Today is the last day of shooting in Charlotte and I am again standing on the sidelines of the visiting team..(not sure if I can divulge the name). The Coach of the team is Wayne Duvall. a larger than life character. I had been near him all week but did not want to bother him as he was one of the "actors". I finally just reach out my hand to him and said "My name is Andy Kaplan" nice to meet you. We then got into a discussion which I guess happens often on film sets..."Where did you grow up", I asked. He replied "Silver Spring, MD". I told him my sister now lives near there and I asked where he went to High School (it was a leading question). When he told me he went to high school there as well. I asked him if he knew Dickinson College. He then smiled and said, "Yes". All my brothers children went there and I am going there for my nieces graduation in May". I told him I founded and was chair of the Dickinson Club of Charlotte and was the 2006 Dickinson Alumni Volunteer of the Year. Well, it is a small world.
All morning they were filming the final scene of the game and perfecting some of the shots so the editors will have more interesting shots to work with. Camera's are set up in the far stands to get a distant shot of one of the important plays of the game. This time I am running down the sideline (as directed by John, Assistant Director) and just by luck end up at the end of a crowd about a foot from George Clooney who is playing a football player. Knowing this may be my last minutes as an extra, I have now learned to find the camera and make sure I can be seen clearly. I am not sure if this will be a far shot or they zoom in.
One interesting shot of the day were 3 football players laying on the ground together and the cameramen were up on stepladders shooting down at the players as they rolled around. Another shot of interest was when a single camera was pointing up to the sky (it laying on the ground) and George Clooney and one of the crew were tossing the football like a "hot potato" over the camera dozens of times.
At the end of the day, we did a scene where the game is ended and we walk off the field. We did about 6 takes of this walking in all different directions and at different paces. In each take about 50 of us walked from different places and did about 3 different walks. I walked from the side of the stadium to the middle of the field to the director in what I call a "New York Walking pace" and then we turned around and walked reguarly back to another part of the sideline, then I decided that as a "sideline photographer" it would be authentic to be running so the two of us ran back into the field. At that point the director named John, directed us to walk very very slowly toward the corner of the endzone continuing until we hit the wall. This I guess will look like we are exiting the stadium Our educated non-professional guess is that this may be the last scene in the movie where the credits are rolling. Again, only the editors will know. Maybe it will be me and my buddy walking into the sunset instead of George Clooney.
There are still three more weeks of shooting in Winston Salem and Statesville, NC. I live about 40 minutes from Statesville and 90 minutes from Winston Salem. I am hoping for a part in Statesville, so I can restup...I had about 45 hours of sleep in the last 9 days.
Showing posts with label Wayne Duvall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wayne Duvall. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Leatherheads - Day 5 - George Clooney Directing
Friday morning, I woke up at 5 am and arrived at the set at 6:30 am. I figured at this point I had only about 20 or so hours of sleep this week, but was still excited with anticipation of the days activities.
We park our cars at the lot near Bobcat arena and take a shuttle bus over to Memorial Stadium. The bus driver has a large jar i the front of his bus for two police officers slain in the line of duty in Charlotte a few weeks ago. He asks for donations to the almost full jar.
When I arrrive, I go to a table where the casting director's staff has us fill out our daily forms or timesheets with name ss@ etc. At the top of the form it says we are working on Leatherheads from Speakeasy Productions.
By the time I am dressed, coiffed and put my sunscreen on, I arrive at extra's holding at about7 am. I have my food and then sit with others and talk about today's activities. We are told they are adding an extra day of shooting on Tuesday.
In the morning, my first shots are fan in the stands. We end up cheering, booing etc.
The day is fairly uneventful until the end of the day. The last shot of the day I am a photographer again on the visiting team sidelines. I am at the 40 yard line standing near the sidelines. One of the assistant direcots comes up to me and tells me to move back behind the team bench about 10 feet off of the firld. He places other extras in specific places as well. I am thinking I will be more of a background player again.
Then all of a sudden, he places the Head Coach of the team to my right and the team mascot and trainer are nearby as well. The Head Coach, played by Wayne Duvall (Robert Dubal's cousin)is a fiarly large man which a deep luud voice you would expect from coaches.
The next thig I see are the two cameras in front of us with all the direcors sitting in back including George Clooney as he is not in this scene as an actor. Tape measures are run from the cameras to us to measure the focial point so we will be in focus. There is also a camera on a golf cart type vehicle that will be going down the sidelines. Now I realize why we were put back behind the benches. It needed the space to ride inside the sidelines.
We then do about 4 or 5 takes of this shot. In one of them the coach takes the old camera I use as a photographer and starts to look at it and pretend to talk to me.
I realize now that this is even a better chance for me to appear in the movie with a close up from 3 camera angles. I turn to the actors to my left and say..."it doesn't get any better than this".
We park our cars at the lot near Bobcat arena and take a shuttle bus over to Memorial Stadium. The bus driver has a large jar i the front of his bus for two police officers slain in the line of duty in Charlotte a few weeks ago. He asks for donations to the almost full jar.
When I arrrive, I go to a table where the casting director's staff has us fill out our daily forms or timesheets with name ss@ etc. At the top of the form it says we are working on Leatherheads from Speakeasy Productions.
By the time I am dressed, coiffed and put my sunscreen on, I arrive at extra's holding at about7 am. I have my food and then sit with others and talk about today's activities. We are told they are adding an extra day of shooting on Tuesday.
In the morning, my first shots are fan in the stands. We end up cheering, booing etc.
The day is fairly uneventful until the end of the day. The last shot of the day I am a photographer again on the visiting team sidelines. I am at the 40 yard line standing near the sidelines. One of the assistant direcots comes up to me and tells me to move back behind the team bench about 10 feet off of the firld. He places other extras in specific places as well. I am thinking I will be more of a background player again.
Then all of a sudden, he places the Head Coach of the team to my right and the team mascot and trainer are nearby as well. The Head Coach, played by Wayne Duvall (Robert Dubal's cousin)is a fiarly large man which a deep luud voice you would expect from coaches.
The next thig I see are the two cameras in front of us with all the direcors sitting in back including George Clooney as he is not in this scene as an actor. Tape measures are run from the cameras to us to measure the focial point so we will be in focus. There is also a camera on a golf cart type vehicle that will be going down the sidelines. Now I realize why we were put back behind the benches. It needed the space to ride inside the sidelines.
We then do about 4 or 5 takes of this shot. In one of them the coach takes the old camera I use as a photographer and starts to look at it and pretend to talk to me.
I realize now that this is even a better chance for me to appear in the movie with a close up from 3 camera angles. I turn to the actors to my left and say..."it doesn't get any better than this".
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Leatherheads Day 5 - End of the day surprise
Friday, April 20th (pm) Today went along rather uneventful. In the morning we were doing reaction shots as "fans" in the stands. The directors and production crew had to get us to realistically react to a football scene.
The walks hundreds of us out to the stadium and bring us down aisles. With only a few hundred extras (I think there may be around 500 now), they bring us down the aisles of Memorial stadium and start to get up to fill up the first 5 rows of the stadium in about the first 3 or 4 sections from the endzone.
Our job as fans is to react in a variety of ways to get very good action shots. There is no actual game going on. We are looking out on the field at camera's, production crew, microphones, carts, etc. I assume the guy in the movie credits called the Grip is somewhere out there as well, but still want to find that person as for years I wondered by a key grip is.
All the production crew are on radio freqnencies to each other (including different channels depending on what job you have). The directors and production assistants continually talk with each other throughout the day to coordinate everything from who should be taken from Extra's holding, to when they are ready to shoot the scene to where to place the actors in the scene.
I am sitting in the 2nd row next to two women, both dressed in those beautful 1920's hats and clothes. On my left,(in real life) is Jody, a real estate agent who lives just West of Charlotte. On my right is Sharon who calls herself a "Jill of all trades". She teaches Swing dancing, creates antique jewelry, does photography and interior design. While waiting around Jody takes a call on her mobile phone she pulls out of her 1920's purse. It is from her 9 year old son, who is also an extra in the movie sitting somewhere else in the stadium.
The directors now tell us to be ready and describe the scene we will be looking at and how we might want to react (cheering, booing, bored or like nothing special is going on).
The first scene is a play that is a big play for the other team. So our reaction is to be upset at the defense of our team for letting up a big play. In the stands also the prop people have handed out props from that time period such as buttons, game programs and cigarettes.
One of the things we also have to do is to have some fans start standing, but not all at the same time. The directors instruct all people with a birthday in April, Stand up. As the plays develop on the field the rest of us will stand to cheer or boo the play. Today we also do some acting like talking to the person next to us, pointing at the play, or congratulating each other after a big play.
After that, they moved us to the endzone for more shots. However, the asst director said anyone on the sideline needs to be out of the shot. I left to go to the sideline as a photographer again. As I moved from the stands to the field I stopped by to see the propmaster. He let's me pick my camera (a 1920's vintage camera) from the prop table. I enter the field and we are instructed to go to the place where we were standing previously. For me that was on the 45 yard line right next to the cheerleaders, coach and trainer in front of the team bench.
I am standing on the sideline and all of a sudden I am told to move back off near or behind the bench. There are now about 20 people behind the cameras with two cameras pointing at me. One is from the left at about 10 o'clock the other is straight ahead at noon..The third camera is down the sidelines to my left at about 2 pm.
The production assistants take a tape measure to measure the focal point.
The director places Wayne Duvall (Coach) to my right) there is also a trainer with the team mascot nearby as well as well. When they call for action, I realize at this point it doesn't get any better than that. This might be my moment as we are looking at a play on the field and reacting to it. Could this be my close up? Only the editors will know. It was a great way to end the day and start the weekend.
The walks hundreds of us out to the stadium and bring us down aisles. With only a few hundred extras (I think there may be around 500 now), they bring us down the aisles of Memorial stadium and start to get up to fill up the first 5 rows of the stadium in about the first 3 or 4 sections from the endzone.
Our job as fans is to react in a variety of ways to get very good action shots. There is no actual game going on. We are looking out on the field at camera's, production crew, microphones, carts, etc. I assume the guy in the movie credits called the Grip is somewhere out there as well, but still want to find that person as for years I wondered by a key grip is.
All the production crew are on radio freqnencies to each other (including different channels depending on what job you have). The directors and production assistants continually talk with each other throughout the day to coordinate everything from who should be taken from Extra's holding, to when they are ready to shoot the scene to where to place the actors in the scene.
I am sitting in the 2nd row next to two women, both dressed in those beautful 1920's hats and clothes. On my left,(in real life) is Jody, a real estate agent who lives just West of Charlotte. On my right is Sharon who calls herself a "Jill of all trades". She teaches Swing dancing, creates antique jewelry, does photography and interior design. While waiting around Jody takes a call on her mobile phone she pulls out of her 1920's purse. It is from her 9 year old son, who is also an extra in the movie sitting somewhere else in the stadium.
The directors now tell us to be ready and describe the scene we will be looking at and how we might want to react (cheering, booing, bored or like nothing special is going on).
The first scene is a play that is a big play for the other team. So our reaction is to be upset at the defense of our team for letting up a big play. In the stands also the prop people have handed out props from that time period such as buttons, game programs and cigarettes.
One of the things we also have to do is to have some fans start standing, but not all at the same time. The directors instruct all people with a birthday in April, Stand up. As the plays develop on the field the rest of us will stand to cheer or boo the play. Today we also do some acting like talking to the person next to us, pointing at the play, or congratulating each other after a big play.
After that, they moved us to the endzone for more shots. However, the asst director said anyone on the sideline needs to be out of the shot. I left to go to the sideline as a photographer again. As I moved from the stands to the field I stopped by to see the propmaster. He let's me pick my camera (a 1920's vintage camera) from the prop table. I enter the field and we are instructed to go to the place where we were standing previously. For me that was on the 45 yard line right next to the cheerleaders, coach and trainer in front of the team bench.
I am standing on the sideline and all of a sudden I am told to move back off near or behind the bench. There are now about 20 people behind the cameras with two cameras pointing at me. One is from the left at about 10 o'clock the other is straight ahead at noon..The third camera is down the sidelines to my left at about 2 pm.
The production assistants take a tape measure to measure the focal point.
The director places Wayne Duvall (Coach) to my right) there is also a trainer with the team mascot nearby as well as well. When they call for action, I realize at this point it doesn't get any better than that. This might be my moment as we are looking at a play on the field and reacting to it. Could this be my close up? Only the editors will know. It was a great way to end the day and start the weekend.
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