in most ways the weekend of shooting was a bust. both mornings I woke up at 4am to drive from Casa with three other extras to our 5:30am meetingplace in Rabat before our trek over to a military base in nearby Kenitra (pictured left). this endeavor felt a little crazy in itself (especially following a Halloween party Friday night - I went as Olive Oyl!) and was amplified by the impasse of the rainiest weekend early November in Morocco has ever seen. not only we were stuck careening down the highway amidst drunk truck drivers without headlights during the wee hours, but we also stuck sitting inside the costume or food tent all day long in hopes that the sky might clear for long enough to convince a filmgoer of a sunny Iraqi summer setting for the shoot.it was lazy but lovely. for 1600 dirhams a day (i make 6000 dirhams in one month's salary at school) i ate delicious catered meals, read some curricular material in front of a space heater, and played seven-card draw with a bunch of jolly old Irish men. most of the extras live in Rabat, which is a much more peaceful and community-minded spot for the ex-patriot as the home to all of the country's embassies and government agencies. I met so many people doing interesting work in Morocco, attempting to implement national water treatment methods with government backing, analyzing parliamentary procedures to determine the possibility for growth in Morocco's many backward systems, overviewing transport and civic development countrywide, etc. everyone was so friendly and interested to stay connected - one little posse of Italians adopted me and my surname into their camaraderie.
and after several false starts, we did manage
one shoot with all of the extras and the stars. I was hired to be an insensitive American drinking a cocktail by a poolside, to be an iPod-clad jogger running next to a bomb crater, and to be a journalist-type milling around Baghdad. the major scene involving everyone was a helicopter landing on an airstrip, so I spent a lot of time wearing a heavy PRESS vest waiting for the bustle of this moment. because the scene would require 2 hours of setup alone after a cessation of the rain, the overcast skies barred any real confident movement from the crew. they instead spent their time shooting several small scenes with the actors in front of a blue screen - scenes they could have shot anywhere in the world, but that had to be taken up because they were spending pounds by the second in occupying this military base with their outfit. this meant I got to watch a lot of the filming process, and to discuss much of it with the assistant director Michael Michael, who worked for the four Harry Potter movies as well - he tells me how this was a medium-sized outfit, and how the accountants run the real daily business of the craft.still, their attention to detail was amazing! all of extras were given individualized treatment in order to look worn and dirty from the environment in Baghdad. over and over they shot thirty seconds of dialogue between Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear in this scene above on the side of a jeep. the director (who you may know from the Bourne trilogy) was very fussy and has already scrapped some 30 million dollars of material and changed the script nine times. it can't help that the recent Iraq film Body of Lies featuring Leonardo Dicaprio and Russell Crowe was an utter flop -- I guess there are not very many people interested to entertain themselves through two CIA agents failing to find WMDs in Iraq, social commentary and all. so things were a little anxious and pressurized for the crew (who joked that they could be doctors by now if you added up all of the industry's hours of idleness), and the scenes for which we were needed are apparently crucial to the film's completion.
finally the sun broke through on Sunday and we were able to shoot the pool scene with a blue screen. we were the backdrop for a conversation between Matt Damon and Amy Ryan, milling around in swimwear struggling to ignore our goosebumps and shivers in the 55 degree weather. i walked past them dozens of times, almost colliding with Matt Damon once, all of which was not terribly interesting after 30 seconds :) Matt Damon has a great smile, if you are wondering. but I'm not sure if I'll end up in the scene and I can't say I'm too fussed - it was a fun little adventure, and most importantly well-paying and full of conviviality! certainly not so glamorous as a budding starlet on her way to discovery, though you all are sweet to say so. Hollywood is quite full of dull nitty-gritties, turns out. I probably won't have access to the film when it is released next summer, so someone tell me if they notice the ennui and pallor of one bespectacled tourist passing through the pool scene.
it was all part of a natural randomness that predominates life here -- I learn to embrace it more every day.
1 comment:
Now, i get the full sense of those pictures!
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