Seattle International Film Festival Opening Night

May 23, 2008 | Almost Famous

Last night was my big film debut! SB, Erik and Mary and I had an excellent time at the fancy opening night gala for Battle in Seattle.

Earlier this week I got an email from a very nice guy who works for a PR firm that was promoting the film with Brotherton Cadillac. It read:

“…I saw your recent Tweet saying that you are going to the opening night premiere of “Battle in Seattle” and that you were an extra in the movie. GM would like to provide you with a car and driver to take you to and from the premiere.

If you agree, you and a guest would be driven to and from the premiere in one of the Yukon Hybrids. You’re also invited to a post-screening VIP party hosted by Brad Brotherton Cadillac, which is supplying the cars.”

WHAT THE HELL? Are you freaking kidding me? Um, yes please. And that’s how the four of us ended up being picked up in a Yukon Hybrid, whisked up to Seattle, and dropped off on the Red Carpet. When we pulled up, dudes in vests and bowties scurried up to open the doors for us and everything.

Here we are, enjoying the plush environs of the Yukon:

And here we are on the Red Carpet…

Before the movie Hottiepants Stuart Townsend, the director, came out on stage and said some lovely things about the power of the people to make change in his dreamy, dreamy accent, remarking how maybe it was the eight centuries of colonial rule of his country that made him so drawn to protest. Then he brought some of the other stars from the movie out on stage, Martin Henderson, Michelle Rodriguez, Andre Benjamin, and CHARLIZE THERON. (Holy Glamazon! I. LOVE. HER.)

I enjoyed the movie. The crowd was very supportive and excited, and they cheered and booed throughout the movie at appropriate times. I love that! SB thought the characters weren’t developed well enough, he just didn’t care about them. I saw it differently, though. I thought there was just enough of the characters in it, I even got a little irritated when their character-y scenes ran on too long. I felt like the movie is more about the event, the story of the city and the protests, not so much about the love story and dead brother, etc.

Best line from the movie, at the end when they’re in jail:

Andre: Look at the bright side, a week ago, no one even knew what the WTO was. And now? Well, they still don’t know what it is, but they know it’s bad!

I’m sad to report that my big scene was cut. Clearly, the movie suffers because of it. I was wearing a gas mask, anyway, right? My name was in the credits, though, and so was SB’s! His for providing the extras, and mine for being a talent wrangler one of the days. That was cool!

There was a fancy party afterwards that was suitably glamorous. We didn’t go to the VIP thing mentioned in the email above. Partly because our driver didn’t know where it was (?) and also because they’d told me we could only have two tickets. We preferred to hang out with our friends, rather than stare at famous people from across the room, who may or may not have been there.

Afterwards, our driver picked us up at the end of the Red Carpet. We commanded him (no not really, he didn’t mind) to take us to Dick’s on the way out of town, so we capped the evening with quality burgers, shakes, and fries. A good time was had by all!  

OH MY GOD!

April 23, 2008 | Almost Famous

Remember this post about NPR?

Specifically this:

“Secondly, should you be a local NPR listener, you may be familiar with the uber-cheesy “Food For Thought” with Dick Stein and Nancy Leson. Each week, these two banter wittily about restaurants or recipes, or something else food related. Well! Guess what! My friend lives next door to Dick Stein, and on Saturday I was over at her house and I got to eat one of Dick Stein’s donuts! He had made some and offered them all neighborly-like to his neighbor. So! I’m hoping that this week, he will talk about making donuts and I’ll be so excited! That’ll be a good commute day.”

Today was a day when SB had to go in, too, so we were cruising along in the carpool lane, listening to KPLU as usual, when Food For Thought came on. The intro song was about donuts! We got all excited and turned it up louder. AND THEN, Nancy Leson MENTIONED MY BLOG POST! She harassed Dick Stein for not sharing his donuts with her!

SB and I totally lost our shit. It was so cool! Except she did mention that I called them uber-cheesy. They are! But I love them anyway! I hope they weren’t offended. I also need to call my friend and tell her about it. I hope Dick Stein doesn’t stop sharing his donuts with her. 

It’s not up yet, but you will be able to hear it here once they load the segment from this morning.

It’s up! Listen here!

It was a very good commute day, indeed! 

I am a movie star!

April 15, 2008 | Almost Famous

You may recall about a year ago when I was an extra in the soon to be released, full of big stars, Battle in Seattle? 

Well, the trailer is out now and I am in it! In the trailer!

That’s me on the left there, at 55 seconds!

 See!? That’s my hat and scarf and shoulder!

You can watch the whole trailer here. It looks like it’s going to be good! It’s opening at SIFF on May 22nd and SB and I have tickets! I can’t wait to see if a small scene I was in made it into the movie. I was actually the main focus of that one. The director, Hottiepants Stuart Townsend picked ME out of a bunch of extras to run in from the crowd and replace a protester felled by tear gas in a scene with Michelle Rodriguez and Andre 3000. I felt really awesome and special! Then they handed me a gas mask to put on. But still! I’ll know it’s me.

Y’all are like, 1 degree from all these famous folk now.

You’re not going to believe this.

May 12, 2007 | Almost Famous, City of Destiny

Well, actually, you will, I’m sure.

As was documented previously, we made a movie last weekend for the 72hr Film Festival. It was fun!

Thursday night was the big screening of all 30 films. There were some REALLY good ones, some really interesting ones, and a few that you ended up reading your program instead of watching. The one that won the audience choice was called South 5, and detailed the adventures of a team that made sure that visitors from Seattle had a bad day in Tacoma if they were down here to look at houses. It was hilarious. Another of my favorites was inexplicably in German and featured ‘The Ecrutiating Eyeball’ that watches us all. It was so great! Tacoma looked COOL.

Our movie was in the second half, and we knew by this time that it was going to be one of the better ones. I was so nervous when ours came on, I was squeezing the life out of SB’s hand. But then…people liked it. We got big laughs! And a big Awww! And lots of applause! Sitting in the dark, in the giant old timey theater with our movie flickering off of people’s smiling faces, I was really proud of us. I no longer felt like our movie was just ‘not that bad’.

At the end, the lights came up, and a guy got up on stage and started giving instructions for turning in your ballots and spieling about The Grand. SB and I figured we had enough time for a smoke while they counted the votes, so we went outside into the lovely night, enjoyed the twinkly city, and took some pictures.

When we finished and went back inside, we heard people clapping, so we raced in and saw them giving out the Best Picture award, handing the filmakers big, fat, white envelopes full of gift certificates and a cool trophy. Then they gave away the audience choice award, and it was over. As we were walking out to the lobby, I said to SB that I’d thought they were giving out awards for the best use of the elements, too. Huh, we thought. 

We went outside to wait for Erik, our director, to say thanks and goodbye. As we’re standing there, smoking again, he comes up to us with this huge grin on his face…and two big, fat, white envelopes in his hands. And we just had to roll with it. We immediatly started acting excited and pretended like we knew about it. We were all, oh, let me see the trophy, so WE COULD READ WHICH AWARD WE HAD WON.

Our movie won two TWO! of the awards and we missed it. Erik had to go up and accept the awards by himself, and we missed out on our moment of glory. Because we were smoking.

So kids, the moral of the story is, smoking not only causes lung cancer and heart disease, it also causes you to miss out on major awards.

…The More You Know…

____________

Here is a link to the movie on Google. We won the award for Best Use of Location (a Tacoma Landmark) and Best Use of Action (throwing, tossing, or dropping). If you have 4:38 to spare, check it out. I hope you like it!

Tintinnabulation

Here is a link to Exit133’s Film Festival recap which includes a link to South 5. SO FUNNY.

Fun make’em ups

May 7, 2007 | Almost Famous, City of Destiny

Well, we did it. Against all odds. Our sweet location didn’t work out, so as of 1pm on Saturday, we had a script that required a bell tower of all things, and no bell tower.

A friend saved the day and got us in to his church’s not-exactly-a-Tacoma-landmark bell tower, which through the magic of film making, we’ve made appear to be First Pres. We did all the bell tower and stairs shots at our friend’s church, and then went over to First Pres for exterior shots, and lets-pretend-we’re-going-through-this door shots. [ Funny Sidebar: SB: Let them know we'd be happy to make a donation to the church. Friend: That won't be necessary. They just want your souls.]

Film making tip: If you’re filming an epic proposal story, make sure your lead actors have taken off their wedding rings first. (SB’s wedding band is QUITE obvious in the ring offered up money shot. Oh well.)

I thought it was going to suck. HARD.

But you know what? We saw it just before it was turned in last night, and it wasn’t that bad! I don’t think we’ll win anything, but we’ll at least be in the top ten. All the movies will be screened Thursday night at 7pm at the Rialto, so if you’re local, please come see our ‘not that bad’ movie.

We’ll be busy this weekend.

May 4, 2007 | Almost Famous, City of Destiny

SB and I were asked by Erik to join in the festivities this weekend. We are so excited!

Last night, at 10pm, we met at The Grand to officially check in and get our parameters. We now have 72 hours, until Sunday night at 10pm, to make a film of no more than 5 minutes.

We must also include:

• A Tacoma landmark
• The line, “What we have here, is a failure to communicate.”
• throwing, tossing, or dropping
• a hat or cap

The three of us went to Doyle’s afterwards to brainstorm and I think we came up with something really good! Erik is writing today and we’re trying to get someone to let us use a very exciting location. (We’ll use it anyway, but it’ll be cooler if we can get inside) We’ll film it tomorrow, edit it on sunday, and it’ll be shown on the big screen at the Rialto on Thursday. There are prizes for best use of each of the elements, as well as best in fest prizes by the judges and the participants.

Exciting, eh? I’ll do my best to document our process for you. I’m gonna be a STAH!

It’s usually not this exciting.

December 11, 2006 | Almost Famous

So, a Big Time Movie came to Seattle this weekend and I got to be an extra again.

Dude. It was so fun! There were REAL movie stars there. We don’t get too many of those around these parts. 

The movie is about the WTO riots that happened here in 1999. You probably remember the scenes of anarchists looting and police brutality, but really, there was so much more that happened in between those two extremes. The scene we got to recreate was one of the coolest examples of successful, peaceful, civil disobedience ever. The protesters succeeded in getting the opening ceremonies of the WTO cancelled because the delegates were unable to reach the venue. They blocked off all of the surrounding intersections and routes from the delegate’s hotels. That’s pretty awesome, don’t you think? 

Here are some pictures of the real thing that I “borrowed” from the internets:

The opening ceremonies were supposed to be in the Paramount Theater. The cops ringed the building with busses to keep the protesters away from the entrance, but a group managed to get over the top of the busses and block the entrance with these tube things around their arms, so if the police pushed through, their arms would break. (Like in the middle picture above.) That’s the scene we got to do all day, me, a few other extras, and Michelle Rodriguez and Andre 3000! It was SO. COOL.

Hottiepants Stuart Townsend was the director. My moment of glory was when I was picked to run in and replace a guy whose character couldn’t handle the tear gas. I watched as my pal Stuart explained to the camera man the shot he wanted of me. I held my shit together, but inside I was all, “STUART TOWNSEND IS POINTING AT ME! STUART TOWNSEND IS POINTING AT ME!”

I know that all these people are just people, but like I’ve said before, being an extra when you are not really an actress is so cool because you get to be a geeky fan on the inside without having to be all non-plussed by celebrity. I admit it. I’m plussed. I actually prefer just getting to be in their presence and observe them, rather than having to come up with something cool to say. We’re not even allowed to speak to them! Perfect!

I was BAD, so bad, and took a couple of illegal pictures:

That’s Michelle in front of the Paramount.

That’s Michelle (with her back to us), Andre (the turtle), and two other famous people I hadn’t heard of. Though that dude was very nice on the eyes. Note the beautiul Seattle weather. It looks like it’s dusk, but it was about 11:30am.

Here I am in my protester outfit in front of the Paramount. They changed the marquee to look like it did that day.

On the second day, I got to be a “talent wrangler” and tell the extras where to be. At one point, I was standing on the fringes of the production when I overheard some really dumb lookie-lous. We were only about 20 feet away from the 4 movie stars, standing together, just like they are in that second illegal picture, except there were four paid umbrella holders shieldng their precious heads from the rain.  A couple came up to a guy that was standing there watching the filming and said, “Have you seen any movie stars?” The guy answered, “none yet.” Now I know they weren’t the most recognizeable of stars, but perhaps the folks who have lackies to hold their umbrellas for them just might be the famous ones?

Another funny thing that happened that day was after the eleventy-hundredth take of this big chanting protest scene, Michelle started leading the 300 or so extras in “What do we want? Lunch! When do we want it? NOW!” It was a great moment.

Today I’m back on another set wrangling, this time for an army commercial, and it’s SO boring and there isn’t a star in sight. I’m just happy there’s wireless!

My “acting” career continues.

November 30, 2006 | Almost Famous

I’ve spent the last two days on another extras gig. This time it was a commercial for a company that makes arirplanes in Seattle*.  Being an extra is really fun if you’re not an actor. Ac-tors have to feel like this is all somehow beneath them. I, on the otherhand, just get to experience it.

This time I got to have my hair and makeup done and they even dressed me.

I wasn’t too crazy about the outfit. All the makeup and wardrobe people were from New York, so I guess they know better. Apparently, wrinkles are high fashion these days. The jacket they had me in looked like it had been left damp in the bottom of a laundry basket, but it still had the tags on it. This was such a mystery to me. I almost wanted to take it home last night and iron it.

At least it fit, though. A high point of the day was when the pocket-sized, tragicly cool, asian wardrobe chick handed me an outfit to try on which included a pair of size 4 pants. Since she looked to be a size negative zero, she probably looked at me and thought, she’s a big girl*, these 4’s ought to fit.

HA!  

This shoot had all kinds of fancy hollywood-type stuff. There were uber-hip types rushing all about, cords and lights and mics all over the place, and there was even a green screen.

Being an extra is really all about waiting. On the first day, I was there for almost 10 hours, and only “worked” for about 45 minutes. The other 9 hours and fifteen minutes, we just sat. There were snacks, lots of reading, and a bit of Texas Hold’em. Since we quite literally were waiting to get on a plane, it felt just like a 10 hour layover in Chicago, but without the neon tunnel or the food court.

Let’s hope the real ones are made of more permanent stuff, eh?

*   I bet no one can crack this one.

** I don’t mean that to sound like a lame-ass, low self esteem, girl comment. I like being a sturdy 10-12. I would have made a good pioneer woman.

Reality?

November 10, 2006 | Almost Famous

I think I’ve mentioned before that SB owns an extras casting agency. I’m no actress, but as I’ve been sort of, how do you say, unemployed lately, I’ve asked him to send me on a few jobs. Extras are actually just paid scenery, and since SB’s job is to provide the required number of warm bodies, not make anyone a star, it’s okay that he sends me, and not a real actress.

The kind of thing he usually does is provide say, 25 people to be in the background of a Taco Time commercial. Sometimes it’s something cool like providing 50 people to ride the “ferryboat” in the background of a scene for Grey’s Anatomy.

Last week, he was asked to find 25 people to act as sports fans for four hours, for $120. I was all over that one.

The shocking/funny/ironic part of this whole thing is that this turned out to be for a REALITY SHOW. Myself and 24 others were paid to go batshit crazy when a retired NBA star and his glamorous wife walked into a room OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Not only that, there were several principal actors there playing fans who actually got to ask him for his autograph. There was the model-y hot chick, the sassy black woman, the flaming gay dude, and my favorite, a cute little boy who got to say,

“I made this for you Mr. FamousBasketballPlayer,”

Mr. FBP: “Oh wow, thanks man.”

Cute little boy: “I still like Kobe better, though”

Mr. FBP: Man! That’s cold! Did you hear what he said?

Mr. FBP’s entourage: Ha Ha Ha! Ha ha ha!

OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

Isn’t that nuts? How hilarious is it that they had to pay people to be his fans? How crazy is it that the people who actually got to interact with him were ACTORS? Reality schmeality.

Below is a picture of the card I was given to pretend I wanted him to sign. Others were given shoes or jerseys, and they even handed out a bunch of disposable cameras for the crazed fans to snap away with.

(So, I sort of signed a non disclosure agreement that said I wasn’t going to tell anyone about this, hence the cover up. Shh. Don’t tell.)

Reality TV is one of those love it or hate it kind of things. I mostly hate it, though I did enjoy the first season of Survivor, and I’ve been known to indulge in a Real World marathon or two. While I knew that they cut and paste “reality” to tell whatever story they’re going for, I didn’t realize it could be THIS contrived. I guess I should just be happy that actors are still getting work out of the deal.