We're in the Movies...

...Or, more correctly, our building might just be in a frame of the movie they are filming across the street. It's called "This Side of the Truth" and has Jennifer Garner and Ricky Gervais in it. (I'll probably rent it as I haven't actually been to a movie in a movie theatre in about three years.

Gervais is one of the writers as well, and I think he's also directing it. I wouldn't have known who he was ('cause I live in a hole in the ground) except he always has three or four people around him wherever he goes, I think it may be in his contract that someone has to walk backwards to talk to him.

It's fun to watch them shoot the movie, although I'll be glad when they leave. It turns out that making a movie is simply short bits of acting swallowed by vast quantities of standing around talking, eating, smoking, and moving things around. I've been getting up at 8 (early for me!) and drinking my coffee on the porch while letting the cat out to eat grass and watch the people walk around. Then, mid-morning, I take a break and sit on the front steps of the building and watch a bit as well.

I can't really see much because, as I said, the building they're actually shooting across the street, in a back building which is flanked by two that are closer to the street. The extras did some walking down Princeton Blvd today, though. We've been referring to the extras as "the townspeople." Well, the townspeople walked down the street in front of our building and Ricky Gervais acted as though he was driving a car in front of them. It'll probably be cropped out of the movie itself since our building was visible.

The crew is actually more interesting to watch than the townspeople. I've discovered that you can tell who works on the crew in one of three ways (sometimes they have more than one "movie maker marker") They always have a cellphone to their ear when they're walking. Can they walk without a cellphone? Who knows? Maybe the person on the other side of the phone is telling them how to walk or what to look at or not look at.

If they don't have a cellphone, they usually have some sort of headset. These people usually wave.

The others have white cards on a lanyard, the way most of us who've had to work in a secure building do. I think, maybe, the union requests that they all put them on backward so all you see is the white side and you can't tell who does what job.

Of course, I'm teasing a bit. Everyone's been really nice, even when trying to keep us residents out of the shots. It's a shame that their final day of shoot was rained on.  They're supposed to leave tonight (probably in the dead of night, which is when they came on Monday), but I'm not sure they'll be able to since they've lost time due to the rain.

Anyway, that's our excitement for the week. One of the most impressive things I noticed, however, is that a huge percentage of the movie people seem to smoke. I would say more than half. But, I guess someone has read them the riot act because I've been noticing that most of them have been depositing their cigarette butts in the trash or in special cans. Which is impressive, and great for us since when they leave we won't have all these cigarette butts around.