Thursday, May 8, 2014

Movie extra work, The Coast, and Gratuitous photos



Another sunny morning and I’m still thinking about the ‘movie work’ and realized that last night I watched a little Netflix programming and was concentrating on the extras and not the main characters.  The extras were busy trying to mouth conversations and look like they were actually vocalizing.  It is not easy and it takes good hearing, concentration and is not meant for those who like to push the envelope.  I so wanted to start a conversation mimed ruckus with my friend on set.  This would not have gone over well. 

I remember years ago being an extra in the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus with Richard Dreyfuss.  One scene required us to all observe absolute quiet as Mr. Holland, the band instructor, conducted his high school band in a marching contest.  Quite obviously he was a beat behind in his conducting, the music was miserable and Mr. Holland used curse words to berate his band of students.  I was so wrapped up in the good acting that I became aghast at his treatment of young people in front of the other youngsters in the crowd scene that I began to clap loudly as an encouragement to his sense of rhythm.  I will never forget the steely blue stare from Mr. Dreyfuss and my shock at my mistake.  “Cut!” Nice young woman reminds over-enthusiastic extra to remain silent.  I realized it was all theatrics and Mr. Dreyfuss did not need my help.  It was a fun excursion with my sons on a sunny day in Portland, Oregon.

In the local shooting here a young college student, earning money as an extra, was cast on the set, to usher me, a visitor, from one place to another.  We started a brief conversation and she told me about her University major and the fact that she already had a job lined up in her home town Something-Something-Nui.  Not having a clue what the name of her Maori christened hometown was I asked “Where is it was located?”  “Oh, it’s on the coast, of course.”  Oh, of course ‘the coast’ I thought, that should be an obvious location, if this wasn’t a country of two main islands with plenty of room for coast line.  Later my friend translated the name of the town and said it was up north and considered ‘the coast’.  I'm learning and laughing at my own mental processes along the way.

Dining area
Now for some gratuitous photos, of lighting surrounds original to our rental home, as I don’t have any photos of the above.  NZ is glorious this morning after a night of rain again.  Quite happy with our surroundings and feeling very fortunate. J

Master Bedroom

PS What are these called?

3 comments:

  1. Jeanette, those are called medallions. I googled it because we just couldn't remember the proper name. I like them.

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  2. Great. Thanks. They make the lights look so much richer with historic value. I like them too. J

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  3. I was gonna say medallions but someone beat me to it. We did have one in our dining room that I hand painted the details with gold paint. Took me over a month off and on to finish it.

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