Well, it's here. The Eve before we wrap on Night at the Musuem II: Battle of the Smithsonian.
Hard to believe it's been 4 months of shooting. Also strange to think that soon this very apartment which I've grown so accustomed to -- will be a memory. Coming home from NYC late, late last Thursday night/Friday morning -- I was struck by feeling like I was home. The sweet smell, the white backsplash of tiles in the kitchen, the framed photos of empty lots and abandoned factories and Wyeth-like scenes of wood up close and windows...I'm going to miss my apartment. I'll miss Yaletown and Davie Street and Marco and arriving to the set. Parking my car in the spot that says REGINA TAUFEN, walking down the steep set of stairs past "Cora" who still to this day asks me for my security pass, through the white catering tent after foraging for some turkey sausage and coffee and seeing John Schwartzman with the camera crew as I speed walk down the long corridor alongside the stage that held our Archive set and NY set and one of our greenscreens...out to the eggplant purple and mocha brown trailer where the routine would commence. 4 vitamins on the napkin, plug in my computer, light the diptyque candle, prep the cappuccino with one n'espresso pod, fill the aerochino with milk, silverware out, plate ready for Marco to arrive with the white cardboard boxes, plastic lid overtop, Rattler arriving, announcing over the walkie that Rattler has arrived...
I wish I had been writing more but so much has transpired. Today I did another small part that won't make the movie...but it will be in the assembly and I'll get the tape. It's me as a reporter, as "Kitty Landers-Sanchez," of Fox Five News. I felt such love standing there, Zulu and Rattler encouraging me, the rest of the crew standing around, my black patent leather shoes on the neon duct-taped mark, and Dave Crohn telling me to hold the microphone lower, hold it lower. Owen wrapped today and I hardly got to see his stuff but already, sitting in post, I can tell there is going to be a lot of funny stuff with he and Steve.
Rewinding more...this past Saturday was the wrap party. Marco and I got there around 10PM and should have arrived an hour earlier -- such was the spread, such was the crowd. It was a great gathering, on two floors with an open bar, a live band, a DJ and rock band...not to mention a gambling table and an open bar. Standing on the dock across the water from MONK's, waiting for the ferry, Science World was lit up in ornamental splendor and the red light from MONK's neon sign was reflected in the water. It was chilly as I stood there with Marco, my 2nd half, my co-pilot...chilly in my open toed shoes. When the ferry never showed we decided to take a cab and I took the opportunity to run back to my apartment, determined to change my ill-conceived footware. Open toed shoes in fall just doesn't work -- but I must have missed the memo that it's no longer summer and therefore clopped up Davie, past the construction on Pacific as Marco hailed a cab and vowed to meet me in my back alley. On the corner of Richards and Davie, a guy and a girl holding a Greenpeace sign saw my jacket (recently acquired at Value Vintage) and yelled: "fur is dead!" but I was full steam ahead. Marco passed me in the cab and the driver yelled: "Run, Gina, Run!" and I scurried upstairs, changing my jeans and opting for the sling back, black, closed toe shoe that I originally bought for Anne's wedding (how many years ago?)...Marco wore dark jeans, a black t-shirt that read: "Don't be fooled, I'm not as innocent as I look" and a sharp black blazer. The guy knows how to dress.
We had fun and stayed out too late afterwards...Marco, Ashley, Bob, Dwight, Brent, Randy and Megan. Danced, smoked, toked, drank, and for lack of a better phrase: "tied one off."
I gave wrap presents to the ladies today...all necklaces I made at Country Beads with a kartouche to remind of the Tablet -- the magical tablet of Ahkmenrah. I still have cards and presents to write and organize but I had to write tonight...had to say how amazing fast it all went. I'm glad for the copious blog I kept for May, June and July and part of August. I suppose I fell off the wagon when Chris got here and never fully recovered. Such is life.
Speaking of life...being in NYC was a blast. We stayed in Brooklyn at Chief's and rode the L train from Morgan Street to 8th Avenue, then up to 50th. New World Stages is on 50th between 8th and 9th in my old neck of the woods from back in the day. The festival was a blur -- a lot of panels and development chats and screenings and cocktail parties...all culminating in the awards ceremony which afforded us 2 awards -- the only pilot that managed to take 2 awards. Last Saturday the 13th we met with CAA at The Grammercy Park Hotel which was exciting...surreal and exciting. I was happy to have on one of my many Amy selected outfits as I sat across from the seemingly relaxed agents who studied us -- wanting to know what else we had cooking. We riffed, alluded, diverged, went on tangents -- the conversation moving from creative inspiration to a Permanti's sandwich in Pittsburgh.
Edith made the festival and gave me a beautiful gift...Maira Kalman's "THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY." It's a lovely book that contains paintings and a stream of conscious series of ruminations, one leading non-sensically yet seemlessly to the next. One moment in particular that sticks with me was sitting in Phoebe's diner on 4th and Bowery as Chris watched the Steelers play the Brown's. I was reading and studying the drawing of an old person as it was illustrated in the book, recognizing the inner dialogue of being faced with an elderly person on the street, and at that moment, I looked up and to my left just outside the window, an old woman in black moved slowly past, her back in an osteoporosis hunch, a respectable hat on her head. When I recounted this serendipitous moment to Edith, it was as if she knew what I was about to say -- as if something similar had happened to her while reading the book. This experience put me in an existential mood and I insisted that Chris and I walk along 2nd avenue towards the L, hoping I'd come across the old thrift store I remembered somewhere near 11th. Just as I was losing hope I saw it and went in. This was one of the last places I had ever been with my cousin Mollie before we found out she had cancer. We had gone shopping in Manhattan when she came to visit me, and it was in that thrift store I found my brown leather boots that I still have and are by far my favorite pair of shoes. I wanted to find something to buy in there and so it happened: in the jewelry case there was a charm necklace that had too many charms but it was 10 dollars and I had a good feeling about it. So I made it my own and then, this past Saturday, after I made the necklaces for everyone, I bought the right kind of chain for a charm bracelet and used my pliers to make a new creation, removing selected charms from the overweighted necklace and reinventing them onto a bracelet. I became obsessed with this charm bracelet for the rest of the weekend, adding charms and taking them away to achieve balance.
Chief took some pictures of me on the Thursday that I flew back. I put on the pink coat I got at the vintage store and the black hat the CAA agent liked and clambered up between two bring walls. The wide angle lens shot turned out the best and I will try to post it here. Also the pic of me as the Reporter from today...
I must remind Dwight to give me a copy of the gag reel...
Strange to think that the amount of time I've been in Canada is a little more than the time I spent at The Dorset Theatre Festival as an apprentice. That was a formative time and I believe this had been yet another pupae to chrysalis time period for me. To have seen all these people who are at the top of their game, working at the level that this movie demanded -- has been indispensable. I'm going to miss the interplay between Shawn and Zulu, seeing them feed off each other. I'll miss Marco calling me Kitty, and Ashley and Misha and Rhonda and Bob and the whole gang. Nancy and Janice and Susan and Victoria and Sherry...so many good people.
Need to get organized on the Kitty Front. Everyone who sees it says: "this has GOT to get picked up by someone." And I agree. But the time is upon me to make it so. And so...I shall.
John, Deb Michael and Michael's friend Ross came to the screening on Saturday in NYC. Out of the blue they showed up. Meant a lot to me. Meredith also came, along with Karen Curtiss, Ethan, and Victoria.
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