short film shoot diva moves

The short film shoot ended in the early hours of Monday morning, on Sunset Blvd. It had been our longest shooting day, starting at 07h00 the previous morning. People driving down Sunset on Sunday night seemed to think it was a porno shoot. They kept yelling "asian hookers", "porno" etc at us. Rather sordid. Let me just mention that one driver yelled "Michael Stipe" at me. So someone thinks he saw Michael Stipe on Sunset. About 10 cm's shorter, in a suit and with hair. Go figure.

And because I'm childish about this type of stuff, I have to share how special I felt during the shoot. This is the closest I've ever come to being a diva. The movie is about my character and she is in every scene - often alone. So there was no rest for the wicked, but I had my own entourage of wardrobe and make-up following me around (pulling at my clothes, steaming items of clothing every time I sat down, re-applying make-up and powdering my nose), as well as the assistant director (AD) checking in with me every 10 minutes to find out if I needed water, coffee, M&M's - I was treated like royalty and I could ask for anything and people would race off and try to get it for me. I never once had to park my car myself during the shoot - the producers became my valets! The best was the AD calling out "first team is on set" whenever I arrived on set with my make-up and wardrobe club in tow. I was the entire "first team" - just 'lil ol' me. We would break to change the set-up (lights and cameras) and i would be wrapped me in a blanket and ushered into the dressing room and when it was time to return for shooting the call "first team is on set" rang out. Perhaps 'team' includes my wardrobe & make-up club...? I'm not hip to the terminology of stardom, dahhling.

At some point it occurred to me that it would be appropriate for me to throw a tantrum and be demanding and diva-ish - to really earn the "first team" title. It just felt like the right thing to do. So I told the director that I was only going to do one take on the next set-up, take it or leave it; I threatened to have make-up fired if she came near my eye with a mascara brush again; when the DP (director of photography) asked me to place myself in a certain spot I replied "make me" and I demanded biscuits mid-take (otherwise known as cookies here) and was laughed at for the use of the quaint English word. Somehow, no-one felt particularly threatened by my behaviour... so, I'm going to have to work on that. Clearly my hissy-fits are not frightening enough yet. (Maybe it’s the giggling??) However, I did make the AD run around for chocolate M&M’s at unsuitable moments, so not all is lost.