long-light-brown-haired wife with hazel eyes. I think she loved me, but she also seemed afraid of me or at least surprised to see me at that moment. She was dressed neatly, but again, nothing fancy.

At least two of my three little children were boys. The other could’ve been a girl. It was hard to tell. The oldest was maybe five or six. My house was well furnished, but not fancy. In the room with my wife and kids, there was one tapestry, a few candlesticks as well as wooden chairs and tables. It seemed as though I had everything I needed.

I must’ve been reasonably well-to-do in order to have so many possessions, but still, nothing could be considered true finery. The curtains were a sort of dark amber color, but I couldn’t tell what fabric they were made of. It wasn’t fancy. There were a few servants about, but I don’t recall much about them.

Then the man leading the regression had us go to the biggest, most important moment in that life.

Well, that’s when I got a little confused. It was as though I (as the dark-haired man) was interchangeable with the man in the center of my view…having his head chopped off at a public execution. There were whispers of treason bandied about. There was also something about either my brother had done the treasonous act and I was being wrongly executed or that I was somewhere in the audience and it was my brother being executed.

I’m leaning more toward the executed being myself because as my soul separated from my body, I saw my wife crying in the audience. If it had been my brother being executed, I would’ve been with my wife and I likely would’ve had an opinion or felt emotion about the death. Instead, I guess I was sort of in denial that I was being executed in place of my brother.

The crazy part was that I definitely felt the axe or sword blow around my neck and mostly what I thought about was that I was being wrongly punished for something I had no part in.

However, to me, the most interesting bit was as my soul was flying away, I knew everything was going to be okay because it would all be fixed in my next life. I would right whatever wrong had been done to me or in general, my next life would sort everything out. I just had to keep looking up and being honorable and noble and overall just plain good.

If there’s one thing I learned from the entire experience it’s that I wanna do it again!

And quite honestly, I’ve always believed in past lives. I’ve also always believed I was a rather large man in more than one past life. I’ve also thought that perhaps I was given this tiny little female body in this life as sort of payback for some bad stuff I did while in my big manly body. Like I needed to walk in the shoes of someone I’d wronged in order to really understand.

I’m 5’5″, 105lbs and yet I still think I can push my car up a hill. I still charge in and pick up four 25lb lighting fixtures as though they aren’t heavy. I still pick up two 50lb steel pipe bases as though it’s no big deal. I enjoy the company of men more so than women and I get pissed off when the guys hit on me rather than treat me like one of the boys. There’s always been that sort of disconnect in my brain. As a kid, I played with more boy toys than girl toys although I had an affinity for both.

In fact, I still collect dolls. Although my Hot Wheels and Matchbox collection has skewed toward the real things rather than the miniatures over the years.

I think it’s a strange balance. I mean, this was only my first regression. What if next time, I find out about a past life where I was female and I start to look at all the feminine things in my life that seemed to have always been there?

But I just gotta say…I still think I was more often a man than a woman. One of my ex-boyfriends even said I’m more of a man than most men. Funny how that is. To look at me, it seems impossible. To know me, there’s certainly truth in it.

And that’s just another thing about me that makes me strange…but happy.

Who were you in a past life and did that carry forward into this one?

Engine Swap

So this weekend was rather surprising. I’m writing this while experiencing an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment…

My husband and I successfully unhooked the old engine in my ’68 Convertible Mustang yesterday. Today, we pulled that engine out and put in a different one.

I am utterly amazed that we did it. Every other time I’ve tried to do this much work in a weekend, something inevitably either breaks or turns up missing and I have to stop everything and abandon the project for another day or week…or month.

But not this weekend. All went well. Very, very well.

‘Course we didn’t try to get it ready to start… Perhaps that’s when the real shenanigans will take over.

My time on The Changeling

I was in The Changeling starring Angelina Jolie, directed by Clint Eastwood back in October and December, but afraid to post about it as it was happening in case it jeopardized my chances of being called back. But now that principle photography has completely wrapped, I have written out my amazing experiences on the show.

It was an absolute dream come true.

The exterior shot in October.

December Day 1: Almost made it into frame.

December Day 2: Got a close-up!

December Day 3: Swallowed so many fake pills, I rattled!

December Day 4: A cockatoo named Larry

The movie is supposed to release in November, 2008. I’m definitely going to go see it as soon as it comes out. I have a really great chance at being in frame. I was even given a back story!!!!

Yes, I really did get paid to drive these!

Seriously, I accepted money for test driving these cars!!! It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.

Ferrari F430 Coupe, Porsche 911 Turbo, Lamborghini Gallardo and a Ferrari F430 Spider. And yes, Spider is spelled with an ‘i’ for this car. We looked it up on the Owner’s Manual because we were curious.

This gig happened for a little over a week in July 2007 and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I got up at 1:45AM every day, got to work by 3:50 (I live about an hour from the shop) and was driving out the door at 4:00AM. On the mornings when I had trouble dragging myself out the door, I’d wonder why I tortured myself getting up so early and driving so far. Then, the door would roll up and the cars were sitting there and we’d all give each other that ‘pinch me, ’cause I MUST be dreaming’ look.

I’ll admit, though, that driving for 8 hours in any car isn’t fun for some people, but I love it. I also love that it was my job to press every button, turn every knob and then write out my findings, my preferences, my suggestions for improvement.

Told ya it was a tough job, but someone had to do it!

They’re all so freakin’ sexy–except the 911. Sorry Porsche people, but I’m just not a 911 girl. I wanted to like the car, but I just couldn’t find anything about it that turned me on. Nothing. Well, the cup-holders were pretty bitchin’. They fold up and stow away when not in use. That’s all I liked about the car.

I liked the Gallardo. It had some eccentricities, but I liked it.

I loved the Ferraris. OMG did I love them. Everything about them. They could’ve had more torque, but I’m used to driving my Viper, so I expected the Ferrari to be lacking in that regard. The sound, the paddle shifting, the steering, ohhhh… I’m getting all orgasmic just thinking about those cars!

It’s been months and I still only barely believe I got to drive those cars. If it weren’t for the pictures and all the notes I’d scribbled for the job, I don’t think I’d really believe I was fortunate enough to have done the job.

The Changeling (5)

Monday was great. Tuesday was awesome despite the dead bird. Wednesday was incredible. Thursday and Friday, I didn’t see a whole lot of action.

In fact, on Thursday, I only worked in one scene and Friday we were recalled (Yes, a record for me. This was the first time I’d ever worked 5 days in a row on any show.), but sat in holding for a few hours before they decided to cut the scenes we were supposed to be in.

However, the scene I worked was a sort of inspection scene. I was assigned to one of the rooms in the hallway–with another lady as my roommate. All we did was stand there as the doctor worked his way along the line to Angelina.

Since I was a Code 12 patient rather than a mental patient, I stared down the doctor. I didn’t know how else to keep it interesting for me.

That was the extent of my work in the scene, but if I could download an image or two from my brain, I’d go for ‘Clint Eastwood with a big, white, one-winged cockatoo on his shoulder and Angelina reaching out to make friends with it.’ It was the last day of shooting. Strange things can happen. I heard later that the bird had been rescued after being attacked by a dog…and it was potty trained!

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. (And what’s with me and birds on this show? First the dead one and then Clint’s pet!)

My experience on The Changeling is likely to be the highest point of my background acting career for a very long time.

I waited until I got home to take the following picture of my hair and make-up. Hopefully, I’ll be in the finished product and have a screen capture or two to add!

The Changeling (4)

Monday was spent in holding. Tuesday was utterly amazingly awesome despite the dead bird. Today…

I got to the lot, passed the WGA strikers, (they’d learned what we were working on and started joking with us about having a good crazy day!), enjoyed my hot fresh buttermilk waffle breakfast, got into costume, hair and make-up and was shuttled to the sound stage just fine.

Once again many of us were used in the first scene of the day. I was placed second in line at the nurses station in the hallway. It was time for us to take our pills.

It seemed like I was set there prematurely because I kept being in everyone’s way. But every time I tried to move, I’d get told to go back where I was. It took a little doing, but I started to watch for when the camera guys and such were trying to frame the shot versus when I could be out of the way without being told to get back into place. That wasn’t easy. There was a lot of movement with various crew members doing several jobs and me trying to figure out when it was a good idea to not be standing where the guy carrying the ladder/lighting fixture/stand/etc. would run into me while coming around the corner. It was a hallway for goodness sake. Lots of work and not a lot of room to do it in.

At one point, we were real close to getting started. Angelina arrived and Clint was describing to her what the shot was going to look like. He was animated and right in the middle of the hallway and I wasn’t sure if I should stay where I was to help illustrate the scene or if I should clear out to make room. I ended up sort of cornered against the wall when Clint made a move to go down the hall and then come back. He landed about three inches from me as I tried to sink into the wall so as not to be in the way.

He sorta came back out of the scene and looked at me in kind of surprise. (Y’know like, “Oh hi. I didn’t see you standing there.”) I didn’t know what to do, so I do what I always do in that situation and smiled my biggest watermelon grin. Which he returned!!!!!! That made my day!

Also adding to the oddity, I’m sure, was my hair and make-up. One of the other extras said something about how every time Clint would come onto the set and see all of us the first thing in the day, he’d grin and shake his head. I gotta admit…we were a pretty motley-looking crew. You’ll see when the movie comes out. We’d been done up to look our worst and it was strange for anyone to be in a room with all of us.

The action of the scene was that the lady ahead of me would take her pill. Then I would move up and take mine. Then Angelina would fight and various defiant mayhem would ensue in this amazing tracking shot. We did the whole thing a few times in just one take, but I don’t know if that’ll make it into the finished product or they’ll have to cut a couple times.

When I was told I was to take a pill and then walk down the hall, they assured me that I didn’t have to actually take it. I could just pretend.

Well, when I accidentally swallowed the first one, I figured what the hell, why not keep going.

I ended up swallowing so many pills, I swore my stomach rattled. They tasted like nothing, but kinda looked like breath mints.

From what I could gather, at some point, they did a little close-up/insert of me. I don’t know if it was just me or if it was one of those where they start on me and then pan to Angelina, but I’m pretty sure they did at least one take like that. Maybe that’ll make it into the finished product. I dunno. By now, I was still just glad to be there and having such a great time.

Later on in the scene, while Angelina is fighting an orderly, all of us extras got to come down the hallway, shocked at what we were seeing. They even did a shot just for us! The camera went by all of us as we stared in fright. It was awesome that all of us extras got close-ups that time. I wonder if they’ll use any of them, though. It was just awesome that they even bothered with us. I mean, we’re extras, we usually only get camera time behind the principle or by accident.

Jen always asks how close I get to the celebrities. Well, today was a doosie. 3 inches for Mr. Eastwood and 0 inches for Ms. Jolie. Yeah, I was unintentionally standing in the way and she accidentally bumped me.

I spent the last scene of the day in holding before getting yet another call time while being signed out. Yeah, I was on my way to yet another day of fun and excitement!

Store not available