Hi guys!
I just realized that it was after 3 AM and since that means I'll probably sleep in, I thought that I would pop in and tell you about my day now. It was a long one, but I'll make a long story short.
The shoot was a long and grueling one and most assuredly the most uncomfortable shoot I've ever worked on. We spent the day sitting on concrete bleachers which, by the way, get very hot in the sun. The P.A.'s kept moving us so that the crowd would look bigger and sometime after noon, we started sitting on really, really hot concrete.
I ran into a very nice lady who is probably a bit older than I am, and most of the people there were college aged kids. I lied about my age to get the job...a lot. The lady that I met, Rhonda, was sent there by a friend of hers, she didn't send a picture like I did. I was happy to find someone older to hang with. Movies are long and boring to make, whether or not they're long and boring to watch. It's nice to have someone to talk to.
Basically the movie is a prequel to the first two Van Wilder movies which are, from what I understand, along the lines of Porky's Revenge. But, that made for a fun shoot because they got a little crazy out there today. They were filming a college football game. At first I assumed the players were just extras that got picked to play football players. Then, they started to play. They didn't call audibles, they knew exactly what they were supposed to do and if it meant catching a 30 yard pass, that's what they did. I started thinking they were better than your average extra when, after 2 or 3 plays, there wasn't an offsides or a holding penalty committed. They play too neatly to be a bunch of guys who showed up at 7 like I did. So, I asked one of them who told me that they were a couple of semi-pro teams. I didn't ask what the teams were. I probably should have, but I was too damn weak from making the mistake of getting in the lunch line BEHIND the damned football teams...that's teams with an "s"...two damn football teams in front of me at the chow line. I didn't get much.
I had a hamburger but by the time I got there, all that was left was pieces of burgers. I shouldn't complain, I was the first one in line to choose what pieces I wanted because the guy in front of me took the last THREE full burgers. So, I did get the two halves. They weren't matching halves, but they did equal one burger.
Anyway, when they were moving people around, you could see that they were putting the older people in the back and the younger, blonder people down in front. I was in the 3rd row at that time and I don't know if I was too high up to matter or if the huge sunglasses that I was wearing hid my age well enough for me to be there. So, I stayed down there until lunch. Rhonda and I ate together and we were having such a nice time that when we went back to the set, we sat up high and off to the sides so that we could talk and not be too responsible. All we had to do was act when we needed to and each time we did, we had to do a reaction of people watching a football game. People watching football games do a LOT of exercise. They jump up and down, they cheer and they do the wave...over and over again. Then, we climbed up and down the concrete bleachers, quite hot by this time, over and over again.
Halfway through the day it occurred to me that if I didn't occasionally take those big ass sunglasses off of my face, I was gonna look like Batman. So I got lucky. I took them off in between takes so now my ENTIRE face is burned, along with my chest...in the shape of a V right under my neck. My boobs were spared. I used the sunblock, I guess it just didn't work. I didn't even look to see what the SPF was, they were passing it around for everyone to use. A black guy that I was chatting with at one point got his very first sunburn today. He'd never had one so he didn't worry about it in the first place. But it was in the 90's and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for the ENTIRE day...check the radar, not one brief respite from that Gogia sun. They don't call it Hotlanta for nuthin'.
Now, remember my tail lights? The ones that went out? Well, they're still out. So, I had to be out of there well before sundown and they wanted to use every minute of sun that they had to shoot the movie. I told the chick in charge of background my plight and she said that she would see what she could do. Then, we had to shoot the closing scene of the football game. I assume it was the closing scene of the movie as well, but I don't know for sure. I walked back across those damn concrete bleachers trying very hard NOT TO BREAK ANY BONES!!!
When I got there, I sat up top with my friend again. The chick who was supposed to get me out of there earlier was very smart. When she was moving people around she had me go down and sit front and center. The only thing that I had to do was avoid blocking the principles who were sitting in the second bleacher and to my side. Otherwise, I was pretty much alone. There was no one in front of the actors and there was no one to my other side so I had a huge chunk of the first bleacher to myself and once they started filming, I realized what she had just done to me.
She stuck me in front so that...
A. I COULDN'T leave, I couldn't just disappear in the middle of the scene.
or
B. I wouldn't WANT to leave because I had such good camera position.
I stayed for the first reason, I've been on camera before and I had been on camera earlier that day...before I started pouring cups of water all over myself. I, and a few of the people around me, started getting slap happy from the heat and we dumped water on ourselves and on each other. It felt SOOOOO good. We took the pom-pom's they gave us, stuck them in ice water and then we shook them at the crowd. It sent sprinkles of water over everybody. A couple of times, when we, as a crowd, were jumping up and cheering, I tossed entire cups of water over everyone. I whipped the water so far that it still came down in sprinkles, they were just really big sprinkles. And since my timing was so perfect, no one knew it was me. I'm such an annoying person sometimes.
So, by 7 0'clock at night, after you've done the wave 20 times and "Oooh-ed" and "Ahh-ed" 50 times, jumping up and down, pumping arms in the air and cheering "Boo!" or "YES!", whatever the director called for...and done it all in 90 degree heat and a hot Gogia sun, on hot concrete bleachers with a skinny ass like mine, with an obvious sunburn and make-up that melted at 9:30 in the morning...I did NOT want to be on camera.
Oh, and I wore black. Wasn't that a wise wardrobe choice for sitting out in the sun?
The only good thing about the day was the fact that I wasn't alone there in the stadium.
Then, when it was time to leave, that P.A. chick let me go to the front of the line to sign out and then I ran through the parking lot, acting like a dyslexic vampire worried about the sun setting on him only to find that my battery was dead.
There was nothing for me to do except ask arbitrary people who were walking by if they had cables. That kid who had gotten his first sunburn came over with his brother and they were nice enough to jump the car. That morning I was running late so I went straight to the set without getting gas even though the gas light came on before I got on the interstate 20 miles ago. Now, with the sun going down, I had to stop and get gas.
It was still barely light and it was 8 PM. Some guy with a watch that tells sunset times told me that the sun would be setting at 7:56. Wasn't that cool? He walked past me earlier in the day and I said, "Do you know what time the sun sets?"
He looked at his wrist and said, "7:56." and kept on walking. Imagine my surprise. I would have settled for "Around 8."
So, I stopped at the gas station after 8 PM. I know that because when I started the car back up at 7:45 after the jump, the clock said, "12:00...12:00...12:00." And now it said "12:17...12:17...12:17." I put a quick 5 bucks in and went to drive away and the fucker wouldn't start...again.
There was a guy there who I asked for a jump but he didn't have cables and I had given someone else a jump the other day and I forgot to put mine back in car. So, they were on my carport, much too far away to do me any good right then.
When the car wouldn't start, the guy said that it wasn't my battery, that it was my transmission. He knew that because my shifter thing wouldn't shift into neutral. So, I called a wrecker who asked if we could hook my battery back up to his battery to get the steering wheel unlocked by turning the car on. When he said that, I remembered that when the car wouldn't start when I had tried to start the stupid thing when we had the cables hooked up, the dash lights had gone on so I knew it would work. I was able to put it in neutral therefore get it out of way of another car who might want gas. If we couldn't move it, it would be towed and impounded and I couldn't let that happen. But, luckily, it let us put it into neutral and then I just rolled down the lot into a parking space.
As luck would have it, the guy who was helping me lives in Paulding County and he goes home right past my house. He had just come from working on the movie too...he was one of the football players. I offered to give him gas money for a ride home but since it was on his way, he wouldn't take it.
He did, though, take the jumper cables that I bought because I already have some...I just didn't have them with me. And he didn't have any at all.
Before we got it all straightened out, all I could think about was how much I just wanted to be in my house...near my things. I don't like being so far away from stuff like my own bathroom and air conditioning.
All in all it was really a pretty good day. Of course, I'm left with this sunburn and an embarrassing movie to put on my resume. But I'll muttle through.
Once I finally DID get home, my day got really, really good. I was lucky enough to be able to watch the Bears play and then I was lucky enough to see them win!
That was cool. I think I should go to bed now. Sorry, I really thought that I COULD make a long story short. That's so stupid...how the hell can you make a long story a short one? Crap. I would have had to chop half of it out. Then, it wouldn't have been the same story at all. Sorry.
See ya!
I just realized that it was after 3 AM and since that means I'll probably sleep in, I thought that I would pop in and tell you about my day now. It was a long one, but I'll make a long story short.
The shoot was a long and grueling one and most assuredly the most uncomfortable shoot I've ever worked on. We spent the day sitting on concrete bleachers which, by the way, get very hot in the sun. The P.A.'s kept moving us so that the crowd would look bigger and sometime after noon, we started sitting on really, really hot concrete.
I ran into a very nice lady who is probably a bit older than I am, and most of the people there were college aged kids. I lied about my age to get the job...a lot. The lady that I met, Rhonda, was sent there by a friend of hers, she didn't send a picture like I did. I was happy to find someone older to hang with. Movies are long and boring to make, whether or not they're long and boring to watch. It's nice to have someone to talk to.
Basically the movie is a prequel to the first two Van Wilder movies which are, from what I understand, along the lines of Porky's Revenge. But, that made for a fun shoot because they got a little crazy out there today. They were filming a college football game. At first I assumed the players were just extras that got picked to play football players. Then, they started to play. They didn't call audibles, they knew exactly what they were supposed to do and if it meant catching a 30 yard pass, that's what they did. I started thinking they were better than your average extra when, after 2 or 3 plays, there wasn't an offsides or a holding penalty committed. They play too neatly to be a bunch of guys who showed up at 7 like I did. So, I asked one of them who told me that they were a couple of semi-pro teams. I didn't ask what the teams were. I probably should have, but I was too damn weak from making the mistake of getting in the lunch line BEHIND the damned football teams...that's teams with an "s"...two damn football teams in front of me at the chow line. I didn't get much.
I had a hamburger but by the time I got there, all that was left was pieces of burgers. I shouldn't complain, I was the first one in line to choose what pieces I wanted because the guy in front of me took the last THREE full burgers. So, I did get the two halves. They weren't matching halves, but they did equal one burger.
Anyway, when they were moving people around, you could see that they were putting the older people in the back and the younger, blonder people down in front. I was in the 3rd row at that time and I don't know if I was too high up to matter or if the huge sunglasses that I was wearing hid my age well enough for me to be there. So, I stayed down there until lunch. Rhonda and I ate together and we were having such a nice time that when we went back to the set, we sat up high and off to the sides so that we could talk and not be too responsible. All we had to do was act when we needed to and each time we did, we had to do a reaction of people watching a football game. People watching football games do a LOT of exercise. They jump up and down, they cheer and they do the wave...over and over again. Then, we climbed up and down the concrete bleachers, quite hot by this time, over and over again.
Halfway through the day it occurred to me that if I didn't occasionally take those big ass sunglasses off of my face, I was gonna look like Batman. So I got lucky. I took them off in between takes so now my ENTIRE face is burned, along with my chest...in the shape of a V right under my neck. My boobs were spared. I used the sunblock, I guess it just didn't work. I didn't even look to see what the SPF was, they were passing it around for everyone to use. A black guy that I was chatting with at one point got his very first sunburn today. He'd never had one so he didn't worry about it in the first place. But it was in the 90's and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for the ENTIRE day...check the radar, not one brief respite from that Gogia sun. They don't call it Hotlanta for nuthin'.
Now, remember my tail lights? The ones that went out? Well, they're still out. So, I had to be out of there well before sundown and they wanted to use every minute of sun that they had to shoot the movie. I told the chick in charge of background my plight and she said that she would see what she could do. Then, we had to shoot the closing scene of the football game. I assume it was the closing scene of the movie as well, but I don't know for sure. I walked back across those damn concrete bleachers trying very hard NOT TO BREAK ANY BONES!!!
When I got there, I sat up top with my friend again. The chick who was supposed to get me out of there earlier was very smart. When she was moving people around she had me go down and sit front and center. The only thing that I had to do was avoid blocking the principles who were sitting in the second bleacher and to my side. Otherwise, I was pretty much alone. There was no one in front of the actors and there was no one to my other side so I had a huge chunk of the first bleacher to myself and once they started filming, I realized what she had just done to me.
She stuck me in front so that...
A. I COULDN'T leave, I couldn't just disappear in the middle of the scene.
or
B. I wouldn't WANT to leave because I had such good camera position.
I stayed for the first reason, I've been on camera before and I had been on camera earlier that day...before I started pouring cups of water all over myself. I, and a few of the people around me, started getting slap happy from the heat and we dumped water on ourselves and on each other. It felt SOOOOO good. We took the pom-pom's they gave us, stuck them in ice water and then we shook them at the crowd. It sent sprinkles of water over everybody. A couple of times, when we, as a crowd, were jumping up and cheering, I tossed entire cups of water over everyone. I whipped the water so far that it still came down in sprinkles, they were just really big sprinkles. And since my timing was so perfect, no one knew it was me. I'm such an annoying person sometimes.
So, by 7 0'clock at night, after you've done the wave 20 times and "Oooh-ed" and "Ahh-ed" 50 times, jumping up and down, pumping arms in the air and cheering "Boo!" or "YES!", whatever the director called for...and done it all in 90 degree heat and a hot Gogia sun, on hot concrete bleachers with a skinny ass like mine, with an obvious sunburn and make-up that melted at 9:30 in the morning...I did NOT want to be on camera.
Oh, and I wore black. Wasn't that a wise wardrobe choice for sitting out in the sun?
The only good thing about the day was the fact that I wasn't alone there in the stadium.
Then, when it was time to leave, that P.A. chick let me go to the front of the line to sign out and then I ran through the parking lot, acting like a dyslexic vampire worried about the sun setting on him only to find that my battery was dead.
There was nothing for me to do except ask arbitrary people who were walking by if they had cables. That kid who had gotten his first sunburn came over with his brother and they were nice enough to jump the car. That morning I was running late so I went straight to the set without getting gas even though the gas light came on before I got on the interstate 20 miles ago. Now, with the sun going down, I had to stop and get gas.
It was still barely light and it was 8 PM. Some guy with a watch that tells sunset times told me that the sun would be setting at 7:56. Wasn't that cool? He walked past me earlier in the day and I said, "Do you know what time the sun sets?"
He looked at his wrist and said, "7:56." and kept on walking. Imagine my surprise. I would have settled for "Around 8."
So, I stopped at the gas station after 8 PM. I know that because when I started the car back up at 7:45 after the jump, the clock said, "12:00...12:00...12:00." And now it said "12:17...12:17...12:17." I put a quick 5 bucks in and went to drive away and the fucker wouldn't start...again.
There was a guy there who I asked for a jump but he didn't have cables and I had given someone else a jump the other day and I forgot to put mine back in car. So, they were on my carport, much too far away to do me any good right then.
When the car wouldn't start, the guy said that it wasn't my battery, that it was my transmission. He knew that because my shifter thing wouldn't shift into neutral. So, I called a wrecker who asked if we could hook my battery back up to his battery to get the steering wheel unlocked by turning the car on. When he said that, I remembered that when the car wouldn't start when I had tried to start the stupid thing when we had the cables hooked up, the dash lights had gone on so I knew it would work. I was able to put it in neutral therefore get it out of way of another car who might want gas. If we couldn't move it, it would be towed and impounded and I couldn't let that happen. But, luckily, it let us put it into neutral and then I just rolled down the lot into a parking space.
As luck would have it, the guy who was helping me lives in Paulding County and he goes home right past my house. He had just come from working on the movie too...he was one of the football players. I offered to give him gas money for a ride home but since it was on his way, he wouldn't take it.
He did, though, take the jumper cables that I bought because I already have some...I just didn't have them with me. And he didn't have any at all.
Before we got it all straightened out, all I could think about was how much I just wanted to be in my house...near my things. I don't like being so far away from stuff like my own bathroom and air conditioning.
All in all it was really a pretty good day. Of course, I'm left with this sunburn and an embarrassing movie to put on my resume. But I'll muttle through.
Once I finally DID get home, my day got really, really good. I was lucky enough to be able to watch the Bears play and then I was lucky enough to see them win!
That was cool. I think I should go to bed now. Sorry, I really thought that I COULD make a long story short. That's so stupid...how the hell can you make a long story a short one? Crap. I would have had to chop half of it out. Then, it wouldn't have been the same story at all. Sorry.
See ya!
posted by Meg Kelso | 12:12 AM
3 Comments:
The name of our football team is Georgia Pride. It was only one team but we split in two for the movie shots
Billy Field
Well thank you! You guys did a great job.
My mistake, you looked like 2 teams full of people!
Meg
Pride earns 38-6 win over Atlanta
By Danny Daniels
The Walton Tribune
Published July 30, 2008
MONROE — The Georgia Pride notched their first United South Football League win of the season in spectacular fashion over the Atlanta Red Villains Saturday night at Legion Field.
The Pride was in front 30-0 at halftime before cruising to a 38-6 win.
The offense was paced again by the usual suspects. Chuck Kubiak threw for 185 yards and two touchdowns. Mohammed Issak was on the receiving end of those TDs and accumulated 113 yards on three catches.
Wide receiver Billy Field was named Player of the Game. Field scored on a 20-yard reverse and also filled in on kicking duties, going 3-for-3 on extra points and hitting a 42-yard field goal. He completed a pass for a two-point conversion as well.
The Pride offense rolled up more than 350 yards of total offense, including more than 100 yards rushing for the first time this season.
The rushing attack was led by tailback Kenny Strozier and fullbacks Ronnie White and Terrance Saturday.
The Pride defense also had a stellar performance. Former Commerce High School and Valdosta State University star Antwion Shealer led the defense with seven tackles and two sacks.
Georgia linebacker Anthony Hamlett added nine tackles. Hamlett and Shealer combined for one of the biggest plays of the game. After Hamlett recovered a fumble and stumbled 10 yards, he lateralled the ball to Shealer, who rumbled another 42 yards for a defensive touchdown.
Nate Murphy also recovered a fumble in the opponent’s end zone for a touchdown. Defensive end and sack leader John Payne recorded eight tackles and another three sacks to bring his total to 10 on the season, still tops in the USFL.
The defense received good play by former Monroe Area Purple Hurricane Tony Stroud, who returned an interception for 24 yards. Terrance Saturday and Loganville resident Carl Huff each drew praise for his effort on defense.
“We played well but we still missed some opportunities in the red zone,” said Pride head coach Nathan Stephens. “We probably missed out on another four touchdowns inside the 15 yard line. Considering we played mostly backups the second half, I’m still pretty pleased with the outcome.
“It was valuable experience for this young team. Coach Calvin Bennett called a great offensive game. We just failed to execute when we got close to their goal line. This allowed us to see what we need to do different the next time we are in the red zone.”
The Pride travels to Hampton this weekend to play the Henry County Horsemen before returning home the following week for a grudge match against the Tennessee Crush.
Stephens said he would like to congratulate kicker/punter Alex Bates and defensive back Randy Thomas. Bates will be attending Valdosta State this fall and will be playing for the defending national champs.
Thomas will be playing for Clarke University in Atlanta on full scholarship.
Post a Comment
<< Home