Day Seven

Unusually, I had not been given a call time in advance for Wednesday, January 30th, 2008.  I knew that there were a few other shots scheduled that day, plus there had been talk about something called the gantry.  Since I had some time on my hands, I decided to explore the area around the Guest Quarters.  Unfortunately, it was right by the interstate and far from downtown Hampton, Virginia.  I walked up to the main road and immediately realized that I wasn't going much of anywhere.  I then noticed a place across the street and popped in for an early lunch, which proved to be rather unsatisfying.

As I headed back to the Guest Quarters, I turned on my phone and saw that I had a few messages from our 2nd Assistant Director Mark Carter asking me if I had received the new pages.  I quickly returned to my room and found an envelope on the floor just inside my door.  The truncated scene  based on the old Deer Island scenes which I had received at home weeks earlier had been rewritten yet again, and I was now called at 2pm to get ready to shoot it.

When I went down to the lobby to catch the shuttle to the base, I was delighted to bump into James Rebhorn there.  We boarded the van and started running lines for the new scene.  Upon our arrival at the trailers, I found myself in the position of showing him around since I had already been there for a few days.  We went in to lunch (which I did not need having just eaten) and caught up like old friends.

I do not recall why, but at one point that day I had to go into the wind tunnel building for some reason.  As I went in, Frank Langella was being escorted in the opposite direction and, as we passed each other, he graciously said, "Until next time, Mark."  I had hoped that that next time would be at the film's premier, but, sadly, that did not come to pass.

Jim and I were eventually packed into a shuttle along with a few local extras dressed as black ops.  As we continued to run our lines, I heard one of the locals saying that they had been told not to volunteer for this shot if they were afraid of heights.  When we got our first look at the gantry, which is pictured above, I understood why.  The gantry is also known as the lunar lander module because that is where many tests were conducted in the 1960's for the Apollo missions.  More recently, aircraft were suspended from the framework at various angles and dropped to see how well they sustained damage.

We were packed into a small, rickety elevator which crawled up one leg of the framework at a snail's pace.  We emerged at a level about two thirds of the way up the exposed structure to meet Richard Kelly and only a handful of our usual crew.  We were told when stepping out of the elevator not to look down, so, of course, I did.  You could see the ground far below your feet between the metal mesh "floor" of the platform.  The panoramic view from up there included Chesapeake Bay in the distance but, while it was quite spectacular, my knees were already getting weak.

We quickly blocked the scene for the Steadicam operated by Jody Miller.  It was dusk, the golden hour, and we had to get the shot before it got too dark.  I did not have to act terrified in the scene, because I truly was terrified.  We managed to get four takes, with notes between each one.  I don't know if I could have done another.

It was a short day's work, but I felt as if I had earned my pay that day more than any other.  Jim and I took the shuttle back over to the Guest Quarters and agreed to meet each other down at the bar in the lobby.  As we were decompressing from our experience, James Marsden walked up, having just arrived from L.A., and sat with us.  From that point on, I followed my standard procedure of merely listening to the conversation and marveling at where I was and who I was with.  I had only one day left in this fantasy world...or so I thought.