Current mood:	bouncy
Entry tags:	events

Bread and Circuses in the Forum- Part One
I had a pretty neat couple of days on Thursday and Friday of this week. A large number of Star Wars fans, equipped with “canon” costumes, were asked to take part in the filming of an ad campaign for Orange, the European cellphone provider. The ads are meant to coincide with the release of Episode III in the UK.

Thursday I went down to the Great Western Forum, former home of the LA Lakers and Kings franchises. Arriving at a 5:00 AM call (urgh!), I hooked up with other 501st and Rebel Legion members and about 150 SAG and non-union extras. While *we* had been told to bring Star Wars gear, some of the agencies had messed up, telling their actors to bring “trekkie” gear- there were some unhappy extras…

One of the PAs called the 501st to mount up, and we trucked our gear through the loading dock into a dressing room in the bowels of the Forum. We had a good selection of generics- troopers, pilots, a Mandalorian, a Royal Guard and of course Jedi- plus William as Vader, Grant as Chewbacca, Vince as Han, Dan as Anakin, and more. I opted to suit up in my “H-Wing” pilot’s uniform, with my Obi-Wan costume in reserve.

The scenario was a “convention”, so the floor of the Forum was turned into a dealer’s room of sorts, where someone’s rented collection of Star Wars memorabilia was used to populate the booths. It was pretty funny to see all of these Hasbro toys put in acrylic display cases as if they were priceless artifacts. Perhaps more amusinge were the extra's costumes, provided b wardrobe. These ranged from ghastly (bad Princess Leia Slave Girl costumes on inapropriately-figured women) to the enourmously clever (trashcan R2 units on people's heads).

It turned out to be a pretty grueling day, with quite a bit of marching and repetitive takes. I was often specifically put in the line of camera fire, I suppose since I was so unusual looking. When we filmed the exterior parking lot scenes, the AD, Rhonda, had me place the H-Wing front and center in the foreground of the frame. It was definitely a great place to be, and I must’ve given around 50 “tours” of the car to the crew in between takes.

We also did a series of smaller vignettes, like the turnstile entry and “security” search. It was funny to see all of us- troopers, pilots and Jedi armed to the teeth- passed over with a wand and sent on while Chewie (Grant) was hassled for setting off the alarms.

A neat bit about Grant- not only is he impressive in his very convincing Chewie costume, but he has a great, loud Wookie call that he can do with his mouth. I can make a lot of wookie noises, but this was impressive!

The day went awfully long, though- especially a scene where Vader and his trooper squad marched through the con trampling anything –which included me and others in addition to the real stuntpersons- in their way, and some of the folks who stuck it out ‘till the end didn’t opt to stay for day two.

Which is a bummer, because day two- Friday- ROCKED.