I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille!

I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement with a company called Casino Royale Productions, so I am not at liberty to discuss details of the film, James and the Giant Explosive Device, where today I served as an extra. I am, however, at liberty to discuss the life of a movie extra. And what a life is is!

It was dark when the alarm clock went off at 4:50 this morning, brutally yanking me from the lingering warmth of the land of Nod. Alarm clocks are infernal items that I have managed to almost, but not quite, purge from my life. When I get up, it’s because I want to. I was looking forward to this day, however, so it was with only a moderate amount of cursing that I shuffled through the darkness to the shower. Half an hour later Soup Boy and I were waiting in the darkest before the dawn, wet snow gently falling, waiting for a cab.

The Taxi was the first to make tracks down our quiet street, but at more than one house older men were already diligently at work clearing the sidewalks. Now that’s crazy.

The shoot was in a secure location at the top of a hill not too far away. It is not a place easily accessible by vehicles at the best of times, and the taxi could not even begin the ascent before wheels spun and we slid gently back down. Soup and I got out and started climbing. We had been instructed to find a man we will call Zoltan the Bald Serbian when we got there, and he would tell us what to do. We drifted, aimless, confused, semi-literate, but no Zoltan the Bald Serbian was to be found. We were not the only ones looking for him, but no one knew where he was. We were directed to a tent to wait for him.

Many of the tents were cold and dark. The heaters would start up, the lights would flicker to reluctant life, and then everything would shut down again, to the anguished cries of the crews trying to prepare for the day. Zoltan the Bald Serbian, we finally overheard, was stuck in a taxi somewhere. Now, I’m not calling the man a liar, but in the time it took him to get there, he could have walked from almost anywhere in Prague.

So, before Zoltan the Bald Serbian even showed up, we were advised to head for wardrobe, then makeup, then breakfast, and worry about the rest later. Which is what we did. I changed into shorts, a tropical print shirt, and shoes with no socks, and struck back out into the bitter cold, looking like a flasher huddled under my trench coat. “You must be cold,” a lot of people said. At the time I was doing all right. Makeup added some color to my Pragueified complexion, giving me a sunburn, more or less. The makeup crew was English, so the idea of being brown from the sun was likely foreign to them. Breakfast was plentiful and edible, and then it was up to the set. At some point Soup Boy spotted Zoltan the Bald Serbian.

In the big marble building, boomy and chilly despite the fierce gas-powered heaters roaring away, we were herded around for a bit, down some stairs and into the chamber that housed the set. I will not describe the set, not only because of the confidentiality agreement, but also because I’m lazy, and it would take a lot of words to convey. I found myself standing next to what I call “Dead man Beating a Dead Horse” (that is not the official title). There were probably a couple hundred of us extras, maybe more, and we were instructed in the correct milling around techniques. A few rehearsals, and then we stood around while they got ready for the actual shot.

All that milling practice, hundreds of people working to perfect the milling while assistant directors rushed about with specific milling instructions, was for less than a second of film time as the camera turned from the multitude to the key characters. Or so I’m told. Then the characters do some acting and stuff; the actual shot lasts perhaps ten seconds. Of course those roaring heaters were not running, and the chamber was rapidly cooling off. Why do all those Miami residents have gooseflesh? Yes, it got downright chilly. The cold was nothing compared to the boredom; we finally had a keeper after two hours.

Soup Boy and I, separated during the first shot by aesthetically-inclined assistants who didn’t like the violent reaction between the very different floral patterns of our shirts, drifted back together while the lighting and cameras were being reconfigured for the next shot. At one point another assistant, a swift and competent British guy who had been trying to load the shot with people who looked Floridian, snatched us from our appointed stations to move us closer to the action.

Much closer. After some figuring and a bit of practice, the shot started with yours truly and Soup Boy moving one direction around an object while the camera moved behind the object, tracking us as the Interesting People came into view. They packed in the extras to fill the frame; It was not easy to get us all through that little zone, but here’s the cool part: every time they adjusted something, they made sure that “The Lads” (Soup Boy and I) kept doing the same thing, because it was working so well. After each take they would talk to other actors, extras, cameramen, and whatnot, then turn to us and say, “You Lads were perfect.” (OK, sure, it wasn’t that challenging—really damn easy, to be honest—and a couple of times we weren’t perfect, but it still felt pretty cool.) The entire shot depended on the speed I set moving through. No, not rocket science, not at all, but responsibility, and when things got crowded at the end of the shot Soup Boy and I had to be low-grade acrobats as well. It was easily the most enjoyable part of the day. (At least, as far as shooting was concerned; there’s also the lovely and talented Belladonna…)

It is likely that Soup Boy and I will be quite easily spotted on the Big Screen. Unless the shot doesn’t fit right, or unless the first part of the shot has to be cut to keep the flow (even then, the German Guy and the Killer both come very close to us as the Boy and I inspect the odd, vaguely disturbing object), or unless I’m obscured by the object the whole time, or unless…

On the other hand, in that shot we were quite obviously moving in the direction opposite that of the main characters. So, as the action proceeded through the setting, our reappearance would have been jarring. Bottom line, there was no more work for us this day. Not that anyone said, “Right Lads, looking ahead, I’d say you’re done.” At eleven thirty we left the set, never to return, but we were not released to go home until seven in the evening. Zoltan the Bald Serbian was nowhere to be found to tell us what the deal would be the next day, so we had to ask around among extras working for other agencies. We go back tomorrow, and there’s no guarantee they will be able to use us, ever. With gutsy performances filled with Raw Truth as ours were, well, the moviegoing public is just not ready for more than a few seconds of us. I can accept that.

2

Half-stories

I once heard an Inspirational Speech, given by a man who stood to profit from my labor. He had a good point, though. Everyone has ideas. Most people start things. Less than half make it halfway, and a tiny percent finish what they started. There is no place that is more true than in writing. It is easy to start a story, and damn hard to finish.

The other day I woke with the feeling I had a few stories languishing—thoughts with very strong beginnings, some even with middles, just waiting for an end. I did some housecleaning and found five stories more or less finished that I know could be better, five others I put in the newly-created ‘active’ pile, and some fifteen in the back burner folder. Most of those are good starts: excellent settings, fine prose, no destination.

And there, perhaps, is the difference between a beginning and an ending. Not that all prose must have a capital-p purpose, but it should have a direction. In the beginning was the word, and at the end was the period. Beyond the end is The Moment, the pause that as a writer you can only hope for, when the reader hesitates, still in the story, not yet ready to give up that world. All those images, characters, and whatnot are in the quest of delivering that one most rapturous pause, the finest hour, when the story is over but the narrative continues in the reader’s own language. We don’t write to last, we write to linger.

So, I have a collection of beginnings now. Many of them are pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. I read them and smile at my own prose, my own creativity (how did I ever come up with that?). Only problem is, a beginning isn’t worth the paper it’s wiped on.

When I chose this life, I had the Inspirational Speech in mind. I came to the game confident that I would be a finisher. I’m not done yet.

The episode is over. There’s nothing to see here. Move along.

Thoughts on the theme:

The first girl I was ever in love with—not just a crush but really live-or-die in love with, consumed. the girl who burned her way through my thoughts, the girl who tormented me even as I tormented her, the girl with the power to destroy me—I guarantee she’s more beautiful now that she was then (and she was mighty damn beautiful back then)—she was not a finisher. I knew that, but that’s not why we didn’t work out. We broke up because I was a dork. But in the end, I like to tell myself, we were doomed anyway, because she was a dabbler, a dilettante, not a finisher.

I wonder where she is, now. Probably much closer to finishing something than I am.

I think you never get completely over that first love. You will never match that hopeless mad passion again. You will never have the innocence of not having failed. You only have one shot at purity. Ever after, you are fallen, and the love you feel will have a peer. The next affair will, perhaps, surpass, but never again will there be pure, unmeasured, love. When you feel that giddy euphoria, you will remember that you have felt it before.

Meanwhile, Robert Jordan is a giant in the fantasy fiction world. Damn near a dozen books in, he has yet to write an ending, even though anyone with an IQ greater than six who has been willing to hang with The Series That Will Not Die already knows exactly what will happen. Robert Jordan sucks. Stop buying his books until he comes up with an ending for once in his life, and cuts his page count in half.

William Gibson finally got off his ass and wrote a good book. If only they had forgotten to print the last chapter. In the business world they call it ‘selling past the close’; here I will call it ‘writing past the end’. He should learn from the Japanese so prevalent in his stories. He should recall Neuromancer. Still, it’s his best book in a long time. Cayce Pollard is my kind of hero. Gibson, however, seems to be suffering from the same malady I have (elevation by association?) – good setups, a search for a conclusion. I, however (elevation against a straw man?) don’t try to publish my stories with weak endings. To be fair, it’s easy for me to talk, down here, about one of my favorite writers. The dude’s pretty good. Effinger’s better, but he’s dead.

I watched an anime series recently – I won’t name it because I don’t want to spoil it for you – but at the end I just sat for quite a while. “Dang,” I said, more than once. “Wow.” I took a few deep breaths. This series was made for Japanese television and there is no way it would ever have been made in the US. It ended with two people dying, one literally, the other figuratively, sacrifices to something evil they had unwittingly supported, helpless, linked by a pair of tears and infinite regret, both meeting the most horrible fate they can imagine. Only one has the luxury of death; the other has a job to do. It was an ending, the death of all we had known before, but it was also a beginning. That’s fair, as long as there is that moment of reflection. For me, that moment stretched for hours.

Speaking of James Bond, the bad guy lying in a pool of blood is not an ending, even if his laboratory of evil (LOE) explodes.

In a crossover meditation, Mission Impossible, the television series, despite the constraint that each episode was a complete and interchangeable story, managed to come up with some of the best endings ever on television. No blood, just the bad guy having a moment when he knows he is well and truly screwed.

So where are we? So many stories undertold, overtold, retold, better left untold. Unfinished. My job is to chase down a couple of those endings, wrassle them to the dirt, and make them work for a living.

1

A trip to wardrobe

Now that I’ve been called in to save the production of Casino Royale, I’ve got a lot on my plate. Today, it was a trip out to the studio to visit the costuming department. “Bring any Florida clothes you might have,” the casting agent said in a much more confusing fashion. Soup Boy and I packed up a bunch of stuff (Pretty much all the clothes I brought from San Diego), and after an hour and half commute to the studio, twenty minutes trying to find the right place, and fifteen minutes with very appreciative wardrobe people who very much appreciated all the stuff we had brought, I was wearing pretty much what I wore every day for fifteen years in San Diego, except with shoes.

An hour and half back home, and the work day was done. Whew!

Happy Ought-to Ought-to Day

Today is dedicated to getting something done that you ought to do. I used my ought-to ought-to day to finally get a monthly pass for the transportation system, which involved getting a photo taken. This is to enable the other ought-to: getting out more.

How ’bout you?

Call me Bond. James Bond.

It all started innocently a few hours ago. I had returned from the Internet store, where Otakar and I had accomplished almost (but not quite) nothing. I was telling Soup Boy that the bowling alley (our Internet lifeline) was closed today. It turns out it’s the owner’s names day. Sure, what the heck, close the place when I haven’t read email in three days.

So Soup Boy had hoisted his trusty mobile phone to find out just whose names day it was, thinking if it was a common one it might explain why Český Telecom was also closed for business, more or less. Can’t fight the names days. Shouldn’t try.

Before his fingers did their nimble dance over his phone, however, he got a message. He read it, chuckled, and asked me, “You want to be an extra in the James Bond movie?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Then right now send a message to this number,” he said.

Having no time to think, I could not stop myself from acting. I sent the message. In a couple of minutes I got a response. “Can you come in for photos soon? Now?”

My best is none too good, and I was not looking my best. I bought two hours to do what I could for my appearance. Soup Boy gave me directions, and off I went. I found the place thanks to Soup Boy’s unerring directions (remind me to tell you some day about how directions are given in this town), and I was early. The agent… Hmm… let’s call her Athena… was in a state. My being early didn’t help, but I sat quietly and opened my book. There was another guy there for the same reason, and when she realized she had two birds to kill she gave us some paperwork and took us in to be photographed.

The other guy went first. He was taller, more fit, and had screen experience, but we weren’t competing. No, Athena just needed every breathing soul she could round up, photograph, and send to the producer. She took a few shots of the other guy, giving him direction like “OK, now turn to the side, look this way, and give me an impish smile.” As I filled out my paperwork I practiced a few impish smiles.

Then it was my turn. I stood up straight and looked into the camera, wishing I had the same latitude as on my previous modeling gig. “Take off your glasses,” Athena said. “Smile a bit. Lean forward a little. Now look mean.” Mean? Mean? I started to adjust myself into a mean attitude but I was far from finished when she said, “Great. Lemme see what I’ve got.” I could tell she didn’t think she had much, but wasn’t hoping to get any more. (Or at least, didn’t think it was worth the time to try.)

I left, confident that Dr. No would never have to face me down, but what the hell. “We’ll tell you in the next forty-eight hours,” Athena said.

A few minutes ago, I got a message. I’m needed to meet with wardrobe tomorrow. I should bring clothes that look like I’m from Florida if I have them. The list started with silk suits (uh, yeah, right) but got down into my range, but my Rusty’s Surf Shop shirt won’t play. (No logos).

Two day’s work, rent covered for the month. Not bad. And if I see Dr. No, I’m gonna wax his ass.