Busy busy

So, where were we?  I think I left off on Thursday?  So then, to catch up...

Friday's highlight was talking a walk around NoHo park with Ashley, my new OkCupid friend.  It was our first time meeting up in person, but we didn't miss a beat and jumped right into the conversation, which consisted of Burning Man, Buddism, Taoism and drinking too much, among other things.  She also taught me a very important thing, which is that right now you can make your own webisode and if you do the SAG paperwork, you can become SAG eligible, which is pretty sweet.  I very much want to do this, but I need help, so I'm gathering resources as we speak.  I may even do a reboot of Cooking for Chris, my 3 episode cooking show I made about ten years ago.

Friday night was a super early to bed night for me, because...

Saturday I played a 1940s reporter on CAPTAIN AMERICA!

Ok, so there were like 30 other reporters in the scene and no principles on set that day, but it was still a lot of fun to work on what I'm sure is by far the biggest budget movie I've ever been on.  It was actually a really easy day too.  Wardrobe, hair and make up took everybody about 2 hours, so the day started off mellow.  The outfit I wore was pretty cool, with a vintage suit and a bow tie and fedora.  It happened to be a cool day as well, so it was nice to wear the suit and the hat kept the sun out of my face for the most part.  Everybody was nice and friendly.  There was the one guy who jumped right into race discussions before even introducing himself or establishing any sort of report.  This happens a lot during background work.  Not necessarily regarding race, it could be any taboo topic, but there always seems to be someone that brings up a topic that you normally wouldn't discuss with a stranger (and yes, race is better then hearing about people's surgeries) long before most of the people around him or her feel comfortable talking about it.  I imagine it is mostly how that individual has learned to get attention in their lives and we all know how actors love attention.

The shooting was also very smooth.  We were up in Huntington park, a beautiful park that includes all sorts of different plants and gardens.  The day was mild, although a little cold on some of the women in dresses and the shooting went very quickly with good break in between.  I made a couple new friends along the way, but ended up handing my card out to only one woman who was trying to lose her German accent.  I offered to help her by posting on The Table site, something that turned out to get quite a few responses.

Saturday night I went straight to Josh and Matt's house where they were having a gathering.  Greg, Sandra and Greg's two kids were up for the night.  I hadn't met Greg's kids before, but quickly fell in love with them.  I'm around children so little these days, I forget how fun they can be (for limited amounts of time).  I even rushed off to the store and bought the kids s'mores (ok ok, I got them for myself) and taught them how to make a campfire. 

Later that night I met up with my friend Mona who was down visiting and did a little dancing and met some of her friends in LA.

Sunday was mostly spent resting.  :)

Monday was a resurgence of trying to get in ubershape (looking, not fitness) and involved an extra long walk around the park.  I also spent a fair amount of time with my books as I was feeling very philosophical.  Once again early to bed Monday because...

Tuesday I worked as an extra on a Ford commercial.  We shot up in Elysian park, up on the hill behind Dodger's stadium.  So far up you could see all the way down in it.  You could also see a good chunk of the city and I was told the day before you could see all the way to the ocean.  It was a small shoot that involved a couple of hosts doing a contest with a guy who could potentially win a Ford focus.  All staged of course.  My and the other 20 background actors job was to stand behind the car or cars and act excited, a skill I'm starting to master.  Outside of needing my sunglasses for the first shot, it was another easy shoot.  Unfortunately though, the actors they cast for this one were a bit younger than on Captain A and a lot less focused. 

If I can digress a little, I feel like SF background actors are in general pretty good about behaving and listening to direction and not goofing off too much.  Sure, you always get the one crazy person that probably shouldn't be let out of the house, much less on set, but you deal with it.  In LA, I've yet to come across a fully crazy person, but anytime the mean age is under 27 for a shoot, there are always jackasses that try to stand out by doing something inappropriate.  Now you might say, "who cares?  It is on them, not you.", but it does actually effect me because if we end up having to do a shot again because of them that means I'm actually getting less money per hour unless the shoot goes into overtime.  Not that I mind people being friendly and trying to have a little fun with it, but there's a line that usually occurs about when the AD is jumping up and down trying to get everyone's attention right as they are calling "camera".

The shoot did end early, which was great.  The park was really nice too, so I might be back there someday.  One of the best things about being an actor in a new city is that gigs are all over and you really start to get to know the town.

Today I went over to Extra's Management to sign up with them.  They are a call service, which means that they do all the dirty work of booking you extra gigs, for a fee.  I was originally going to go with Virgo, but they didn't get back to me after my initial email and I need the work now.  Since I am union, I did have to apply to work for them, but they didn't ask to see my email (as they had said they would) when I arrived, so I'm wondering if it really makes much of a difference.  After a relatively short intro and form filling out session, we went out to process our paperwork and get our pictures taken.  I was prepared and since I had multiple costume changes, they had me go first.  By the time I finished processing, some people that had come to update their pictures were there in from on me.  Since the laws of small worlds remain in effect in LA, the man in front of me was the same man who had started the race discussions on the Captain America set.  I will refrain from making any obvious jokes here, but I'm sure he didn't recognize me despite the 15 minute conversation we had.

I ended up doing 4 different looks for the photo shoot.  The photographer showed me some of the photos, which looked good, but my face looked really red.  I feel like I should have put on some foundation maybe, but that's always such a tough thing for guys since, especially for background work, you want to look as real as possible.

So that should have us up to date.  I have an audition tomorrow, but besides that no major plans.  Happy interwebbing!