We pulled into the parking lot and there were these large pink signs that proclaimed "Extra Parking, this way". Once we got inside, the pink signs continued to point us down hallways and up staircases until finally, the last pink sign pointed through double doors and we spilled out into a church sanctuary. The ticket said "12-3", so like dutiful Baptists, we arrived in the parking lot at 12:01, and after winding our way through the tunnels of Sunday School rooms and ill-placed bathrooms, we got to the sanctuary around 12:05 or 12:06.
No worries, though, because when we got there, they were shooting a scene in the lobby. All the audience people had to be there, because this kid burst into the sanctuary, turned around, and ran back out. Literally. Well, and they had a handful of people stream from lobby to sanctuary, so I guess that counts for something, too. So we all had to be there, even though we weren't actually being filmed. This took about an hour.
Then came the fun part. Bathroom break. Hahaha--you thought I was going to say being filmed, didn't you! They ended filming in the lobby around 1, and it was close to 1:45 before they took the first shot in the sanctuary. I had seen the lady on the other end of my pew ask someone a question and then take her daughter out somewhere, so I figured she probably knew where the bathroom was. I walked around to ask her for directions.
Later, my husband told me he had to do a double-take when he saw me out of the corner of his eye. He thought I was one of the real actresses. :-)
So back to the directions. She started to tell me, then took out pen and paper and drew me a map, all the while explaining how to go through these doors and down this stairway and through more doors and turn left and down this hallway and turn right and I was so confused, even with the drawing. I think what made it worse was all the people. The crew had just started building light reflector panels in the aisle, and they were very loud. A man also just got a mike and had started telling stories. I'll come back to that later because his stories were funny.
So back to the directions again. When the lady finished her drawing (the first doors I was supposed to go through were on the other side of the room), she looked at her paper and said, "Well, you know you could go through these doors and just have to go down one stairway and down one hall and turn left only twice and go through one set of doors and you'd be right there. Why don't you do that instead?"
As if I wasn't lost enough already!!!! Thankfully, she took pity on me and walked me to the stairs and said, "Keep walking until you find the bathroom." Good, solid advice there.
So I did. It was actually only a little bit confusing. When I came back, I noticed the doors had this little gap in them, so I peered through first to make sure they weren't already rolling or anything. A crew lady slammed the door open on my nose. I pretended I had meant to do that.
By then, it was only about 1:15, so we had lots of funny stories to listen to while the crew continued their setup. It really seemed like most of what they did right then, they should have already done, but my husband assured me they wouldn't have been able to do it properly without 500 people watching them.
We learned that during the first movie the directors made, instead of saying "action" they said "one two three go". (I wonder what they said instead of cut--four five six stop?) They told us that during their first movie, they were shooting this scene, but then it got too dark outside, so they decided to pick back up on Monday, except that when Monday came, they had forgotten what they were wearing and one of the ladies had gotten a haircut.
The setup really was taking forever, so the guy with the mike decided to take questions from the audience. One person asked if it was hard to cry on demand. Here was his answer:
"If you can really get into it and cry real good for the first two or three takes, you'll be okay. Think about sad things, like, you know, dying puppies. {Everyone laughed here.} If you can't--well, here's what I had to do once when I just couldn't cry anymore. My friend told me to hold my eyelids open. He put 4 listerine strips on his tongue and blew through a straw into my eyes. That got the tears flowing! And I'm talking, flowing!"
Stuck in between all the super fun and cool parts of this day was this little feeling of something I didn't really like. I don't know what it is, or I would tell you. All the signs that had the word "extras" on it made me feel so insignificant. Like, I wasn't even a person, just a number, except I didn't even have a number. I was just one in a faceless mass of people. I have to say, the way the crew people addressed us, I did not feel put down or anything like that. It was just all those pink papers with that word on them. I always thought I wanted to be an extra in all kinds of movies and TV shows, but I realized today, I'd much rather have a speaking part. 'Course, if that day ever comes, I'll probably want to be the star, and we all know that probably wouldn't turn out well. I talk too quietly. So I'll have to settle with my one appearance in a movie that won't come out for a year, where they might even cut me out. Such is life, isn't it?
After the crowd got settled, the director addressed us for one minute before calling for quiet on the set. He encouraged everyone to just do what we normally do in church, you know, not sit ramrod straight, but to look through our Bibles, shush our children, you know, normal church stuff. EJ leans over to Daddy and says, "I guess you better fall asleep, cause that's what you always do in church!"