Notes from Land's End: Feb. 21

On the Set: The Making of ‘Terrestrial Extras’

By Laura Shabott
February 20th, 2010

What’s it really like to make a film? Reporting to you live from the set of Terrestrial Extras in Provincetown, with a day in the life of an ingénue.

What’s it really like to make a film?

7:30am – read lines for shoot. Say them out loud to Rocky the cat while he has breakfast.

8:15am – polish my toes because I am about to get abducted by aliens and girls raised in Connecticut never meet aliens with bare toes.

Mark Meehan and Henri on the set.

9:15am – get a frantic call from the director asking if I have a prop that he needs now, right now. I don’t but I can barely talk because I’m sporting a face mask.
10:00am – arrive at Seashore Point and look for paparazzi. Wait, I am the paparazzi.
10:01am – eat the doughnut that I swore I wasn’t going to eat. It was chocolate.
10:10am- have another cup of coffee accompanied by a second donut that I swore I wouldn’t eat. A vanilla donut, glazed.
10:15am – Jim, D.J. and Mark Vincent set up the scene with clamps, lights, scrims and gels. Director Jake Fink, on his twenty-first day of shooting, is still intensely joyful and visionary about the film.
10:24am Screenwriter and Director Mark Vincent Pironti, taking a break from Los Angeles, lends his expertise in the creation of the spaceship.
11:00am – wait.
11:15am – wait.
11:30am – run lines with Mark Meehan again.
12:00pm – go to Ruthie’s with Jim, the executive producer, to get more costume options.
12:30pm – go to bank and talk up the film.
12:45pm- eat some more.
1:00pm- wait.
1:15pm – hope that if I put my makeup on, we’ll shoot soon.
1:54pm – The crew is taking still photographs. That means it’s almost time to shoot.
2:00pm – Jake says “Let’s Go!” The set is FANTASTIC. I wait my turn while they shoot close-ups of Mark.
2:25pm – Walk onto set of spaceship. Walk off. Walk on. Walk off. Adjust lights
2:35 – Say lines. Do it again. Do it three more times.
2:57pm – five minute break. Mark Meehan gets to go home. I’m jealous.
3:00pm – get ready for your close-up, Ms. Deville. I put on more powder.
3:30pm – test the close-up. The set is so hot that it might set off the sprinklers. We clear out and open all the windows to cool it off. Phones ring. People go run errands.
3:45 – get ready for a close-up. I have to say my lines the same exact way so my mouth matches up to the sound.
4:00 – wait.
4:34 – I say my lines with great emotion ten times to Soundman DJ aka Daniel Jones. It’s as if I was really there on a spaceship. Cinematic Magic occurs. It’s a wrap.

www.seashorepoint.org
Jake Fink: jake@terrestrialextras.info
Jim O’Connell: jim@terrestrialextras.info
Ruthie’s Boutique on Bradford 508-487-3820
www.ptownfilmfest.org

Artistic bon vivant Laura Shabott loves to write about Provincetown. A graduate of the SMFA, Boston, she is practiced in writing, acting and painting.