My wacky adventures on the set of the television show "The Psychic Investigators"
This past week I spent 3 days as an actor on a new re-enactment show for The Learning Channel called "The Psychic Investigators." Too bad I didn't know in advance that it was gonna suck. Ha ha that's a joke, but not really. Okay I'm just kiddin with ya. But seriously folks. I know many of you are curious about this whole "acting" thing that I do and how the whole process works. Well, it doesn't work very well but I'm going to spend most of today's blog explaining how and why.
The Beginning
The Learning Channel calls New Dominion Pictures located in Suffolk, VA and says, "Alright you guys pretty soon we're gonna have to start work on yet another quality television program about true and usually sort of uninteresting events that actually happened in the recent past, but not so long ago that we didn't have cars or anything."
New Dominion Pictures is completely unaware of what they are referring to, so The Learning Channel explains to them, "We know that you guys produce television programs all the time for the Discovery Channel and all of these shows are re-enactments of actual events complete with a narrator and bad sound effects. Basically we wanted in on this action and we are willing to pay you because we have come up with a new angle on the whole re-enactment scene - psychics!"
The Learning Channel then gets excited when talking to New Dominion Pictures on the phone and says, "YES PSYCHICS! And Investigators, we want you to call this new show Psychic Investigators. Can you handle that action?"
New Dominion Pictures informs them that they can in fact handle that action, and after receiving a transcript of these true events, quickly gets to work dispatching this transcript to their crack team of probably underpaid screenwriters who hastily fashion a semblance of a plot as well as descriptions of the characters to appear in the show, which are e-mailed to the producers.
The Producers is a popular Broadway show about dancing Nazi's so of course they had no idea why they were being emailed so they responded with an angry letter about commercialism in America and then told them to have a nice day.
The screenwriters figured out quickly that they sent the email to the wrong place, and the producers of New Dominion Pictures got the email of the descriptions of the characters. After that, they used a precise budgetary formula to determine how many characters and scenes they would have to eliminate in order to not pay anyone overtime.
Finally when they were ready they called talent agents around town and faxed them a list of the characters that they needed for the Psychic Investigators television program.
The Squishy Middle
My talent agent, Marsha Wulf of Talent Link, got the fax and was certain that I was one of the people that they should use in the re-enactment of this stirring piece of historical non-fiction. As it turns out, this is because the producers had gotten pictures of the actual people that the story happened to, and I looked like a younger version of one of the detectives.
Marsha gave my name to one of her assistants to do her dirty work for her and so I was called. After receiving the call, I had to check my schedule at work to see what I was doing the next 2 days. Just like my real life, I was doing nothing for the next 2 days, so I quickly agreed to show up in Suffolk, VA the very next day at 1:30. Your arrival time on the location of a set is called your "call time". I did not quite make my call time on time because I had to stop at Wal-Mart to buy new cologne. I bought a bottle called "Lucky You." I asked myself if I was feeling lucky punk, and I was.
I had not done any television work in quite some time and I was excited about getting paid 100 or 150 dollars to sit around all day, eat free snacks, and drink free Coke.
Endgame
I arrived on location, drove past the cushy parking spots reserved for employees and foreign dignitaries wishing to violate our speed limits and not be ticketed because of diplomatic immunity, and parked in the gravel parking lot where the "talent" is supposed to park. Actor's on set are called "Talent"; this is done in great part so directors don't have to remember anyone's name, they can just yell, "Talent in the jeans, get out of the shot!"
When I got in, I signed my name at the desk of the security guard who was busy watching Ultimate Fighting Championship on television. He said, "What's up?" and I said, "Just chillin." Slipping past him I was greeted by a "techie" with a clipboard who asked my name and said into her microphone, "number #2 is here!" A techie can be any of a large number of people who work on the set of a production studio, doing numerous jobs like ordering pizza, taking pictures of talent, noticing any problems and reporting them, holding the "boom", ordering talent to wardrobe, telling the directors that they are doing a great job, and being first in line at the lunch table. You can tell who they are instantly because they will always be carrying a microphone where they can be micromanaged by directors and producers.
I was quickly hustled to wardrobe, where all attention to my presence was focused on what I was wearing or rather what I wasn't wearing. "Do you have "x" article of clothing?" the wardrobe techie asked me, where x is probably a pair of jeans, or 5 as in x+1=6. I changed into the clothing that was needed, and the makeup techie took one look at my face, and it was clear that I didn't have a moustache; obviously I needed one. "You need a moustache", she told me. Nodding in affirmation I sat down in the most comfortable chair in the entire establishment and seabreeze was applied to my upper lip, along with a prop moustache, which after giving it some extra color, and curling it to make it wrinkly, looked like it belonged on my face.
With moustache firmly in tow, I was sent back to the green room. The only problem was I hadn't been to the green room yet. In the hallway I spied some techie's talking and I asked them where the green room was. They pointed to the cafeteria. I thought this seemed cheap for a company with a lot of nice offices for of its staffers, so I responded with a chuckle and the words, "Really? You're not kidding?" Her face turning ashen by the fact that by asking her a second question I was clearly wasting her time. She assured me that in fact, no she wasn't kidding. If this was the comic strip Dilbert, you would have seen the thought bubble above her head, "Must control fist of death."
With the foreknowledge that things seem to take forever on a television studio, I sat down with my books and began to read and enjoy a plethora of free snacks and drinks out of the craft services cart. Despite the fact that this cart contains no glue, buttons, or popsicle sticks it is called craft services, because it is filled with Cheetos, snickers, peanuts, Doritos, milky way bars, Coke, Sprite, Diet Coke, Cherry Nestea, etc. The moveable craft services cart was never far from my mind for the remainder of my stay on set.
I stayed in my seat in that room for the next several hours until dinner time, at which point I had to get up, move everything from the table that I had been sitting at and stand outside and lineup against the wall in the hallway so the whole production crew could get their dinner before the talent did. The food was delicious because there was a full time cook on staff instead of ordering take out for everyone twice in day, which in retrospect wouldn't really make a lot of sense.
Hours later I (#2) was asked to follow one of the techie's to the set, but first she had to take my picture while I was holding a piece of paper with my name on it. Winding our way past hallways, trailers, hot corridors, and outdoor set pieces that were actual finished houses I got to the filming location where I was greeted by no one except for the craft services cart which was always happy to welcome me.
The staff at this point in the process sorta makes you feel like you're in a hospital, because they are talking about you all the time in the third person without actually acknowledging your presence. "Okay, #2 is going to be here, and walk up and staple this piece of paper to this lightpost. After that #2 is going to be here and walk here and stick out his hand. Okay?" A lot of techies were bustling about getting things for the directors, or just waiting to be ordered around.
Finally my moment of onscreen bravado arrived in the form of being acknowledged by the director, who obligingly waved his hand in my direction. All of his directions were about actions I had to perform, like walking a certain path, and nailing a piece of paper to a light post. Keep in mind, that prior to this talk, I had no idea what it was that I was actually supposed to perform, which reminds us actors that our talents are not valued on this kind of set, but how well we can follow directions. I've seen dozens of actors on this type of show be verbally harassed for doing something small slightly of line with the hasty directions they received. "No, No, No I told you to walk here and do this!" the directors will yell at the embarrassed actor who will be forced to adopt a posture of downcast submission with the promise to do better next time. I'm used to this process, so I don't take such impudent behavior personally. All the directors on these production shows are basically jerks that are only thinking about their schedule and how they can wrap up without paying anyone overtime. I was actually shocked when one of them apologized for yelling at one of my friends on set. Usually they're afflicted with a major case of tunnel vision, and don't want to think about anything that may be distracting, such as offending anyone.
After 3 days of this fun filled time, I went in to work at the restaurant where I was promptly fired. See you later for another exciting blog entitled "How I had a creative difference with management: or I was freekin fired Bob!"
The Beginning
The Learning Channel calls New Dominion Pictures located in Suffolk, VA and says, "Alright you guys pretty soon we're gonna have to start work on yet another quality television program about true and usually sort of uninteresting events that actually happened in the recent past, but not so long ago that we didn't have cars or anything."
New Dominion Pictures is completely unaware of what they are referring to, so The Learning Channel explains to them, "We know that you guys produce television programs all the time for the Discovery Channel and all of these shows are re-enactments of actual events complete with a narrator and bad sound effects. Basically we wanted in on this action and we are willing to pay you because we have come up with a new angle on the whole re-enactment scene - psychics!"
The Learning Channel then gets excited when talking to New Dominion Pictures on the phone and says, "YES PSYCHICS! And Investigators, we want you to call this new show Psychic Investigators. Can you handle that action?"
New Dominion Pictures informs them that they can in fact handle that action, and after receiving a transcript of these true events, quickly gets to work dispatching this transcript to their crack team of probably underpaid screenwriters who hastily fashion a semblance of a plot as well as descriptions of the characters to appear in the show, which are e-mailed to the producers.
The Producers is a popular Broadway show about dancing Nazi's so of course they had no idea why they were being emailed so they responded with an angry letter about commercialism in America and then told them to have a nice day.
The screenwriters figured out quickly that they sent the email to the wrong place, and the producers of New Dominion Pictures got the email of the descriptions of the characters. After that, they used a precise budgetary formula to determine how many characters and scenes they would have to eliminate in order to not pay anyone overtime.
Finally when they were ready they called talent agents around town and faxed them a list of the characters that they needed for the Psychic Investigators television program.
The Squishy Middle
My talent agent, Marsha Wulf of Talent Link, got the fax and was certain that I was one of the people that they should use in the re-enactment of this stirring piece of historical non-fiction. As it turns out, this is because the producers had gotten pictures of the actual people that the story happened to, and I looked like a younger version of one of the detectives.
Marsha gave my name to one of her assistants to do her dirty work for her and so I was called. After receiving the call, I had to check my schedule at work to see what I was doing the next 2 days. Just like my real life, I was doing nothing for the next 2 days, so I quickly agreed to show up in Suffolk, VA the very next day at 1:30. Your arrival time on the location of a set is called your "call time". I did not quite make my call time on time because I had to stop at Wal-Mart to buy new cologne. I bought a bottle called "Lucky You." I asked myself if I was feeling lucky punk, and I was.
I had not done any television work in quite some time and I was excited about getting paid 100 or 150 dollars to sit around all day, eat free snacks, and drink free Coke.
Endgame
I arrived on location, drove past the cushy parking spots reserved for employees and foreign dignitaries wishing to violate our speed limits and not be ticketed because of diplomatic immunity, and parked in the gravel parking lot where the "talent" is supposed to park. Actor's on set are called "Talent"; this is done in great part so directors don't have to remember anyone's name, they can just yell, "Talent in the jeans, get out of the shot!"
When I got in, I signed my name at the desk of the security guard who was busy watching Ultimate Fighting Championship on television. He said, "What's up?" and I said, "Just chillin." Slipping past him I was greeted by a "techie" with a clipboard who asked my name and said into her microphone, "number #2 is here!" A techie can be any of a large number of people who work on the set of a production studio, doing numerous jobs like ordering pizza, taking pictures of talent, noticing any problems and reporting them, holding the "boom", ordering talent to wardrobe, telling the directors that they are doing a great job, and being first in line at the lunch table. You can tell who they are instantly because they will always be carrying a microphone where they can be micromanaged by directors and producers.
I was quickly hustled to wardrobe, where all attention to my presence was focused on what I was wearing or rather what I wasn't wearing. "Do you have "x" article of clothing?" the wardrobe techie asked me, where x is probably a pair of jeans, or 5 as in x+1=6. I changed into the clothing that was needed, and the makeup techie took one look at my face, and it was clear that I didn't have a moustache; obviously I needed one. "You need a moustache", she told me. Nodding in affirmation I sat down in the most comfortable chair in the entire establishment and seabreeze was applied to my upper lip, along with a prop moustache, which after giving it some extra color, and curling it to make it wrinkly, looked like it belonged on my face.
With moustache firmly in tow, I was sent back to the green room. The only problem was I hadn't been to the green room yet. In the hallway I spied some techie's talking and I asked them where the green room was. They pointed to the cafeteria. I thought this seemed cheap for a company with a lot of nice offices for of its staffers, so I responded with a chuckle and the words, "Really? You're not kidding?" Her face turning ashen by the fact that by asking her a second question I was clearly wasting her time. She assured me that in fact, no she wasn't kidding. If this was the comic strip Dilbert, you would have seen the thought bubble above her head, "Must control fist of death."
With the foreknowledge that things seem to take forever on a television studio, I sat down with my books and began to read and enjoy a plethora of free snacks and drinks out of the craft services cart. Despite the fact that this cart contains no glue, buttons, or popsicle sticks it is called craft services, because it is filled with Cheetos, snickers, peanuts, Doritos, milky way bars, Coke, Sprite, Diet Coke, Cherry Nestea, etc. The moveable craft services cart was never far from my mind for the remainder of my stay on set.
I stayed in my seat in that room for the next several hours until dinner time, at which point I had to get up, move everything from the table that I had been sitting at and stand outside and lineup against the wall in the hallway so the whole production crew could get their dinner before the talent did. The food was delicious because there was a full time cook on staff instead of ordering take out for everyone twice in day, which in retrospect wouldn't really make a lot of sense.
Hours later I (#2) was asked to follow one of the techie's to the set, but first she had to take my picture while I was holding a piece of paper with my name on it. Winding our way past hallways, trailers, hot corridors, and outdoor set pieces that were actual finished houses I got to the filming location where I was greeted by no one except for the craft services cart which was always happy to welcome me.
The staff at this point in the process sorta makes you feel like you're in a hospital, because they are talking about you all the time in the third person without actually acknowledging your presence. "Okay, #2 is going to be here, and walk up and staple this piece of paper to this lightpost. After that #2 is going to be here and walk here and stick out his hand. Okay?" A lot of techies were bustling about getting things for the directors, or just waiting to be ordered around.
Finally my moment of onscreen bravado arrived in the form of being acknowledged by the director, who obligingly waved his hand in my direction. All of his directions were about actions I had to perform, like walking a certain path, and nailing a piece of paper to a light post. Keep in mind, that prior to this talk, I had no idea what it was that I was actually supposed to perform, which reminds us actors that our talents are not valued on this kind of set, but how well we can follow directions. I've seen dozens of actors on this type of show be verbally harassed for doing something small slightly of line with the hasty directions they received. "No, No, No I told you to walk here and do this!" the directors will yell at the embarrassed actor who will be forced to adopt a posture of downcast submission with the promise to do better next time. I'm used to this process, so I don't take such impudent behavior personally. All the directors on these production shows are basically jerks that are only thinking about their schedule and how they can wrap up without paying anyone overtime. I was actually shocked when one of them apologized for yelling at one of my friends on set. Usually they're afflicted with a major case of tunnel vision, and don't want to think about anything that may be distracting, such as offending anyone.
After 3 days of this fun filled time, I went in to work at the restaurant where I was promptly fired. See you later for another exciting blog entitled "How I had a creative difference with management: or I was freekin fired Bob!"
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