It's now come to be common knowledge on the island of Oahu that the latest production of Godzilla has been shooting here, mainly because it's been shooting with massive amounts of extras and crew on the beaches of one of the most popular destinations on the island. However, the plot of the movie is still quite secretive. Only pieces of the puzzle are known and obviously destruction of some place was going to have to be a part of of the film. I mean, it's Godzilla!
Lots of people turned up the weekend of the open casting call for extras. Over a thousand! Risking being late for work, I waited out the line to ensure my information got into the system. Glad I did. Of course, everybody may know by now that Godzilla was shooting here but like many productions the shoots will take place under another title to throw off the trail. And only those involved on the production in some way know what it is. And with this, being an extra gives one a little bit of insight into the secret of what's happening.
And on the plus side, extra work in major motion pictures is paid work. Always a bonus.
I was fortunate enough to be called for the first day of shooting on Oahu (but unfortunately didn't get more than one day like some people. Oh well.). Sure, I was only going to be a background extra, but I was going to try and be the best background actor I could be. And yes, you read that change of terminology right. I was excited, rather, ecstatic to finally walk onto a major movie set and watch a major crew work and to my fortune, the director as well!
Really, this was a bonus because the scenes we shot had none of the major cast in them and more often than not directors won't even show up for these kinds of scenes and if they do may show up and leave quickly leaving all the work to the Assistant Directors. But not this time!
I had a fitting a few days before the shoot. I had very little knowledge of what I'd be doing but going to the fitting I understood I would be playing a sailor, modern day from what it sounded like. So I got there and went through everything: paperwork, more paperwork, measurements, before going to get a hair cut (for free!). And then the PA, Yama, came up on the phone. He was talking to the Casting Assistant who had called me in and they had decided to change me to play a 1954 Sailor and I kid you not these words came out of his mouth WHILE he was still on the phone: "because she said you'll look hotter as a 1954 Sailor." Oh, how I chuckled inside but that made my day. Goes to also show how much Hollywood is still about looks, though.
Day of the shoot came. It was Sunday, June 30th. I had a 4:45am call time! I had about four hours of sleep, arriving on set about 4:30am (always making sure I'm not late to a film set)!
I must admit, most of what happens on a film set, unless you're really passionate about getting into film and observant of every little thing, can be pretty boring to the basic person. There's still a good bit of waiting. But there can be A LOT of people on set. So I set out to try and figure out what different people's roles might be just by watching them. Not as easy as it seems when they aren't actually doing their jobs yet. But I was quickly brought in to fill out more paperwork for the days shoot, get a quick trim and makeup, and thrown into costume. All in time to be brought onto set at the very beginning of the day.
We were shooting on the USS Missouri. What happened next I hadn't expected on such a big production. A Hawaiian priest had come to have a blessing over the production (complete with Hawaiian leaves and really old water from a natural spring). It was actually pretty cool and a great way to start the morning, especially seeing the entire crew gathered together at the beginning of the day (only 5 other extras were there as well).
The rest of the day could be considered long but I was too excited the whole time. And really, I didn't do a whole lot. Stood around, sat down for a while, pretended to watch a nuclear blast, mingled around in a scene recreating Bikini Atolls. Best part for me, though, watching a director on a large project work. Sure, Gareth Edwards isn't one of the greats with only one other known project to his name (Monsters) but he's making a multimillion dollar film and it was still interesting to see how he interacted with the crew and the extras. Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him. About the only time I could have was lunch and he went to watch dailies. Oh, well.
Still, I made a couple connections (Yama the PA and another extra who views things sort of like I do) and observed a lot of work coming together. And I got sun burnt sitting in the sun all day.
Until the next adventure!
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