Oh! And… More Leeloo
I’ve noticed that there are many people coming here to see my Leeloo costume. Perhaps its creation as well as me wearing it and dancing the Cancan in it, I dunno.
Well, I’ve decided to make a series of posts about it. I didn’t take pictures when I built it. In retrospect, I should’ve. I had no idea it’d be such an ambitious undertaking. One I’d do again, but not so enthusiastically because that dress practically owned me for a month and a half. It was totally worth it, but it was also a lot of work.
From design to finished product, it wasn’t a picnic. First came the screen shots to see what Leeloo was actually wearing and what her hair looked like with those long, weird, gummed-up, not-traffic-cone-orange, just-bright-orange twists. The hardest part was seeing what her shoes looked like. The only times her shoes were onscreen where when she was kicking ass and most of the freeze frames were too blurry to make out the detail on her shoes. Granted, I was doing a different rendition of her costume, so I could vary a little, but I wanted a good base to start with.
It was a combined effort between me and Shawn Crosby. He did a wonderful drawing of the design. I have it somewhere. I’ll post it if I can find it.
In the end, the costume cost me hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours. I really stepped up to the plate on this one and I’m amazed that it turned out like it did. I’d never worked with vinyl or stretch netting or even some simpler things like snaps and interfacing and decorative elastic and iron-on bonding. Okay, so some of those things aren’t as common, but you get the picture. This wasn’t an easy job, but I did learn a lot. Not only did I learn how to physically do stuff, I learned something more important: That I could do just about anything I set my mind to…yes, just about anything.
Yes, I really did dance the Cancan on a stage while dressed as Leeloo!
Okay, so you saw my previous posts about my adventures as Cancan Leeloo for the Lux After Dark halftime show of the 2006 WorldCon Costume Masquerade. (dress rehearsal, before the show, in the audience, backstage) But did you notice that one kind of picture is absent from the line-up? The kind of picture that proves I did what I said I did:
I danced the Cancan on a stage in front of people. I believe thousands were in the audience.
Well, thanks to Essentialsaltes posting these pics on Flickr, I have visual proof of my escapade.
Notice how I’m leaning over further than the rest of the girls? My wig was falling off and I was frantically trying to get the bobby pins back in order to keep the darn thing on! It already cut off my peripheral vision, so I never knew whether I was on step with the rest of the girls. The last thing I needed was for the darn thing to launch off my head. It didn’t, thank goodness!
There you have it. My complete Cancan adventure complete with photographic proof…
Even a year later, I still look back fondly at this experience. It was definitely one of my more odd ones, but what’s life for if not to live it and love it?
G-Force
I just got off of a movie called G-Force. I saw some awesome driving stunts, a simulated hamster and got to spend a few days overlooking the Port of Los Angeles. Not half bad, but it felt very, very long. I mean, like, super long. Sure, 12 hour days are never short, but I think I prefer a day or two rather than four in a row on any show to break up the monotony.
It took an hour to get to the location for a 6AM call time. Going in, I knew it’d make for a long ride home because when I’m on a car call, that means we only work during daylight hours if we’re called in that early. I was working with my ’06 Mustang on this one.
The first day, I spent many hours in holding. Over the course of this gig, I read an entire book about Medieval Seige Warfare. Not half bad, but also a little dry–which makes any book the wrong book to have on set. But it was what I had in my bag, so I did enjoy it between conversations with other extras.
Something odd about this gig was that the set was about 5 blocks long and holding was on one end rather than in the middle. And we were on a rather steep hill…one of the blocks reminded me of a non-crooked version of Lombard St. in San Francisco. It wasn’t quite that steep, but after the third time walking up it…you get the picture. Thankfully, when I did have to walk up and down it during the shot, I didn’t have to go far. The SUVs in were hauling ass, doing stunts in the street, so the most I could travel was about 20-30 feet during any given take.
I got to drive a little on one of the days. That was nice. I always enjoy driving.
Watching the stunts was fun, too. One had an SUV coming down the hill, going around a car, as another SUV came around a corner, cutting off the car and following the first SUV as it swerved around another SUV while yet another SUV came around another corner and joined the fray. Lots of squealing tires and good, fun automotive mayhem. I heard the drivers came within inches of a few of the vehicles…cool! I dig that shit.
I missed the big stunt on one of the other days because I was forgotten in holding. I heard it didn’t go off as planned, though. A little too much ramp and the SUV exchanged the intended target for an unintended target. There wasn’t any massive carnage or anything and it looked great on camera, but it wasn’t what the script required so they had to do it again.
That one I got to see. The SUV went up the ramps and landed on an old RV, shattering it. Awesome shit for me. I’ve seen a few other similar stunts, but it had been quite awhile. I’m always amazed at the prep time before and after a shot like that, too. It seemed to take forever, but was, of course warranted. I mean, if I was anywhere involved in the action, I’d want to make sure everything was right, wouldn’t you?
I just realized that I mentioned the hamster in the beginning and never got back to it. Well, I’d snuck a peek at the story board on the first day. Apparently, we were filming some sort of car chase between a CG hamster in a giant motor-propelled (I think…it was hard to tell how it was propelled because it looked like the hamster was driving it, not running in it) ball. It looked really bitchin’ on the story board. I definitely want to see this movie when it comes out just so I can put together all the pieces of the shots I was part of and see what we were actually doing. I had my back to the action on several occasions.
Sometimes, to simulate the hamster, they used this weird home-made-looking car-like contraption that I can’t even begin to describe and do it justice. It was kinda like a go-cart, kinda like a dirt track car, kinda like a “hey guys, I got some metal and an engine, let’s build a kickass-fast race-buggy” sort of thing. It was really nifty and I’ve never seen anything like it.
I’ve never worked in a scene where heavy CG stuff was going to be added later. (I didn’t work with Doc Oc when I was on Spiderman II.) So, when they brought out the sort of camera tester balls of various materials plus the ones with various furs on them, at first I didn’t make the connection. That was what made me try to steal a glance at the story board. The weird car, the groups of balls, just what the hell kind of show was I on? Then, everything made sense and I started really diggin’ it and wondering what it’d be like from the CG animators point of view when the footage landed in the queue. I’ve never been on that side of it, nor had I thought about it before. Fascinatin’ shit to me…
The weather was odd. The first two days had hot sun (thank goodness for the sunblock in my generic survival kit in my gig bag) with icy cold sea breeze. The next day was miserable hot sun with no breeze…and then rain. We went home “early”–about an hour earlier than the previous days–and it took me two-and-a-half hours to crawl home because it was Friday night, too. That sucked. The last day was perfect. Warm, but not hot. The breeze was cool, but not freezing. I wish more shoots could be like that.
I doubt I made it into the movie. Us extras were mostly just little blurs of movement on the sidewalks. When I rent the DVD, I’ll have to freeze-frame it to maybe see myself. There’s a pretty good chance of seeing my car, though. The camera was right next to it in one of the shots, so maybe they were using the row of cars parked there. That’d be good enough for me.
More Cancan Leeloo!
I found some more pics of me and the rest of us Cancan girls from the Lux After Dark halftime show of the 2006 WorldCon Costume Masquerade.
The following pics were on a website with Danny Low‘s photography of all the costumes. Thanks a million, Danny!!!!
This was definitely an experience I will never, ever forget. First, just being in the room with so much talent. I learned a lot about sewing and costuming throughout the whole adventure.
Gotta have a shot of the girls with the legs, of course. We’re wearing cancan dresses for goodness sake! It’s virtually impossible to resist holding them up.
This was the final tableau of our big dance number recreated backstage for the photographers. You can’t really see, but yeah, I stretched out so much that I could sit with my chin on my hands, elbows on the floor between my outstretched legs. This took months. Granted, I was pretty heavily into yoga by this time, so it was an extension of something I was already working toward. However, yoga is not done in a corset, but Cancan dancing is and it was a whole new ballgame to get that flexible despite my innards being compressed.
Once again, yes, I know I look nothing like Mila Jovovich and this pic is proof! But I did have a wonderful time and I did keep my costume. Leeloo will be returning someday. I don’t know if she’ll be doing another Cancan, but she’ll definitely cruise through a few conventions over the years. So much time and effort went into that costume, I’d hate to let it languish in my closet.
Booth 59 on Publisher Island
In Second Life, I go by the name Twyla Briggs. I’m still learning the ropes, but I just set up a booth on Publisher Island. #59 to be exact. It’s in view of Book Island, too. I put a phantom castle on the front. You can’t miss it.
Beyond the castle is Tayna’s Chronicle Room from Otherness: Rift. How nifty is it that anyone can write a book and then create its world in Second Life? And, like, walk around in that world? Good golly, the possibilities are endless and I look forward to doing Ashleigh Raine books there, too.
I had tons of fun scouring SL for props and scanning various things in my Real Life repertoire (aka stashes of precious junk) for correct textures. The castle image on the front of my booth is actually 3 photos from various vacations in England. Yay! For re-purposing vacation pictures!
My favorites from the whole experience were seeing the big ol’ book laying on Tayna’s table, Tayna’s tea cup and Twyla’s crystal ball.
In Otherness: Rift, the book is called the Rede. Right now, in SL, the Rede is just a simple object. I have much planned for it in the future. Much more than what’s in the novel I wrote…because, well, I can play with it more in Second Life!
While Tayna’s tea cup isn’t exactly like any of the ones she drinks out of in Otherness: Rift, it’s close. Plus, it was the first thing that was given to me (thank you, Weasel Gough), so to modify it was also kind of special. It started as a very simple, white cup of black tea. I transformed it into a celtic-patterned cup of green tea. Feel free to stop by my booth and copy one for yourself. I left the drinking script in it, so your avatar can enjoy!
And finally, Twyla’s crystal ball. Well, that’s a sort of funny thing. I’d gotten a box of miscellaneous lights that included some particle balls. None of them were quite right for my idea of the ball Tayna was using to scry in Otherness: Rift, so I opened up the script to see if I could figure out how to modify it. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I kept changing numbers until I got the right colors, the right movement and the right speed. My husband was so shocked, he helped me build a base for it from scratch. What a fantastic learning experience.
I look forward to many more builds and such in Second Life. Say hi if you see Twyla Briggs!!!!
Virtually Living
I enjoy exploring Second Life as Twyla Briggs, but for some reason I hadn’t considered having a presence there until recently. Sure, I always figured I’d collaborate with some of my friends (they’ve already got a lot going on), but I hadn’t dreamed of doing something on my own…y’know, like figuring out how to build stuff.
Well, the time has come. I have booth #59 on Publisher Island and I gotta do something really cool with it. I mean, like, really, really cool. ‘Cause with the quality of what my friends do and have done, I gotta present something at least respectable. I’m married to Fallon Winnfield, for goodness sake. Visit Manoa. You’ll see why I’m feelin’ pressure!
And I don’t want his help, either. Advice, yes, but I wanna learn this myself. My goal is to have him come to me asking how to do stuff, not always the other way around. I want my friends to be surprised that I did so well first time out.
When physical light is introduced in Second Life, well, I’ll be even more motivated than I am now. Once upon a time, I was a theatrical lighting designer. I still read books on the history of stage lighting just for the fun of it even though I haven’t done a real stage show in several years. I miss lighting. A lot. So, to have the opportunity to do it in Second Life without renting fixtures, dimmers, miles of cable, a light board and then having to load, hang and focus it all myself using a ladder that’s probably too wobbly and short…well, you get the picture.
Right now, SL lighting isn’t physical. There are no shadows unless you manufacture them yourself. I’m too lazy. I wanna point a light at something and have the shadows happen naturally like they’re supposed to. To me, that’s one of the things that makes light so beautiful: the give and take between what is seen in the light and what is unseen in the shadows.
Can’t get enough of Cancan Leeloo?
The other day, my husband asked if I’d posted any pics about my adventures doing the Cancan while dressed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element…which turned into an internet expedition to see if anyone had posted other since last I looked. We’d had a camera meltdown and couldn’t take pictures of our own, so we’re depending on the great ‘net to provide what would’ve been otherwise lost to us.
I’d already posted some pics from Hazel (here and here). But I’ve found more since then.
For the record, yes, I know I look nothing like Mila Jovovich. She’s awesome. I, however, am not so much. I might someday get to be as awesome as she is, but I was certainly not while at WorldCon 2006 dancing the Cancan in an outfit I’d built which had been inspired by the one she’d worn in The Fifth Element. I’m not a dancer and likely never will be. But there was still much awesomeness in the experience I had. If nothing else, it serves well as a conversation piece.
Now for a new pic…
I found this one posted on Flickr by dragondawn. I don’t know you, but I thank you!
While wearing a cancan dress, I just had this strange compulsion to flip it up. I dunno why. It’s just one of those things, I guess. It’s a dress that’s made to be held up, so why not? Life’s too short not to live a little…
Malcolm in the Middle
I don’t remember exactly which day this one happened on and unfortunately, I’m not somewhere that I can look it up. (I love modern technology and newfound mobility because of it!) However, when I do find it, I’ll move this to that date and all will be well. Until then, assume it’s late July or early August of 2004 or was it 2005? My Hollywood career is such a blur because I only get to work a day or two on tons of shows and it gets hard to keep a good mental timeline.
Newsflash: Jen just informed me that it was the first show of their last season. Episode 130. It aired September 30th, 2005. So, this must’ve taken place around July 30, 2005.
I was a stand-in on Malcolm in the Middle. It was the first episode of their last season. What tripped me out the most about this shoot was that I was standing in for Malcolm…yeah, Frankie Muniz. I couldn’t believe it, either.
It started off rather normal. I got to the location (this was the Burning Man episode and they were shooting pretty far out of town), got my voucher and headed to the set. The crew was awesome, introducing themselves to me, helping me along. They’d been doing the show forever and were already in tune with each other. I was playing catch-up. Plus, I’d only been a stand-in a few times prior. It’s a whole lot different than being an extra.
Of course, since I was standing in for the lead, I worked between every take. They’d set up the camera and show me where my mark was, do their lighting, get it all framed up and then I’d step out. Frankie stepped in, did the scene and we were on to the next. I got pretty good at being ahead of the game, but it was far from easy. I did receive a lot of coaching from the stand-in for the father. He was very helpful…very, very helpful and I hope I get to work with him again some day. I think he’d been on Malcolm since either the beginning or darn close to it and had been standing in for years before that, too.
I was on this show for two days. Both were hot, but also fun and I learned a lot.
I got to talking to Bobby Porter, the Stunt Coordinator on the show. He gave me his card after I told him about Driven to Distraction and how we might have a few questions about how specific stunts are done and even the ingredients for a typical Safety Meeting that is done before every stunt. I learned a lot of interesting stuff from him, too.
That’s mostly what this gig was about for me: learning.
At some point toward the end of the shoot, I found myself in a conversation with one of the guys in the Art Department. I don’t recall if he was a set decorator or just one of the set-up/take-down crew. It’s been too long to remember for sure what he did on the show, but the one thing he gave me was his email address because he’d taken a few action shots of me while I was standing in.
Since I was never on camera during the episode, all I have are these photographs of my time on Malcolm in the Middle.
These next two are from the latter part of the shoot and they’re one of the things I love about Hollywood: any frame taken out of context gets kinda funny sometimes! Pardon me while I toot my own horn…
The other girl with a horn was also a regular stand-in on the show. She was really nice and also helped me along.
Okay, now for the big, crazy shot. This one’s my favorite because it really illustrates what goes on during filming. I even got to go for a ride several times on that whole contraption!
Learning, learning, and more learning! All in a two day shoot on Malcolm in the Middle!
How I Became an Extra
I’m going to go all the way back to the beginning on this one. I’ll try to be as brief as I can, but the path was a fun one and I hope to impart some of that mirth while relating this story.
In college, I discovered the theatre…as a technician, not an actress. After sampling carpentry, sound, and props, I settled in on lighting. My first gig as a Lighting Designer was also my first gig as Master Electrician and Light Board Operator. My boss had faith in me and coached me along and I must say that that ballet turned out great.
At that point, I’d become the ultimate lighting tech. I’d work on any show…sometimes for free, because I didn’t have to worry about rent. I still lived with mom and dad. But my love for the theatre was what brought me to the Los Angeles area because there just wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity where I came from.
So, in college, I continued my lighting career, landing a job at a manufacturer of lighting filters. This was my first real job and it also gave me my first exposure to the world of TV and film. It was my job to find out who was filming what and go there to talk to the crew. It was sort of a sales job without the hard sell. And I got to hang around on set, watching and learning. It was great.
When that job’s description changed, I switched gears and went to work at a small studio as their Lighting Equipment Repair Technician. I loved it. But then September 11 killed the economy and I ended up out of a job.
A bit angered at the entertainment industry, I left to work for a company that manufactured racing engine parts. But I always felt that I was in the wrong place.
My husband needed a hand at his agency, so I went to work for him. Well, sort of. He’d started a subsidiary company and that was the desk I occupied as the office anchor. It was great because by this time, Jen and I were working like crazy on Lover’s Talisman. I wrote quite a few scenes while I was ‘at work’…because there wasn’t any other ‘work’ to be done.
Eventually, I blew the whistle on that, wanting to get back into the entertainment industry somehow, too. But I had zero contacts by this point. All the guys I used to know either had different phone numbers, moved out of state or switched professions themselves. And it’s nearly impossible to get in unless you know someone. So what was left? Background Acting, of course.
All one has to do is sign up…So I did. The pay sucks big time, but non-union, there’s lots of work to be had…especially if you’ve got a huge wardrobe like I do. I’m a thrift store queen and can costume up in clothes from the 1960’s through right now. From homeless to ultra-rich. I’m not a fashion fiend…Jen can vouch for that! I just like clothes.
So, I started going out on shoots and discovered that there’s plenty of down time. In other words, I could still keep up with Jen on our writing. And on a day-to-day basis, I met all sorts of interesting people and got all sorts of story and character ideas. Each day’s work was more like an adventure than anything. For me, it was the perfect job.
I got started at the end of January 2003 and worked like crazy until we started heavy editing on Lover’s Talisman in July. Then, Jen and I were really hittin’ the writing and I couldn’t go out on as many gigs. That obviously gave me more time on my hands in between working on Magic In The Works.
My goal by this point was to get into SAG [Screen Actors Guild] because the pay was better and I could work less in order to write more. Well, luck was in my favor because I have three pre-1975 cars and Starsky & Hutch was in desperate need of one of them. So much so, they were willing to give me SAG vouchers to work on the movie. I jumped for joy when I got that phone call!!! I’d worked on it a couple days in April, but when they called me near the end of production, it was a totally different thing because I was being paid union rates. And those second two days ended up being a turning point for me in more than one way.
That following week, I visited one of the casting agencies that had booked me a lot on Carnivale. Armed with photos of myself and my cars, I put on my best smile and placed the photos in the hands of a casting director. She was so happy, she nearly fell out of her chair. She was casting Anchorman, which also took place in the early 70s. I ended up working at least one day a week for the next 9 weeks and managed to make enough money and SAG vouchers galore to get into the union.
That was September 2003 and I don’t think I’ll ever give up on extra work. It’s certainly not for everyone. The hours are very long. The conditions get questionable from time to time and there’s just nothing like spending a freezing cold windy night in a thin short-sleeved dress while the crew is wearing down jackets and telling us extras not to shiver when the cameras roll.
Yeah, we extras are the bottom of the food chain, literally, but I swear we’ve got one of the hardest jobs on set sometimes. Some days are spent waiting in boredom for 8 hours only to work for 1 and then go home. Others are fifteen hours of walking back and forth doing what I’ve come to call background pinball across frame all the while trying not to look like the same person each time we cross frame. Every day is different and for that, I’m so glad!
If anything, I hope my adventures in Hollywood make for good reading. No matter how crazy, they are all true. Some are so weird that I couldn’t’ve made them up even if I’d tried! I hope you enjoy.
Blast from my past
While hunting for something completely unrelated, I stumbled upon a stack of photographs that I’d assumed were lost long ago when I moved. Some of them are worth posting… Like this one:
This was taken on Van Nuys Blvd. during the Millenium Car Show in 2000. I don’t remember who took this photo of me, but I’m glad he gave me a copy. This was taken back when I used to enter my car in shows. I’ve won one trophy and that’s all I need.
I did not win anything at this show, but that’s beside the point. It’s just fun to be there. Plus, mine’s a driver. It’s not always spotlessly perfect. I haven’t put my car in a show since this one because my car got damaged in a small hit and run a few months after this pic was taken and I still haven’t fixed it. Lazy, I know, I know, but it has taken this many years to make it worth redoing the whole car and to finally get over my bad luck from that wreck.
I was thinking this might be the year I redo the car again, but I’m having second thoughts. I need to replace a lot of panels, so I think it might take me another year before I start sanding.
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