Dear diary, journal, whatever the kids call em..

And time for another installment of details-of-the-last-day-I-did-something-interesting-or-different.

Yesterday I extrad on the "WWII film". I met the dude, director's assistant or whatever at a tram stop I was not previously familiar with, it's by the train tracks in an area full of abandoned stuff, and I waited. There was a sign telling us extras to wait here for a while, so I waited for a while, and took lots of photographs. Obviously he was late, and it was particularly windy yesterday, dusty even.

This is starting off really boring.. sorry, bear with me, rest will not focus so much on trivialities. Or it might, I haven't gotten to that bit yet.

He showed up, then we had to wait for the other extras, who were late. Then they showed up on a tram. They all seemed to know each other so I was kind of hanging out on my own, occasionally saying a word to someone. We went to a place called, what I thought when he first told me was a meat factory. But there was no meet there, just a huge graffiti dude on the side and some cars at the front. Actually the name is "Meet Factory" and it's a place where artists and whatnot do stuff. Apparently.

A vaguely related but not all that interesting point is that I saw this from the train when I went to Karlštein few weeks ago. I'd actually first recognized a church I photographed from the train, and then when I walked up to this building, I remembered seeing this place with cars on the walls and thinking it must be some car yard or something, how wrong I was!

So, we went in and changed. We were to be Jews, concentration camp, er inmates to be more precise.. yes, particularly cheerful. He alerted us to a bunch of uniforms and dresses and said take what you want. I let the other girls pick whatever and then took the dress that was left over. Pretty normal looking, not like the striped uniforms some of the others were wearing. We waited around, then some guy came and gave us armbands with stars on them, they were white, not yellow but whatevs.

We waited around more. I took lots of photos of myself, posing.

After some time we went out to where the one scene we were in was taking place. Everyone went down without any stuff, so I didn't take my bag, phone, camera.. it looked cool down there, and the actors had cool costumes, but that's the way it goes.

Come to think of it, it's looking like this is going to be long and drawn out, go ahead and quit reading if that's your tendency, it's not going to get any quicker from here.

The scene was set up, we got in a line, the actors got in their places and we stood around like that for ages. The dude came and put tape on the ground to mark our spots so we could rest a bit. Then we needed to adjust positions so he changed it, this happened a few times and took quite long. Most of the time we were standing there, in position. We amuses ourselves a bit waving to people on the trains going past. Some of them were perplexed, or at least interested enough to gawk.

After about an hour, or so it seemed, we rehearsed a few times. This was mostly for the actors, but we had to be in position. This took about 20 minutes, maybe 35.

Then we adjusted ourselves again, the director, dp and other film people discussed stuff.. and then we could shoot. Finally!

We shot one, it was ok. Shot it again, had to change things a little, went through 3 for times and they had the basic scene down. Went through it a few more times, some with a train going by, or police sirens drowning everything out, and others where there was a slight problem for some other reason. All this time, standing in position.

And again.
7824 comes with me
But the number is on the list?
Well the list is wrong

and cut..

Let's do it just once more.

So we did it once more. There was a problem with the dolly or whatever, it was bumpy. The next one was ok but a plane or train or something was causing noise. Then they realize that Daniel (line #1) who I know from Meisner class 2 years ago, not that it's relevant, was in the scene waiting to walk in at the beginning, so he had to go further back. Then a few times he came in too quick because he was too far back to get his cue. Finally he got it right, but there were problems with bumpiness or something. So a few times more. Then he got it right, at last! But of course it's good to do a few more.. all the time, we're standing there, in line, in position.

I had the wrong shoes on by the way, but I don't think it mattered.

So a few times more and then we were done. It was much later than I'd expected it to go, but we couldn't go back yet because they might want us for another scene, but at least we could relax and have some refreshments. Drinks and ham sandwiches, yay :)

We sat, ate and stretched our aching whatevers. They told us they weren't going to use us for another scene so thank you, we're done, but I still had to wait for the guy who could unlock the door to the meet place so I could get my stuff, so I hung around more. After a bit he led us back up there, let us in and we changed... he asked us to wait so he could get our names, so we did that. I was done and ready to go, so I walked down on my own, everyone else was hanging around chatting.. no hurry at all.. and the door was locked, so I had to go back up, wait for everyone else to be ready and the dude to unlock the door and be let out.

And then I was done.. and that's it. I mean, I did then have to go and pick up diet cat food from the vet, and it took me 4 trams to get there because of a combination of the places not being compatible tram lines, me not knowing either place so well, a few adjustments in the system recently and my lack of bearings when I'm on the other side of the river which I was, and then after that I had to walk part of the way back to the pub I met Erik in afterwards... but none of that is the point of the story so I won't go into that.