Completion of filming for 'Setup'

This past weekend, Setup, a film I was doing in Grand Rapids that starred Bruce Willis and 50 cent, wrapped. I had already worked in two different faculties on the film (driver, and prison inmate) but for the last weekend, I was there acting as 50's stand-in. Although he had had a stand-in for most of the film, near the end, I was told his regular stand-in did something that was considered unprofessional on set (asked if he could leave the set during a down time to go and do some errands) so I was selected to replace him. If that is indeed what happened, his mistake is understandable. People are generally really really polite on set, you have a ton of downtime, and it seems like people don't necessarily need you. As such, it is easy to let yourself get too comfortable and assume that something is okay when in actuality, it isn't. (Even if they only use you for 5 minutes out of 6 hours, they are paying for you to be there for those whole six hours so that they have you exactly when they need you. )

Basically, my job was just to take 50's place when they were setting up the camera, sound and lights, so that he needn't actually be there for that part. Overall, it was no-brainer work, but as it made me a part of the regular staff (and paid me better than other jobs I had done on set), I wasn't complaining. The weather made it a pretty hard shoot though. It was just freezing out, and we were outside for most of the time. When we weren't outside, we were actually filming in a meat processing plant which meant that it wasn't all that much warmer... and it smelled like dead cow. (My first time experiencing it). For a while, I wondered if it was gonna make me wretch, but after the 3rd or 4th hour I had forgotten entirely about the smell and was instead grossed out by all the things I was looking at. When I finished the shoot I wondered if I would ever be able to eat beef again, but to my pleasant surprise, the chili I had for lunch the next day was just as good.

Speaking of meals, Friday's food was excellent (and I'm glad we had it before we went to the meat processing place). King Crab, Oysters, Roast Duck, Fresh Steak, etc, etc, etc. While at the plant, they did have a snack food table set up with all kinds of goodies on it but I just couldn't bring myself to really eat in that environment (well...except for the nachos and guacamole... there's always room for nachos).

That was actually the technical last day of the shoot. On Sunday, it was more or less just a series of small pick-up shots. Still I am glad that I could do the second day though. On Friday, although everyone was nice, they also came off as a bit cold. On my second full day of working with the main cast though, people really began to warm up a lot, and I had a chance to have good real conversations with a lot of the main crew.

I was really happy to find out that about 70% were local Michigan people. One of the PA's (Production Assistants), had said that as more and more of us get experience, he said the number of Michigan people involved in each project he has done has continued to grow larger and larger. I think with the completion of the new film studios in Pontiac, Michigan may very well continue to be a strong player in the film industry for years to come. I, at least, am keeping my fingers crossed ;)