Day Two

The building in North Andover, Massachusetts where we would be shooting for the next two days had formerly belonged to Lucent Technologies.  The floor space was so vast that each time I stepped onto it, it seemed like an optical illusion, spreading out in every direction with no end in sight.  The NASA laboratory set we were working on was not small by any means, but it occupied only a tiny corner of the available space.

The base camp trailers were located in the parking lot right outside the building.  I pulled in on November 28th, 2007 just before my call time of 9am, which had still required that I wake up well before dawn to drive through the Boston rush hour traffic and then continue on about twenty-five miles north of the city.  I had barely gotten any sleep since the meeting in Boston the night before, so I had asked 2nd AD Mark Carter if I could have one of the larger trailers that day.  He had made no promises, but I was relieved when Alie brought me to a half-trailer and asked me what I wanted for breakfast.  The half-trailer had a small couch I could lie down on, as well as a small table, a refrigerator, a CD player, a TV with a DVD player and my own bathroom.  Not too shabby.

I got no rest, however, as I was instructed to immediately get into costume and head over to the hair and make-up trailer.  And, of course, once I did have the opportunity to relax, I got restless and wandered into the building to see what was going on.  I got my first look at the amazing facility and checked out the NASA set, as well as a few other sets representing the inside of the Richmond police station and the 911 operators' area.  I then returned to the trailer to study my sides for the new scenes and get a little rest.

It was some time later when Alie brought me and James Rebhorn from base camp onto set for the first time.  We walked side by side, and my friend Dee Nelson, who was doing background that day, later jokingly told me, "You had the air of a man doing principal work."  Standing next to the statuesque Rebhorn didn't hurt.  He was one of those actors that you might not know by name, but whenever you saw him in a film you would instantly recognize him.  He really was all of the cliches - a true gentleman, a consummate professional, etc. - and I learned so much about how to conduct myself on set simply by being around him.

We went upstairs to an office set overlooking the NASA laboratory on the floor and rehearsed the scenes we had read for the first time the previous evening, blocking them out for the camera crew.  I believe that the only one I actually shot that day was another complicated crane shot following a scene played down on the floor in which the crane swings up and you can barely notice me walking into the office up in the corner of the screen.

Other than that, I spent a lot of time in the trailer looking over my lines or wandering in to craft services for a snack, chatting with Bob Harvey (another interesting fellow - more on him in a future post) and even hanging around the monitors and getting to know producer Sean McKittrick.  Sean and Richard Kelly are old friends and a true team.  Though Sean does not take any credit as a writer, his input is crucial for Richard, as they constantly bounce ideas off of one another.  They are two very different personalities who manage to work well together, not unlike a few other creative teams that I have observed over the years.

When it became clear that I would not be needed again that day, I was dismissed, but I knew that I would have my work cut out for me the following day, with three sequences involving me yet to be shot.