Get Out of My Face
So I made my film acting debut tonight. That’s right, roll out the red carpet. My shiny head will be on the big screen at short film festivals around the country. How did this happen, you ask?
A filmmaker/professor that I met at a strawberry festival a couple of months ago contacted me last month to see if I would be willing to take a minor part in a film she’s working on. I guess Penn State isn’t NY, and she has to take what she can get. Anyways, the film is about people wearing t-shirts that have aggressive slogans. Guess what mine was?
We shot at the coffee shop in the Autoport. Did you know the Autoport had a coffee shop?
So, what’s it like working on the set of an independent, low-budget indy film? I’ll tell you.
The actors, in this case, me and a Philosophy PhD, don’t know what the hell is going on. We just sit there and do as we’re told. Most of the time, we’re waiting for the crew to get set up, making jokes and talking to the director to keep things from getting too awkward. Meanwhile, the cinematographer makes people move bright lights all over the place, close blinds, move props, etc. Make sure the girl with the boom mic isn’t showing up in the reflection on the window, that kind of stuff.
It’s like Behind the scenes on dvds, only longer and more tedious. Here’s what happens in the scene we shot tonight:
1) I eat some french fries while wearing my t-shirt in a diner.
2) Upon realizing that my fries are not quite salty enough, I ask the guy next to me to pass the salt. He also has a t-shirt, his says "Ask me if I care."
3) He passes me the salt, and in doing so, knocks his paper off the counter.
4) I retrieve his paper and thank him for the salt.
5) I salt my fries and continue to enjoy them.
Well, what happens in the shoot is, you rehearse everything. Then you tell the people in the kitchen to turn off the radio. Then some old lady wanders through the set looking for the waitress. Then you shoot the scene. Then someon’s phone rings. Then you shoot the scene again. And again. Then you shoot it from a different angle, which means you have to move all the lights. And rehearse again. And shoot again. And again, because you need to locate the salt before you ask for it, duh. Then you realize that the one-man band in the bar next door is creating some pretty weird ambient noise. What the fuck, we’ll deal with it in editing. SO then you change the angle, and do it one last time. Then a wide angle, one last time. Because this is a low budget film, you don’t get new french fries for each shot. This means that by the end of the night, after you’ve done the scene 20 times, you’ve got the saltiest cold french fries in the world. But you push on. For art.
