Drizzle, lots of drizzle. Sitting under a tent with no sides waiting hour after hour. Cold, sometimes semi wet and very frizzy hair. Yeah, we were ready to "Be In A Movie" all right...
Started the day at 5:50AM. Drove through lots of Valley traffic the first hour and then finally, blessed traffic relief after passing the Westside. Reached the Harbor Freeway about 7:15AM and my first call from Gidget happened. You are on your way, right angel? Yes, Gidget, I am. lol
Drove a few miles more down the 405 Freeway and suddenly on my right is this HUGE blue pyramid towering over the residential neighborhood. I couldn't believe it! Must be the place, so I exited the freeway and drove around the area to get a good handle on where things were. Found some restaurants along Bellflower, which helped immensely later in the day. Drove back to the Red Belt shooting site at Cal State Long Beach. It's this huge blue pyramid. Followed the yellow signs that said RB Crew Parking and took care of my vehicle. Called Mama to see where she was (she had a way to go yet) so I told her I would check out the site and get back to her. Walked over to the trailer village, a normal occurrence at any film shoot. Dressing rooms, bathrooms, wardrobe trailers, make-up, etc. Didn't see a trailer that said Max Martini or Joe Ryan (his character in this movie), Not like I expected to see him, but one always can hope. Walked to the Pyramid and followed the signs to the restrooms (I prefer real ones, to porta potties). Walked into the building and took my first look at the set for the big fight. There were people there already, hundreds of people...YIKES! did I walk into a shot? No, they are all dummies! Wearing winter long sleeve clothes. A heck of a lot warmer clothes then I was currently wearing. Hmmmm...This movie supposed to be in wintertime?
So I walk out and ask a security guard where the bathrooms are. He points to the ones in the dressing room village and tells me the ones in the pyramid won't open til 9AM. So I walk to them (what the heck). When I come back I check out the food. Custom omelettes, custom made waffles, lots of healthy food and smoothies for the cast and crew. We at "Be In A Movie", got bagels, danish and cereal. lol
I call Gidget back and while talking to her, I see someone I know from my day job. Christopher! How's it going? What are you doing here? He tells me he is a paid extra today. Wow, that beats me, I am an unpaid extra. lol He goes off to sign in and I finish my call with Gidget. I tell her that if I can, I will email a photo to her, to put up on Yahoo. I go back to the Pyramid and find where to sign in. Sign my rights away on a release form and then my phone rings again. This time it's Mama! She and Dave are pulling in right now. So...back to the parking lot and we three get together. Dave is Mama's friend Anna's (from the CAN walk) Husband. What a sweet guy! I can see that he and Anna must be such a nice couple. He is a big fight fan and can't wait to meet Randy Couture the UFC Heavyweight Champion. So we walk back through the trailer village, looking at more dressing room names and then get them signed in. They tell us to sit down, so we grab a bite to eat and sit and catch up. That basically is what we did for the next 7 hours! Sit in the drizzle (under a tent top) and talk. Not that we minded talking, we loved talking. Mama can talk for forever, in this case, a good thing. :-)
Finally around 11AM the handler comes in. His name is Dante, a comedian. He does some games for prizes. Stuff to keep us from getting totally bored. One of his games is freaks of nature, regarding people who can do weird stuff with their bodies. It was hysterical! I think at this point that I should mention the fact that many of our fellow "Be In A Movie" types are really uh, "interesting" folks. I could write a book about what I saw. lol
At one point they introduce some fighter named Ray and this gets Dave all excited. So Mama takes a picture of the 2 of them and then we sit again...and wait.
So the hours pass and minus the 2 times we went into the Pyramid to go to the restroom, things are pretty not happening out in the tent. While doing our potty break, the cool thing was that we could see the shot they were working on, while we were in route to the bathroom. The lead character and the challenger go at it under the stands, while a bunch of reporters and security guards are looking on at them. My friend Christopher is a reporter with pad and pen in the shot. Look for a very dark haired Italian with glasses writing stuff down on a paper and that will probably be him in the shot. David Mamet is there directing the actors and extras and it was pretty exciting to see him work. Ooh! :-)
Lunch, finally at 2:15PM and boy were we ready for it. Chicken, rice, new potatoes, pasta corned beef and cabbage and lots of weird salads were on hand with several yummy desserts. Not bad at all. We were impressed. Went to the restroom again and see that the set is dark during the break. Since we were told that we would definitely be on right after lunch, I went to the car and dropped off my purse and jacket. Mama has Dave drop off her purse and jacket. Then we went to sit down in the almost sun, and continue to sit waiting for them to call us. We get told that they will now raffle the BIG prize for us "Be IN A Movie" types and (of course) I don't have my ticket anymore. It is in the car with my stuff! Ugh! So they call a number and give away a TV. We go stand in the sun again and wait some more. Mama sees Ricky Jay (the skeevy CIA operator in The Unit) and we almost go over to say Hi, but he looks real busy and I abort the mission. So back to standing, people watching and just all around being bored. Watching Christopher on his cell phone is my excitement...
Well then I don't know what the tip off was, but I see a guy getting off a motorcycle over in the trailer village. He takes off his helmet and I go Mama! I think that's Max! She doesn't see anything, but I am sure. So we start walking that way to mostly try to get a bit closer. Well, one of our handlers see our actions and he is on an intercept course with us. So we keep walking that way until he gets to us. Well, we can now see quite clearly that it is indeed Max so we both yell "MAX". He immediately comes over to us. At that point security leaves us alone and the three of us talk to Max. He was not supposed to be here today, but he had some pictures they needed to take, so he stopped by. He has this wicked cut on his chin and I asked him where he got that. He said in a fight scene and that is why he was going scruffy right now, to try to hide it. He said he is clean shaven in the movie.
Well after 7 hours of waiting, the handlers now decide that we need to go into the arena for our part in the movie. Fine, great, what timing... We leave Max to go do what he has to do and we are herded into the Pyramid and over to the bleachers. We picked a high row, but they immediately moved us down to row one. Then they take Dave away to walk in the stands during the shots and act like he is finding his seat. So it's just Mama and me together. They direct us to pantomime that we are talking, when the scene is being shot. This is absolutely no problem for Mama! lol
Works perfectly. We talk to each other, we talk to other extras, we have a good time. Max comes into the set and we keep track of him, a bit. Watching him talk to cast and crew. He then leaves again. We continue like that for at least another hour, doing our talk thing. Dave is finally allowed to stay in his seat, so we have him back with us. There are Kodo drummers around the outside of the ring, and the 2 fighters go at it again coming into the ring area. We do the shot over and over again. Sometimes the star and sometimes the stunt double. While we are in between takes, Max comes over to us with a cup filled with gourmet popcorn. He offers us some and we talk some more. The other extras are beyond excited that someone came over to talk to us. I ask about Kim (she is still not better yet) I ask more about the cut and he says that it bled all over the set, when it happened. We mention that we have some pictures and Smitten's tee shirt that need signing, so he does all that for us. Finally, they call for another take and Max has to go again. We sit some more and do more takes, while Mama text messages Gidget. She asks the infamous question from the CAN Walk, "Did u behave yourself?". I go and Mama Texts, "define behave?" LOL It is 8PM and most of the extras have left. So we finally decide to call it a day and we walk off the set. For me it has been 12 1/2 hours of stuff. We walk outside the Pyramid and there is Max getting ready to leave. We go up to him and ask if he wants to join us for dinner. He says no he has to go home. We leave him and walk off toward our cars. While deciding where to go eat, we hear the unmistakable rumble of a Harley. Mama goes "Potato, Potato, Potato" and then along comes Max. We intend to get a shot of him as he drives by on his bike, but once again he surprises us and drives over to us.
We give him directions to the freeway take a few shots and this time he really is gone. We go off to Bellflower and get some dinner. Smiling the whole time.
Great day for all three of us. Max has another convert and friend for life. Dave is totally impressed with him. I say goodbye to them both, hugging and making a promise to have a Redbelt premiere party together next year and then we get into our cars and head home.
What a day!
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