EXTRA EXTRA Read all about it!

This week has been such a huge blessing in more than one way. The weather has been in the upper 60s lower 70s with no clouds in the sky and the sun is warm and bright. Yesterday we were 1 degree warmer than in Miami!!!! Our relatives Teddie and Abby were with us and then the day they left our good friend Paige Salter was in town and stayed with us the past two nights. We haven't seen in her in a year so it was amazing getting caught up with her - she is planning on moving here in September! YAY! I wasn't scheduled to work but one day this week for some odd reason but luckily I got a call from Central Casting on Tuesday night for background work for the television show "Mercy." Whitney and I are registered with Central Casting in NY where we are in their website so that casting directors can call us for background work. It's pretty cool, we both got calls last week but had to say no because we were scheduled to work at our pottery painting store. So all day Wednesday I was an extra on Mercy. You're probably wondering what the show Mercy even is.... well here is a rather long preview on what the show is all about. It's kind of like another Grey's Anatomy. They are on their first season - brand new.



The girl who plays Chloe - the dark haired one - she was the girl in Harriet The Spy.

The episode that I was apart of took place in Newark New Jersey in a Frat house. Everyone was on Spring Break so it worked out well for the crew. I woke up at 6:45am on Wednesday took the subway to Manhattan to 43rd Str. and 10th Ave. I was told there would be a bus there to take the people who needed rides to NJ. I was a little skeptical about this because once I got there, I saw no signs, no people, no clues. Around the corner I saw two very large charter buses and I chose to go in one of them. There were people in them but no leader was around. I asked a person and they said Mercy so I grabbed a seat. Strange I thought - I hope I don't get murdered or sold today.... A few minutes later a guy got on the bus and started taking role call. I was handed a voucher so that I could get paid. I'm sure you're wondering how much an extra gets paid... Non-union which is what I am, gets paid around $80 for the day - so it would be the same if I was there 1 hour, 2 hours or 10 hours. However, after 10 hours you get paid overtime. The union is different than theater union (equity).

Okay... you have Equity for Theater and then you have AFTRA and SAG for film. AFTRA is 5 lines or less = The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and SAG is the potential for the big time. SAG = Screen Actors Guild. Stars like Kate Winslet, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts are all SAG actors. So if you are AFTRA or SAG that means you are in the union. They obviously get paid more than non-union. Union extra work (background actors) get paid $160 for the day and if they work overtime they get $160 per hour that is over. But with the union you have to pay dues and a fee to get your card. So if you're not wanting to take your career seriously and go far there is no point on becoming union.

Once I got on sight for Mercy I couldn't believe how real everything was. They had cops outside directing the traffic and stopping traffic for the crew and actors. For that day of filming just part of the episode, Mercy spent $12,000 - $15,000 on background actors alone! This doesn't include any overtime or the food they had for us. Yes, they fed us all meals and had snacks. I was thoroughly impressed. I brought a sandwich because I had no idea what kind of breaks we would get. The food wasn't the greatest but there was a buffet style for breakfast and dinner. Right when we got there we were put in our holding room which was across the street from the set and they had a wardrobe crew, hair, and makeup. I got the okay for my outfit and didn't have to get makeup or hair done. This guy was going around checking every males neck hair line and if wasn't clean he would shave it. Haha - I immediately texted Whitney. They had the 100 extras grouped by numbers, mine was 83 which was less important than the lower numbers. Some of us including myself waited for 6 hours before were told to do anything. I unfortunately didn't bring my ipod or any books so I texted as many people as I could trying to defy going crazy. Finally they told me to grab a cup of beer (O'douls - it's non alcoholic) and wait outside the frat house for stand by. 6 of us waited there for 1 hour and then were told to go back to holding room. Ugh... I was getting frustrated! I was worried that they wouldn't end up using me. Finally about a half an hour later I got to go on set. It was a pretty small frat house and they had the entire building covered with black fabric so that they could control the light coming into the windows by using their own stage lights. They had fog to make it look more smokey. I just stood in the living room with my cup with many many people around me. They had stand ins for the lead roles. Stand ins are people who do the lead role blocking and rehearse to make sure the director has all of the right camera angles. When they are ready to shoot the scene they replace the 'second team' (stand ins) with the first team (the leads). So ultimately the lead characters don't have to do all of the work. When they make the switch - the stand ins solidify the blocking to the leads. I found this extremely interesting. They used spike marks (colored tape used in theater) for where they wanted each main character to stand. I was so proud of myself for picking the spot I did to stand because it was inches away from the main characters. On every take I tried soo hard to get into the shot. If my face wasn't in I would get my red cup with my name on it in the scene somehow. We were at a party so we all had to dance around - it was very awkward. Right before they say action they say, "background" meaning background start acting, "playback" music is turned on, "action" camera rolling. The music played for about 10 seconds then they cut it off because the nurse Chloe had a line, "We're leaving!" A mic man was holding the mic like sometimes you see in cheap films - the mic is in the picture, you know what I mean? It was seriously insane how many people they had on crew. People running around, very large equipment everywhere. It was extremely disorganized! What is going to take about 45 seconds on the show took an hour to shoot! That was the only work that I did that day - that one scene. We did that one scene with the one line about 25 times. We had to do it many times for each camera angle. Stopping in between, repositioning everything and making sure the camera was just right. After the director was satisfied with the scene she wanted to add a little exit and glance back with the character Chloe, played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Well, Michelle hated this idea and she had a little fit. She started cussing. She was rolling her eyes, saying that this is unnecessary detail that isn't relevant to the
scene or worthy of time. She complained that she has been on set all day since 7 am. All the director did was say that she wanted it done and this is what separated good tv from bad. She finally agreed to proceed and put forth probably about 5% effort into the 'glance back.'

The scene that I was in =  the two main nurses are dancing on a coffee table at a frat party and Chloe finds them and says, "we're leaving," and then all exit - and she glances back. I am wearing a grey shirt with a dark grey unbuttoned shirt on top. So look out for me, I have no idea if I'll be seen or not - but that would be the shot I would be in. They didn't tell us when the episode is airing, but Mercy comes on every Wednesday 8/7c. I assume it will be not this Wednesday but the next. The rest of the day I just waited around and got home around 12:30am. It was a very long day but I was so grateful for getting to experience it all. I had no idea that film takes soo long. I thought rehearsing for theater took time. I was wrong - film is double, even triple the time!

On Friday of this past week, two days after Mercy, I surprisingly got called for the show "30 Rock!" It was amazing! I will tell you about that experience hopefully tomorrow. I have to go to work now. But let me just say that Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin are just as good off camera as they are on.