Monday, August 21, 2006

High-traffic site

The normally quiet residential street where I live is, beginning today and for most of the next week and a half, the detour of choice for city buses, delivery trucks, and commuters. The thoroughfare a couple of blocks from here is closed so that a production company can film scenes for a feature film starring and directed by .

We are advised that there will be actors dressed as policemen who will have fake guns on the set and we should not be alarmed. Okay. Color me not alarmed. I do not expect to encounter them.

I learned as a child that people whose names you see in the paper are, for the most part, hard-working, capable human beings who put their pants on one leg at a time just as you and I do. If you happen to meet one of them, you look them in the eye and shake hands as you would anyone else. They appreciate being respected for their work more than being gushed over. At least most of them do. I enjoy watching Thurman act on screen. I don’t need an autograph. I’ve seen movies being made before, and I prefer the finished product.

I’ll be at my desk, ignoring the traffic outside.

6 comments:

Nick Belardes said...

Why do I feel like you're secretly staring out your window trying to steal a glimpse of Uma? I think of the scene in Ferris Bueller: you're Cameron trying NOT to get in his car and see what Ferris is up to...

Dick Margulis said...

Nah, I've outgrown that, really. As a young man, I lived in Manhattan and came upon such location shoots a couple of times. There's a lot of standing around, with stand-ins, um, standing in while lighting is adjusted and sound is checked; then, after half an hour or an hour or two hours, the stars come out, read a few lines from cue cards, and go back inside while the next shot is set up. I'd really rather just watch the movie.

Anyway, all I can see out my window is the annoying extra traffic going by; the location is a couple of blocks from here, and I'm behind on a deadline.

Besides, blondes aren't my thing ;-)

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf said...

The extra traffic would drive me nuts. My office faces onto the street in front of my home, so I'd be popping up from my desk a lot more often to look every time a car went by; I keep tabs on what the neighbors are doing that way. Editorial neighborhood watch, I guess.

Nick Belardes said...

I live in a small city: 350,000. When film shoots hit town, the theatre folk all show up as extras, while the lookyloos start poking their heads into the mix like starved gophers. But then, Hollywood is an hour away... we call this place Hollywood's backyard. It's where film companies once came to shoot the old B&W Westerns...

Now, yell out the window for Uma to dye her hair. That way at least she'll look better. "Umaaa! Dye your haaiir!"

Susan Jones said...

I look like crap as anything else...and my heart is broken!
How could you!
(not love blondes)
wahhhhh

Dick Margulis said...

Susan,

I love blondes equally with everyone else. We're commaded to love one another, after all; and as a general rule I try to live up to that one (with exceptions). I just don't fetishize blondes. (I always preferred Veronica to Betty, even if I identified with Jughead.)

I do love your photography, though.

Folks, check out Susan's blog if you haven't already.