I signed up to be an extra in a club scene for the new movie in the filming process called
The Itty Bitty Titty Committee starring Clea Duvall, directed by Jamie Babbitt (who directed "But I'm a Cheerleader"), produced by Andrea Sperling (producer of Cheerleader and D.E.B.S.) and executive produced by Stacy Codikow (D.E.B.S. and the founder of Power-Up - a lesbian film/media organization). Basically - a lesbian comedy movie! (At least I think it's a comedy.) (And one thing I read on one day said Melanie Lynskey was gonna be in it too... but there was no meeting of the celebrity-me yesterday so I can't confirm that.)
(Scene from But I'm a Cheerleader with Ms. Lynskey)
Now just to be absolutely honest - this is why I, previously, loved Clea Duvall: Girl, Fucking Interrupted!
New reasons to love Clea Duvall:
1) She's so gay.
2) She's got chubby arms. That fucking rocks. (Don't tell her I said that.)
3) I've now been in a move scene with her which makes me ONE FUCKING STEP AWAY from Winona.
4) She's totally shy and quiet! Cheers for shy & quiet girls!
So to give you a full recap of my day - I woke, dressed in "costume" and gathered my wits about me as I prepared to go it alone to a movie set. (Give me Kudos! This was brave!) ("Gathering my wits" means downing at least two Pepto Bismol pills to calm the stomach knots.)
I arrived (not easily - I circled around about fifteen times before finally finding the parking and followed some funky looking lesbians to an empty lot with some shade tents and some sharpie-written signs that said "Extras Holding". I figured that was where I was supposed to be so I found myself a chair and "held" for quite a while. Apparently they were already filming a scene and the group inside were the early birds - no problem. The rest of us would just wait. Some girls came in pairs or threes or fours and some of us were loners who wandered around the lot aimlessly - visiting the craft services table often and pretending to not watch Clea as she came and went from the make-up trailer marked "The Band".
(FYI - I now finally have a camera phone and have a bunch of great pictures of a small indistinguishable "Clea in the background" but apparently you need a subscription to multimedia messaging before you can get those buggers off your phone.)
Extras arrived sporadically and we all waited to be called in. Some of us were "punked up" by a gal - some of us weren't. (I wasn't. Which either means I was fine the way I was or ... my steel-like silence and aura of coldness scared the punking girl away.)
Eventually, about a half hour before lunch, all of us that hadn't been used yet were called in to mingle in the background and cross camera while the star of the film, Melonie Diaz, was doing a scene.
The stars of the DAY, however, were Clea (obviously) and Jamie Babbitt. A few of us were just as excited to see her (and Andrea Sperling) cuz we're movie geeks. Alright - I admit - Jamie was not actually much on my radar before my bud Adrea started talking about her and Angela Robinson (director of D.E.B.S.) and other people I should know of but Andrea Sperling was! And I'll tell you why - cuz one of my Hollywood bosses is the daughter of her landlord and we tried to work that angle to get my old sound designer boss a job.
I also didn't know that Jamie and Andrea were so young... I mean they're older than me which gives me some life hope but they're only mid-thirties. I don't know why but I thought Andrea was in her fifties - SO wrong.
After the scene we broke for lunch - pizza for the extras and more mingling with the characters who'd popped in for the day.
After lunch we went back in for the major club scene and we pretty much stayed there for the rest of the day. There was a lot of bouncing, some "slam dancing," topless girls (Brave! Topless in a crowd of lesbians AND slam dancing!), and towards the end of the day - crowd surfing! I always wondered what it would be like to go to a club like this and once again I was delivered a reminder that everything I think is real is fiction. Does a club like this actually exist anywhere in the world? Maybe? Or maybe its all just Hollywood. Well Jamie crowd surfed a few times to show us what she wanted (and part of this was filmed so... this may be her big cameo in the film) and then eventually we handled Melonie like 25 times - (take after take) and then Jamie threw the topless girls on us for fun. (Poor poor topless girls. One of the colorful haired Vegas girls pulled off the topless task and I hope someone checked her ID cuz she looked 16.)
After a while... with all that bouncing and slamming and toplessness.... it started to get a little rank. And I felt like a shaken baby and needed an Advil like crazy. Luckily - Advil and hydration was previded. They were good to us - after every extensive jumping around shot they passed out waters and every so often passed out PB&J's and tacos and other munchies.
Clea, meanwhile, was in "the band" that we were all slam-dancing to and for most of the shots she played the guitar with her back to us BECAUSE she wasn't ACTUALLY playing the guitar. The lead singer of the band was one of those great hammin' it up types and she kept us entertained - especially when they asked the band to mime-play for a shot.
Clea was like "I don't understand."
Singer (I'll hate myself later when I find out who she is.) was like, "You were great. We were shit. They want us to stop and for you to keep doing what you're doing babe."
Clea: "I don't get it."
Singer: "We were shit. You were perfect."
Clea: "But I don't get it. I'm supposed to mime mime-playing?"
Last shot of the day was the Clea pay-off of the day as it was her turn to sing us a song. Apparently she'd been practicing and practicing the few strums of the guitar that she had to learn for the song and she apologized before hand because Jamie had bullied her into doing it but good thing she had therapy scheduled for the morning etc. etc. "I sound like shit and I'm not a singer." Then she sang her slow song while we all sat on the floor (because apparently that's what you do in mosh pit clubs when the band slows down) and I was a little more in the foreground due to my yellow shirt... (cross your fingers for my big movie debut = the camera panned slowly across the crowd). Clea had to only play half the song before sound was to cut out and Melonie and another actress had a longer dialogue scene. BUT - of course they needed a longer POV shot of Clea singing the whole song so she had to do that twice. We, of course, clapped and Ms. D was like "No no no no no NOO!!!" All in all she wasn't half bad - especially for the type of punk rock band they were supposed to be. It fit the day and the atmosphere anyway.
Then the band was cut and they only needed us "seated on the floor extras" for background ambience for a couple more shots and then we were done! We were given free L Word shirts, some Paul Mitchell shampoo/conditioners and some "Queer Net" boxer shorts for our time not to mention all the free food and the experiences! (The $25 dollars is going to be mailed separately.) I can now say I've been directed by Jamie Babbitt (and touched her butt as she crowd floated over me... not scandelously of course) and co-starred with Clea and the day is done!
My next goal in life, since directing still frightens me, is to write a movie that Jamie Babbitt will direct, Andrea Sperling will produce and girls will flock to be in for the fun of it.
(I actually sat down with my laptop hours ago to begin this process but instead I blogged.) (Oh well.)
Oh and the funniest part of the day was probably when the ambiguously gay "Lesbian Boss" that I have called me to ask me how to attach a picture to an e-mail.
At the end of the call she said, "Well it sounds like you're having fun. What are you doing today?"
Me: I'm being an extra in a movie today.
Her: Really???!! That's exciting! What kind of movie?
Me: Well, have you ever heard of "But I'm a Cheerleader"
She didn't answer me. Instead she cackle-laughed for about a minute and then said, "Well then I'll let you go."
