I did NOT sign up for this...

So Monday I was on a little Showtime show called Weeds.  You may have heard of it, as I have heard, it is teh awesome. Even my mom knew the show, which has to count for something.

In any case, the original day sounded fun, despite the 5:30am call time. This meant that even without the shower in the morning, I was waking up at 4am.  Plus, unfortunately, it was slated to be one of the hottest days yet, with us out in the Valencia/Magic Mountain area, notorious for pushing the temps up into triple digits without breaking a sweat (pardon the pun, I'm tired.)

The outfit was as I remembered, all kinds of cute and surprisingly not insanely hot considering how covered up we were. Army boots with sand-colored fatigues tucked in and bloused out on top of the boots, a tan colored t-shirt tucked into the pants and a matching jacket zipped and velcroed up to our neck.  A lovely camo hat completed the image. 

The first part of the morning was spent on the first scene, where we're all lined up in two rows facing each other with the drill sergeant screaming the obligatory expletive-laced (this IS Showtime, after all) homophobic and misogynistic abuse at us.  I even get a minor cameo where I snicker at his admittedly hilarious ranting and he comes over to insult me personally. Fun! :)

Still, this was all before 11am.  A little before lunch time, we finished the first scene and headed over to the second set for the next scene.  The next set? An obstacle course.

the left knee.

the right knee. Look, a smiley face!

Now, I've mentioned before how most of background work involves sitting on your ass, reading, pantomiming talking with your neighbor and occasionally the brutally intensive walking back-and-forth in front of camera. When they gave us the location, I expected the camos. I expected the dirt (which was being whipped constantly into our eyes, it was a pretty windy day) and I expected the 104 degree weather. What I did NOT expect was to be crawling on our elbows and knees under ropes, doing a tire run, jumping over and under logs and climbing a rope wall. 

Let me clarify something right off the bat. I was never against doing the obstacle course, it wasn't even that I didn't WANT to do it; it looked kinda fun.   What I objected to was stunt people (of which there were two) getting paid over $700 for the day for doing the exact same thing they were asking us to just volunteer.  While we were getting paid $60.

I didn't complain, I didn't yell. I called Central and let them know of the situation.  Unfortunately, this conversation was overheard by one of the drill sergeants (an actual ex-marine), who told an AD that I was calling SAG to complain.  That pissed me off more than anything.  The very last thing you need on set is to get the ADs angry with you, especially over mistaken information.   I even had another extra, obviously taking his fatigues a tad too seriously, tell me "Well, this is what you signed up for."

"...What? Dude, we're EXTRAS. We're NOT IN THE ARMY. Did they tell YOU about an obstacle course?"

We did end up getting a pay bump for doing the course (I have no idea if it was because of my phone call; I'm sure they weren't about to tell me), but I was still peeved about being the cause of bad blood on set, especially since it was due to misinformation. It's not like we were the only ones suffering in silence. Everyone was hot, everyone was thirsty. Plus, the production really had done an excellent job making sure we stayed hydrated and well covered with sunscreen. I hadn't been complaining about what we were doing, I had just been making sure we got a tad more in compensation.  I also didn't see the big-mouthed guy from earlier turning down his pay increase.

In any case, it should be a decent check in the mail.

Had an audition today for Diagnosis X, a 'Untold Stories of the ER'-like TV show.  The role was of a professional beach volleyball player, so it marked, quite possibly, the first time I've ever almost been too SHORT for a role ;)  Unfortunately, I most definitely was too pale, but I had a great camaraderie with the girl reading as my friend, which the casting directors told us was the most important thing. So cross your fingers ;)