This was the first time I have ever worked more than a day or two in a row on any show. While I was glad for the work, it did get monotonous. I’ve never been good at working in the same place for too long. I prefer to change it up a bit.

San Pedro is quite a drive from my place–about an hour without traffic–so getting there for a 6:15AM call time can be painful. I have to get up between 3:30 and 4. Not impossible, just not my favorite thing to do. But I headed to the set for a car call in my ‘06 Mustang GT convertible and was glad to see a few familiar faces I’d worked with on other shows. That’s always nice. I knew I’d be in good company.

For the first two days, I got stuck in holding longer than working. During the course of the shoot, I read an entire book on Medieval siege warfare.

On that first day, I caught a glimpse of the story boards. Apparently, we were working on a big car chase scene in which two, sometimes three SUVs were chasing a hamster. But not just any hamster, this was a hamster driving a hamster ball rather than running in it…I think. I mean, the hamster I saw was holding a gearshift and didn’t appear to be running.

Okay…whatever. I’ve never worked on a CG movie before. Even when I was on Spiderman II, it wasn’t a scene with Doc Oc, so the whole CG hoops to jump through on this gig were new to me. They’d shoot the action, then this additional camera thingie and these two groups of balls made from different materials. I don’t really understand it all, but in a way, witnessing it, it all made sense at the time. All the extra stuff was to help the CG people add in the hamster later.

There was also a weird go-cart-like vehicle impersonating the hamster sometimes. That was kind of neat and weird and I didn’t really understand it, but it was there and haulin’ ass up and down the hills and sure looked nifty.

On the second day, when I was trying to find my book on my chair for lunch, I got a little wigged out because the stunt drivers had commandeered the table and my stuff was all the way out of reach. Sure, I could’ve squeezed in there, but there were about 8 Jay Williams (read Driven to Distraction) clones sitting there–the best in the business–and I was just a lowly extra and didn’t have the balls to barge in on their party. Plus, I’d've just been drooling and asking silly questions the whole time anyway. I didn’t want to wreck their lunch, so I temporarily abandoned my stuff and found a spot under a tree. I know, I know…it could’ve been an awesome adventure, but I was too afraid. The testosterone was pretty deep over there and I…I…I dunno…I was kind of intimidated!

Anyway, I got to drive a little. That was nice. I enjoy driving.

The rest of my time was spent walking up and down a pretty steep hill. Because most of the shots were for stunts, though, they went by pretty quick and I rarely walked more than 20 or 30 feet during any given take. That was nice. I’ve had a few gigs where I walk almost the full length of a city block during a take.

As far as stunts go, I missed the first big one, but heard later that it didn’t go off as initially intended. The SUV went up the ramps and overshot its target. There wasn’t massive carnage or anything and it all looked great on camera, but it just wasn’t what the script called for.

I got to see it the second time a few days later, though. The SUV went up the ramps and landed on an old RV, shattering it. WooHoo! I now had more research experience for a future Hollywood Heat series scene!

Plus, there was a pretty complicated scene where an SUV starts down a hill, passes a car that gets cut off by another SUV while the first SUV swerves to avoid another SUV while yet another skids around a corner and joins the first two in pursuit of the CG hamster. Awesome stuff! The drivers came within inches of just about every other vehicle nearby. Those guys kicked ass! That scene was one of the high points for me.

The rest of the gig was: Walk up the hill. Walk down the hill. Walk up the hill. Walk down the hill. Move car to different place on hill. Walk down the hill. Walk up the hill. Wait. Walk down the hill. Walk up the hill. Move car again. Walk again. Wait again…

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