Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Gospel Hill - Picking out my "Costume"

I was told to arrive at 7 pm in Fort Mill, SC, just outside of Charlotte. This was my first night shoot for the film Gospel Hill. I drove about 30 minutes to Fort Mill after I left a business meeting where I was wearing my grey pinstriped business suit.

To prepare for the film, I spent an hour earlier in the day organizing and selecting four or five different "casual outfits" that included jeans, tan khaki pants, blue dress pants and about 5 different combinations of shirts from polo to dress. The suit was definitely too formal, so I expected to change when I arrived.

After driving through a torrential downpour on the Interstate, I arrived at the location in Fort Mill. It was an beautiful old church. The extra's holding was in the main social hall in the church. As I walked into the room, over 200 people were sitting on black plastic folding chairs. I carried my 10 lbs of clothes on hangers into to room and checked in at the desk. They handed me a legal release from that says, they can use my likeness in the movie however they want and I won't sue them. I then met Vince who was the casting director who had called me the day before. Vince is a tall, good looking charismatic executive. He collected my release form and then directed me over to see the costumer to see which "outfit" would fit the part I needed to play.

As I looked over, the costumer, was Ginger, who I had worked on with at Leatherheads. As soon as she saw me get in her line, she exclaimed good naturedly with a big smile - "Here comes trouble". Ginger had been one of the friendliest and most meticulous costmers on Leatherheads.(On leatherheads she was straightening my hat, fixing my tie, tieing my overcoat belt in a square not...an lifting up our trousers to almost wedgie proportions to so we had the 1920's look of showing our socks).

She took one look at me in my pinstripe suit and said "Perfect, you can wear what you have on." I replied somewhat pleadingly "Do you want to see my other ties?", hoping at least my hour of preparation of choosing the outfits was not totally wasted, She smiled and said "No, what you have on is fine. Go put the reat of your clothes back in your car." I walked back out into the light drizzle, put the clothes in the trunk of my car.

2 comments:

SimzBrazil said...

This is a funny story!! I'll be looking for your pinstripe suit when 'Gospel Hill' hits theaters!!

Andrew Kaplan said...

Thanks! I am hoping to get another scene next week. I saw the casting director today.