Tuesday April 3rd, 2007

My day started at 4:00am. I woke up got ready and my role was to be a Harvard medical student, so I got dressed and that was that. By 5:15am I was out the door and on my way to Boston, my call time was 7:00am. I could still see the stars, and it was drizzling out. Traffic was fine until about 6:00am. I managed to get to Boston at a reasonable time, but getting to the holding was a different story, with school buses and traffic. I did get there but I was a half hour late after trying to find a parking spot. So I followed the signs saying "21, Extra holding," and I went in, signed in, and got my employment form to sill out so I will get paid. That began 1 1/2 - 2 hour wait period. There was breakfast but I didn't feel much like eating, even though I haven’t eaten anything. I took my notebook out wrote a bit, then just looked around at all the people around me, everyone who was here to do just what I was there for.

I heard a voice say "we are heading to the set," and everyone smiled and walked to the door. We waited for directions then proceeded to walk to the set. "The set," was Harvard medical school, as we walked onto the set there were men on ladders adding fake leaves to the bare trees which everyone noticed and laughed at, it was funny but it worked. We stood in a line and were handed umbrellas, our only prop besides the backpacks or briefcases we were told to bring. They told us it was going to be a bit of a wait because the camera took a while to warm up. It was one of the cameras that were on something that almost looked like a crane.

We were then told where we would stand and what we were to do once they called "background" and the camera was rolling. I was with two people a girl and a guy. We were supposed to "talk", say goodbye and walk our separate ways. That we did for the many rehearsal takes and actual shootings for about 2 hours give or take. After that scene we went back to the holding and warmed up.

Then next scene I was removed from my group by the day of my birth, and was given another task. Walking down the steps of the other side of the building then walking alongside the path where the actor passes me on a bike. I was pretty close to the camera so maybe I'll be in that shot. We didn't do as many takes for that scene as we did for the first, It went by fairly quickly. After that we were sent back to the holding once again, for lunch by that time it was about 1:06pm we finally got to eat and the food was great. I'm not a sag member so I didn't get the "great" stuff but I was satisfied.

The final scene was shot inside a class, I guess you can say and as we walked through we were told where to sit. I got a seat close to the front by the professor who was giving the lecture. After a few moments the camera angles were set up and we were told to take out notebooks if we had them (actual paper and pen) and pretend to take notes. We did about 5-6 takes and we were done, so we thought. We clapped in appreciation because it was a great experience and we were in the last scene of the movie we were told by the director. As we walked up the stairs we heard, " we need one more take folks, sit back in your seats," so we did. We did one more take and that was that we were done. It was about 7:00pm and we were told to walk back to the holding to get our vouchers signed, by then it was 8:00pm and I was on my way home. A 13 hour day, but I'd do it all over again.