Sunday, August 24, 2008

Clear Eyes. Full Hearts. Can't Lose




Well, it is Sunday and I am relaxing!!!! It has been quite an interesting three days. I just do not know where to start! I suppose day 1 would be the best place to start!!! I arrived at the big tent at the set of Friday Night Lights at about 5:00pm. My call time was not until 5:30pm. I decided to use the 30 minutes people watching. There were hundreds of people lining up to be fans. This was quite an unusually diverse group of people. There were people from all walks of life. Some people were aspiring actors, some were ordinary average citizens, and then there were some CRAZY people that had nothing better to do than to make a little money. I heard a lot of talk about smoking weed, weird! Shortly after I arrived, a man shouted that he needed the coaches to wardrobe. I told him that I hadn't checked in yet. He told me that coaches didn't have to stand in line to check in, so I can move to the front. I thought, Wow! My first taste of stardom. lol I went to wardrobe and was given two outfits. The lady said that the first game was a winter game, so I would have to wear the jacket for the maroon team. Then, we would change into the the blue team and film that game. I then walked over to the football field and changed in the locker room. The whole thing was made specifically for this show. Everything was Dillon Panthers! It was pretty cool. After changing, I met the other four coaches on my team. They were all nice guys. They had all been an extra on the show at some point, some A LOT more than others. Once it started getting dark, we started to film the show. It is so cool to see this process. The director and actors set up on my side of the field and shot all of the plays from that angle. Later they would switch sides of the field and tape from that angle. needless to say, it became very monotanous. I saw the same plays over and over and over again. I was fortunate enough to meet a few of the actors who were really nice. I was amazed at how old they really are. These kids are almost 30 years old!!!! The coach was such a nice guy. One thing that I found very interesting was that not a single player on the field was in high school. Some of these guys were semi-professional football players. Most of them actually do this for a living. They get paid to play football for shows and movies. A couple of them were in the movie Friday Night Lights. They were mostly jerks the first night. They walked around cockier than the actors. We finally finished filming around 4 am. After that, I had to turn my clothes back in to wardrobe. Unfortunately, I didn't get to skip to the front of that line. After that, I had to stand in another line for an hour to check out! Yet again, I was unable to skip to the front of the line. Just like any other line, people were cutting in front of others which of course made a lot of people angry. By this time, my feet were hurting, but I sucked it up and waited to check out. During my wait I reflected on the heirarchy of the set. There were definitive distinctions between cast members as follows:

Director

Actors

Actual Football Players

Crew

Coaches

Football Player Extras

Fans.

I realized the first night that I never wanted to be a fan!!! They worked harder and got paid less than anyone!

Day two...

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