Officially a Basic Actor

My Basics of Acting Class finished last night. I can't believe how quickly the 6 weeks went by and I really ended up enjoying the whole thing. I forced myself do all the homework and then perform in each week's class to get the most out of it and not just end up watching the other actors - which is a lot of fun. I'm not planning to take any other classes right away, but will down the road. If you are looking for some acting classes in Boston - Susan Shaw and CP Casting get my personal seal of approval. Between the class and working on The Surrogates, I'm really itching to dust off PlasticVille Productions and get a short going this Fall.

Tomorrow we head out to East Berlin, PA for a weekend on Lake Mead. It will sort of be a Leominster reunion with Plastic People coming from CA (via DC), MA and PA for lots of drinking, eating, boating, swimming, and blowing things up. Next Tuesday is my birthday and since we are going away this weekend I opened up my gifts from Lori tonight. They've just been sitting here mocking me for last few days anyway. I finally got myself a Wii and Guitar Hero!! WooHoo!! Now I don't want to go away for the weekend though. D'oh!

Another Day on Surrogates

Just wrapped up another day as an extra on Surrogates - today's thirteen hour day ended just in time for me to get home to see the Celtics close out this year's NBA finals in game 6 over the Lakers. Today on the set was action packed, I had lots of running away from a fire fight (and compared to other extras I'm fast - which doesn't say much for the others), dozens of commandos were chasing us all over and even a helicopter was buzzing over head. The afternoon featured some live gun fire, stunt falls and a torrential thunder storm that toppled one of our tents in the extras holding area. Towards the end of the day we all gathered round for a rousing cheer of "Blurry Bits in the Background". Any blazing flash of blue flannel that catches your eye in the final film will be me. Another good day to be a Dread.

Surrogates

I just finished up a couple days as an extra on the set of the new Bruce Willis sci-fi movie "Surrogates" which has been shooting in Massachusetts for the last month or so. I've been on a few film sets but never a "real" Hollywood set. When I first arrived on location in Taunton at 4:40am (which meant getting up at 3:20am!!) Thursday, I immediately began to see the differences between indie sets and major studio productions. Huge air conditioned tents made up the holding area, cooked to order breakfasts provided by a catering company, air conditioned bus rides driving extras from holding to the actual set, more fantastic food at lunch, 3 cameras rolling for every shot, dollies and cranes for every shot too, dozens of crew members and hundreds of extras. There were even a couple of guys on the crew that I worked with on "Illegal Aliens", I spotted Aaron and spoke with Robbie for a few minutes.
I was one of 275 extras but was part of a smaller group called the core Dreads - but being "core" never really amounted to much. I did meet plenty of cool people to pass the 15 hour day with while we worked on just one scene all day. We just stood silently listening to Ving Rhames speak to us all. Ving was very cool and I was amazed how much his low booming voice carried. Ving plays the leader of the Dreads; people who shun technology and live on reservations in a sort of post-apocalyptic society. Ving spoke to all his people from a stage in front of a funeral pyre with a body on top. Towards the end of the day, the pyre was finally lit and we all gazed on - getting bonus "smoke" pay for our troubles.
On Friday only 50 of us were called back so call-time was bumped up to 7:00am, practically a vacation after getting just 3 hours of sleep the previous night. Of course the downside of working today was that I went to sleep during the 3rd quarter of the Celtics/Lakers game so missed the greatest NBA Finals comeback in history - D'oh! But so did most people on set so we could at least share our misery. Friday was a continuation of the funeral scene and we all just did a lot of walking away from the fire, just filling the background. In the afternoon I just found a quiet spot to watch Bruce Willis do some work and take a beating from some of Ving's boys. I'll keep what I learned about the plot to myself so as not to spoil the final movie for anyone.
I was supposed to work today too, but they scaled down the scene so canceled the day for all non-union extras.
SWEET - as I was typing this I got an email asking if I was available next Tuesday and Wednesday, so perhaps my days of being a Dread aren't over yet.
Thanks to the Celtics and Surrogates I haven't had time to be hit with "Lost" withdrawals yet.

Indiana Jones 4

I had today off to work as an extra on the movie "This Side of The Truth." This is a comedy from Rick Gervais, the creator of "The Office" and the HBO series "Extras." I was psyched to be an extra for the creator of "Extras". Ricky has a very funny blog about the whole project that is worth checking out. I had gone to an open casting call back in March and had a few inquiries to my availability since then, but it never matched up. Until today. With last night being my first acting class the timing seemed fantastic. But while at said acting class, the call came in that the wedding scene I was to be part of had been revamped and extras weren't needed. D'oh! When I got home after class and discovered the news I was bummed to say the least. I had even pulled out my one suit for the big event.

So I decided to take advantage of my empty day and Lori and I went to see "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on its opening day. The theater was pretty empty since it was 1pm on a work day but Indy delivered with tons of amazing action and stunts, many winks and nods to the previous films and a few comedic bits along the way. One of the coolest things was seeing Indy flying off to places in Peru that we've visited like Cusco and Iquitos. I was never bothered or distracted by Harrison Ford's age but I was bothered by the fact that every "surprise" in the plot failed to come off as surprising at all. So while it was great fun, it wasn't a great movie. Good, just not great. Still better than working for a living.

Mucho Metallica

Metallica's new album is expected this September and they've recently launched a new site, Mission: Metallica, to give an inside peek. There are already a few videos available and they all give teases of some new tracks. And I must say the new music sounds killer. Though in all honesty if Metallica released a collection of burps and farts I'd proclaim it to be the best, heaviest, most ass-kicking burps and farts I'd ever heard!
In other news in Metalliland - you've got to check out this a capella version of Metallica's "Battery". It is simply amazing and brings air guitar to a whole new level. Plenty of bands have people cover their stuff, but the wide range of experimental treatments done to Metallica songs amazes me. From the powerful four cellos of Apocalyptica, to bluegrass, to the hilarious mashup of the Beatles and Metallica by Beatallica - somehow it all works. Here is a clip of "A Garage Dayz Night" and a video of Apocalyptica doing "Creeping Death" just to give you a taste.