A recent extra/stand-in on some big budget Hollywood films, 'Burt' writes in to tell about his experiences on set!
Little Black Book: This Brittany Murphy seems pretty ho-hum. Not to much to report here, in fact you could probably get more information about the movie from the Lights Out site. Everyone was really nice and the days began at 6pm and ended at 6am. Brittany seems very genuine even though I haven't spoken to her. Other extra's have and they say she is "rad". She seems to be having the time of her life during this movie.
The director seems to be taking a very painstaking almost Kubrick-like approach to shooting this film. He has multiple camera's going all the time and shoots many different shots of many different angles repeatedly. While I used to admire this approach, I have come to wonder if this might mean the director is A) unprepared or B) is so unsure of himself he wants to shoot reams of footage and then "find the film" in the editing room. I guess we'll know when the movie opens, right?
I was only booked on this movie for one night but that soon became three. The night shoots were a bit exhausting and thankfully on the last night I was able to cop a lot of z's in my car. They told me to wait there and I would just sleep until a PA, AD or one of the other extra's woke me up for lunch. As the movie was shooting at Universal, I took the opportunity on my last night to drive around Universal when the film wrapped that morning. I saw sets from BACK TO THE FUTURE, THE BREAKFAST CLUB and the house from PSYCHO.
Constantine: Keanu Reeves is rad. Yeah, people say he's a bad actor, POINT BREAK sucked, "I am an FBI agent..." blah, blah, blah ... and I am tired of it. Got booked to work this 5:30pm to 5:30am movie on a rush call and I had know idea I was stepping into Reeve's next MATRIX-like blockbuster. This film is about a guy who fights demon's or something, but I was mostly impressed by Keanu's work ethic. No entourage, no hullabaloo, no BS. He gets dropped off in an SUV, and he works. He doesn't have people bringing him his food, or smoking his cigarettes for him. He is there in every sense of the word. In fact, he was working in a scene THAT HE WASN'T EVEN IN. Rachel Weisz needed an eyeline, and rather then have someone else do it, Keanu stood BEHIND the camera so she could actually look at him for the shot. He didn't do this once or twice, he did it like fifteen times. And when one of the extra's was given a line, Keanu and Co. were very cordial to him. And best of all, I think the beautiful Rachel Weisz gave me the eye a few times but I can't be sure.
I spent a decent amount of time on this shoot in my car (I keep getting booked with it) talking on the phone to various people.
Cellular: Stood in on this project. Jason Statham of SNATCH and THE ITALIAN JOB fame is starring in this along with Kim Basinger. I don't know too much about this movie, except to say that the direcor, really knows how to make a movie. He doesn't waste time, he doesn't shoot forever and he knows exactly what is that he wants. I heard he shot all the 2nd Unit stuff for MATRIX 2.
They've been doing a bunch of scenes at various houses and from the times I have peeked at the monitors, the acting looks to be really top notch. Had an interesting moment where this guy was sitting behind me, one of the main actors goofing on another main actor, and when he walked away the other actor made call his performance "as the guy who shot Trinity" in the beginning and end of MATRIX 2. All the actors of very nice and they even eat with us background people.
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