My agent notified me that it would be a night shoot but that we "wouldn't be working overnight"! YEAH...RIGHT...
When I arrived at holding for the 8:PM weeknight shoot, everyone was shmoozing outside St. Mary's on 46th Street. It was a very humid and hot night that kept us sweating for most of the 9 and a half hours that we were to spend here. Inside the church, there was no air conditioning, no food and no production assistants to check us in. They arrived late and that pretty much set the tone for the night... LATE!
After about 6 hours, I went inside the holding area and just took in the heat for a while. My friend Pat, came over and intoned: "You must be CRAZY, NUTS and someone must have DROPPED YOU ON YOUR HEAD if you're staying in here!" -and gave me a friendly, albeit concerned smile. I was into my Gurdjieffian-fourth-way mental exercise of "CONSCIOUS EFFORT and VOLUNTARY SUFFERING..." (but I could never explain that to him in 25 words or less). So I smiled back. Suddenly an announcement was made and we were taken to Times Square and set up on the super-busy post-midnight sidewalks as "added pedestrian fodder" for the evening's big "limo-scene" (oh... a pun). The white stretch-limo was driven by a stunt driver with an Adam Sandler-standin (for safety, no doubt) sitting next to him as the vehicle careened up Broadway opposite the one-way traffic flow -zigzaging past all the oncoming cars. I have to say that the driver was excellent because he had to repeat the scene several times with the hairline-crash-misses intact. Bravo!
Unfortunately, with all the stars in this movie, we never got to see ANY of them. Not Adam Sandler, not Rob Schneider, not Mariah Carey, not Henry Winkler, not Talia Shire... nada, nookoo, nyitzky-nyitzky, swah, zipo stars on this set!!! So it was very disheartening to go through all the hot weather and lack of food, and standing for long periods of times without rest, etc... without the "reward" of seeing one of the principal characters. About the only thing we were given was water bottles and left-over cookies, potato chips and lolly pops... and the only "star" we saw up close was the limo-driver being made up with a wig and a hat! Oh well, chalk this one up to yet another Gurdjeffian exercise: MAKING SUPER EFFORTS!!!
The gates were checked and we were sent home at 5:30 AM... the sun was begining to rise. And as we extras commiserated on our way out, we vowed NEVER to do night-shoots again! It just wasn't worth it for $7.50 per hour. Some of us even vowed NEVER TO SEE THIS MOVIE!
When I arrived at holding for the 8:PM weeknight shoot, everyone was shmoozing outside St. Mary's on 46th Street. It was a very humid and hot night that kept us sweating for most of the 9 and a half hours that we were to spend here. Inside the church, there was no air conditioning, no food and no production assistants to check us in. They arrived late and that pretty much set the tone for the night... LATE!
After about 6 hours, I went inside the holding area and just took in the heat for a while. My friend Pat, came over and intoned: "You must be CRAZY, NUTS and someone must have DROPPED YOU ON YOUR HEAD if you're staying in here!" -and gave me a friendly, albeit concerned smile. I was into my Gurdjieffian-fourth-way mental exercise of "CONSCIOUS EFFORT and VOLUNTARY SUFFERING..." (but I could never explain that to him in 25 words or less). So I smiled back. Suddenly an announcement was made and we were taken to Times Square and set up on the super-busy post-midnight sidewalks as "added pedestrian fodder" for the evening's big "limo-scene" (oh... a pun). The white stretch-limo was driven by a stunt driver with an Adam Sandler-standin (for safety, no doubt) sitting next to him as the vehicle careened up Broadway opposite the one-way traffic flow -zigzaging past all the oncoming cars. I have to say that the driver was excellent because he had to repeat the scene several times with the hairline-crash-misses intact. Bravo!
Unfortunately, with all the stars in this movie, we never got to see ANY of them. Not Adam Sandler, not Rob Schneider, not Mariah Carey, not Henry Winkler, not Talia Shire... nada, nookoo, nyitzky-nyitzky, swah, zipo stars on this set!!! So it was very disheartening to go through all the hot weather and lack of food, and standing for long periods of times without rest, etc... without the "reward" of seeing one of the principal characters. About the only thing we were given was water bottles and left-over cookies, potato chips and lolly pops... and the only "star" we saw up close was the limo-driver being made up with a wig and a hat! Oh well, chalk this one up to yet another Gurdjeffian exercise: MAKING SUPER EFFORTS!!!
The gates were checked and we were sent home at 5:30 AM... the sun was begining to rise. And as we extras commiserated on our way out, we vowed NEVER to do night-shoots again! It just wasn't worth it for $7.50 per hour. Some of us even vowed NEVER TO SEE THIS MOVIE!
2 comments:
Hi!
You had it good on the "Zohan" set. When I was on the set of the "Zohan", we were told that the rations of cookie crumbs and no-name brand potato chips was a privilege!
We were over by Columbus circle for 3-all nighters watching that stupid Limo go around and around until 6:30 in the morning.
I'm just glad that on the last night I left that horrible set to come to the Honda Commercial. Those Japanese make a really great spinach Omelette at 4am!
Anne ;)
Hi!
Actually it was $7.15/hr. I have seen a check and it amounts to $54.00 for 14 hrs. Now wasn't that worth it???
To HELL with the Zohan!
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