Saturday, August 16, 2008

Finn's Bar Initiation

Waiting for Michael Phelps' final run is a perfect time to catch on up the ol' blog. About 45 minutes away now-- the women's marathon is just finishing up. Makes me wish I could run... for more than five minutes. I hate long runs. Give me short sprints any day.

Anyway.

So yesterday was a short day on set. It was Friday, and pretty much the only thing we heard from anyone who was in charge of anything was "It's Friday," in a tone that really said, "Come on, people, it's Friday, let's just get something on film and go home."

It was the first time we've been on the new sets, and we were in the Finn's Bar and Restaurant the whole time. It's a bit of a claustrophic set, not like the VM cafeteria that was very open and airy. There's three main areas to the restaurant, with two being divided by a moving wall that a couple of set dressers kept moving all over the place. Ryan and I got set at a table right next to the bar at one point, and we were able to discover how the set dressers make alcohol: Coke mixed with apple juice for any amber colored drinks, and watered down gatorade for the fruity girly drinks. We thought it was funny that they were using brand name Coke and not something like Safeway brand for a wasted drink, but whatever. Watered down gatorade isn't too bad, by the way.

Apparently my eyes are a dazzling blue under the set lights because both of the guys I ended up set with during the night commented on them in mime speech. It was the only genuine thing that I actually understood from either of them, seeing as how most fake background conversations consist of "Oh, really?" and "Oh, I see," and "Do you come here often?" I was trying to think outside the box last night (for my own amusement, since they had no idea what I was saying), and pretended I was watching the Olympics on the bar TV. I think my guy figured out what I was talking about at that point, but then he switched back to offering me a sip of his coke and apple juice for the second time and we were back to making the loop of safe mimed comments.

As long as they keep the two scenes shot yesterday in the episode (#3), I think we're all definitely going to make it in. In both scenes I'm set right next to the actress playing the waitress (we secretly called her Wendy the Waitress, from How I Met Your Mother), and during the last scene her start point was actually talking to me and the guy I was with. I didn't recognize the girl from anything, though she did look familiar, and I think she's pretty new to the biz. She was really nice to us talking in between takes unlike certain cast members who I had to step out of the way for in fear that they would walk right into me. I swear, Kristen Bell never acted like the people around her were invisible, and she was a very well known actress. Unlike certain cast members on this new show.

Here's us waiting to get called to set! Check out my comfy set chair- it's even got a footrest.


Ah, the life of the background is just so hard.

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