What we did for 10.5 hours today

We were on the set of a movie! We got to be (unpaid) extras for a Christian film that is being made in the area. Today we were part of the crowd at several basketball games. There was a LOT of waiting, but it was also a memorable experience. I couldn't take pictures on the set, but I did get a few interesting shots of our day.

The boys started out tired and grumpy - before we even left the house. After we checked in at the movie set, we had a while to wait before being called to the set. This was not the boys' favorite part.



After our first scene we went back to the cafeteria (a.k.a. holding room) to get ready for the next scene. This involved changing clothes since it would be a different scene on a different day in the movie. We weren't used for the next scene so we had even longer to wait around. We used this time to eat our snacks. The boys also ate the snacks of the other people sitting at the table with us. They were a very nice mom and son who freely offered their snacks to the boys after we quickly depleted what I had brought.



We were used in the third scene, and then we broke for lunch. We were fed a hot dog, chips, and cookies for lunch. The boys thought it was great! Not sure why Evan is giving Joel that look. Joel is just eating his own food.



If you look closely in the background of the picture of Evan you will notice a man's hand autographing some pictures. At least one of the actors in this movie has some renown. I didn't realize it, but he is from this area and actually attended the high school we were using for filming. Any ideas on who he is?



After lunch we went back to the gym for more filming. This seemed to be where things got really slow, at least to me. We were on the set for a long time, but there were big breaks while they were resetting cameras, rehearsing the scene, etc. We did seem to be in "good" locations for some of those shots, so we might actually be in the film. The boys even got into cheering for the hometeam by the afternoon. We also found a nice long hallway that they could play in during some of the breaks. That was very helpful! Plus they got to practice their acting skills. (They were playing football with no ball.)



Eventually at 6:30pm I decided to leave, even though they were still shooting. (We had arrived at 8am this morning). The boys (and I) were exhausted and just couldn't last any longer. In fact, Joel fell asleep on the way home. He assured me that he was faking, but he wasn't. Instead of coming home, we met Steve for a pizza buffet. Evan showed me a "great" way to wake Joel up.



Yep, he lifted up Joel's eyelid. It didn't really work. But Joel did wake up when I unbuckled him and when he finally realized where we were got super-excited. After pizza, soda, and desserts they are now in bed, playing crazily. I have a feeling that I might regret this crazy day in the morning. ;)

Overall though, I do think it was worthwhile. They boys got to learn about making a movie and we got to have some good discussions about what is real and what is not. Evan kept getting confused by the "games". We were only seeing 1-3 plays per game, although we saw some of them over and over and over. He kept trying to figure out the score and how long they had been playing. So we talked about what is real and what is not, but I don't think he understands it all yet. I told him that we would be sure to get the movie when it comes out, and hopefully seeing the finished movie will help him make more sense of what we did today. (He also thought a couple of the men working on the movie looked like Uncle Craig. That was funny, because I had a similar thought before he said that.)

Plus, we might go back for another day of filming. This day would be for a church service. They are wanting kids Evan's age for a Sunday School scene. We'll have to see how the schedule works out, but it shouldn't be as long of a day as today was. I don't think there's any way we could do that again!