It is 10:45 on Monday morning, and I am checking my daughter out of school for an appointment. Not a doctor’s appointment, though we are going to a hospital of sorts. Josie, who doesn’t like to go to the doctor, is a bit worried that this might be a trick; worried that we might really be going to a medical appointment. She is relieved as we pull into the parking lot and she sees the technicians unloading the cameras and lights and other movie paraphernalia. Yes, we really are at a movie set! We are about to spend the day as extras on the set of “Secret Santa,” a Candelight Media Production.
Candlelight Media has taken over the entire second floor of the Rock Canyon Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Provo, Utah. Although it is the end of January, we will be filming amid loops of garland, strings of lights and cheerful Santa decorations.
We wonder who we will be today. I think that I will be assigned to be a hospital visitor, but since one of the sets of scrubs fits me, I am reassigned to be a nurse. Josie will be a patient in a wheelchair. We put on our costumes, and then the hurry up and wait begins. Josie and another extra are in one hallway, waiting for their cue. I stand by the nurse’s station waiting for mine.
The technicians get their equipment ready. Cameras and mikes are tested, and soon we are rolling. The actors make their way down the hall, the camera crew walking backwards in front of them. It takes a dozen or more takes to get everything right. Sometimes an extra moves at the wrong time. Sometimes the actors walk too fast or too slow, or don’t time the dialogue correctly. Sometimes the camera crew makes a mistake—they are walking backwards going through doorways, after all, and that can be tricky. My moment in the camera gets changed so that I stay in the background longer.
After all, that is what extras are all about—background. Our role is to help make the shots look realistic, and in real life other people are moving around in the background. If no one was there, the audience would wonder about it: “This is supposed to be a hospital! Where is everybody?”
A day later—we are supposed to be on the set by 8:30 AM. This morning we are in a park--the Scera Park in Orem, Utah. It is a bitterly cold morning, but the wardrobe person assures me that it is warmer today than it was on Monday morning when they were filming a sledding scene. Josie and I are bundled in coats, hats and gloves. Our assignment this morning is to walk past the actors, who are sitting on a bench talking. Brian Brough, the director, calls out “Action!” Josie and I begin our walk. We walk and walk. We are really far away…will we be able to hear Brian when he calls out “Cut”? It is so tempting to turn around and look…but we restrain ourselves. We are far away when we hear a faint “cut.” We turn around to walk back, but the set manager motions for us to hurry. We quickly learn how it is going to go. Walk down the sidewalk. Run back. Walk down the sidewalk, and run back so we will be in place to walk again for the next take. At least all that movement keeps us warmer than standing around would.
Many takes later, the scene is finished. We have some good footage. Brian says, “Thanks, guys! You are done!” We walk back down the same sidewalk, but this time we don’t run back; we get in our car and drive away. We drive to Josie’s school. It is 9:45 on Tuesday morning, and I am checking my daughter in to school, our movie adventure at an end.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Organic post
Because I have had seven blog posts every month since I started this little online exercise, and I like to be consistent, I had better get going, or this month will be gone without me reaching my quota.
I just had the shortest ward calling in history. I was the ward organist for one week. I had to practice for six hours to feel the confidence necessary to play three songs. That is pretty bad. The organ is just so loud, and I am just so nervous. And I don't have six free hours every week. They asked me to do it during the Christmas break, and I came up with the time needed and even had delusions of actually being able to do this. But our ward is NOT a mission field ward, and that is the kind of ward I have experience playing the organ in. In that kind of ward, no one cares if you make mistakes, because none of them can play. But in THIS ward, there are people who are amazingly good. I would like to be amazingly good, too, but don't have the time right now even to be sort of good.
So I played for one week and then I realized that this was not fair to anyone--so I quit. I don't like to be a quitter, but I really only have the time to practice on Saturdays, and six hours of practice in one day is a bit more than my fingers and wrists can take.
The first time I played the organ, it was in Burnaby Ward. The first week, Brother Mook asked me if I would be willing to LEARN to play the organ. The next week, they sustained me and just threw me in at the deep end. And an organ is NOT a piano, as all of you who play one or the other or both know. So let's just say that Burnaby Ward had some pretty pathetic music for about a year. It took that long for me to feel at ease enough that I didn't feel like I was going to die every Sunday. I HOPED that when Patrick was born, they would release me. But they frankly had no other options. Brother Toolson was on the high council, and he and I were IT. Except for the one-finger piano pokers. And Abbi, who was only ten or eleven years old. I bet she could have played as well as I did, though, because she was a very good pianist. I should have had her learning the organ along with me--what was I thinking, not to do that?
One week, when Patrick was just a couple of months old, I needed to nurse him, so I left after the sacrament hymn, and went to the mother's room with him. He conveniently had a messy diaper, so I went into the little changing room (for baptisms) and laid his blanket on the floor there, because we had no changing table. There was a sink in that room, but there was a long, low bench between where Patrick was and the sink. I wanted to get a wet paper towel. And because I wanted to stay as close to Patrick as possible, I decided to step over the long, low bench. It seemed like the fastest route to the sink. I was wearing a skirt that was pretty tight in design. It had a small slit at the knee to make movement easier. But I didn't realize the design was not wide enough to allow me to step over the bench. I stepped. The seam of the skirt totally ripped open.
Now what to do? There I was, sitting in that little room with my baby, and my skirt completely open. And I had to walk back in there and play the closing song! I couldn't even go out and ask someone else to play, assuming there was someone to ask, which there wasn't, because I couldn't even go out in the hall, period.
And so I prayed. A moment or two passed, and another young mom from the Coquitlam ward, someone I didn't even know, came into the room. I showed her what happened. She said, "You know, we just had homemaking meeting on Thursday, and I think I left my sewing kit in the car! Let me go check." She came back in a few minutes with her sewing kit; I took my skirt off; we sewed it back together. I said "Thank you" a million times, then picked up my baby, marched in to the chapel, gave the baby to my husband, and walked up to the front and played the closing song.
And no one even knew what an adventure I had while they were busy listening to the speakers!
Well, that was fun. My most memorable organ experience! I played the organ in Port Coquitlam, Calgary and High River, too. But that was a long time ago. We have lived here for nine years. I have only played the organ as a substitute once or twice in all that time. One time, it was on the Sunday close to July 4. I practiced something like "America the Beautiful" only to get to church and have them change it to "Oh say can you see" which I have never played in my life! I had to find someone else in the ward to play that song--I would have been sight-reading and that would not have been good. For anyone.
So yah. That is why I quit. There are people in this ward who have master's degrees in organ performance. And I don't have the courage to be up there sight-reading.
I just had the shortest ward calling in history. I was the ward organist for one week. I had to practice for six hours to feel the confidence necessary to play three songs. That is pretty bad. The organ is just so loud, and I am just so nervous. And I don't have six free hours every week. They asked me to do it during the Christmas break, and I came up with the time needed and even had delusions of actually being able to do this. But our ward is NOT a mission field ward, and that is the kind of ward I have experience playing the organ in. In that kind of ward, no one cares if you make mistakes, because none of them can play. But in THIS ward, there are people who are amazingly good. I would like to be amazingly good, too, but don't have the time right now even to be sort of good.
So I played for one week and then I realized that this was not fair to anyone--so I quit. I don't like to be a quitter, but I really only have the time to practice on Saturdays, and six hours of practice in one day is a bit more than my fingers and wrists can take.
The first time I played the organ, it was in Burnaby Ward. The first week, Brother Mook asked me if I would be willing to LEARN to play the organ. The next week, they sustained me and just threw me in at the deep end. And an organ is NOT a piano, as all of you who play one or the other or both know. So let's just say that Burnaby Ward had some pretty pathetic music for about a year. It took that long for me to feel at ease enough that I didn't feel like I was going to die every Sunday. I HOPED that when Patrick was born, they would release me. But they frankly had no other options. Brother Toolson was on the high council, and he and I were IT. Except for the one-finger piano pokers. And Abbi, who was only ten or eleven years old. I bet she could have played as well as I did, though, because she was a very good pianist. I should have had her learning the organ along with me--what was I thinking, not to do that?
One week, when Patrick was just a couple of months old, I needed to nurse him, so I left after the sacrament hymn, and went to the mother's room with him. He conveniently had a messy diaper, so I went into the little changing room (for baptisms) and laid his blanket on the floor there, because we had no changing table. There was a sink in that room, but there was a long, low bench between where Patrick was and the sink. I wanted to get a wet paper towel. And because I wanted to stay as close to Patrick as possible, I decided to step over the long, low bench. It seemed like the fastest route to the sink. I was wearing a skirt that was pretty tight in design. It had a small slit at the knee to make movement easier. But I didn't realize the design was not wide enough to allow me to step over the bench. I stepped. The seam of the skirt totally ripped open.
Now what to do? There I was, sitting in that little room with my baby, and my skirt completely open. And I had to walk back in there and play the closing song! I couldn't even go out and ask someone else to play, assuming there was someone to ask, which there wasn't, because I couldn't even go out in the hall, period.
And so I prayed. A moment or two passed, and another young mom from the Coquitlam ward, someone I didn't even know, came into the room. I showed her what happened. She said, "You know, we just had homemaking meeting on Thursday, and I think I left my sewing kit in the car! Let me go check." She came back in a few minutes with her sewing kit; I took my skirt off; we sewed it back together. I said "Thank you" a million times, then picked up my baby, marched in to the chapel, gave the baby to my husband, and walked up to the front and played the closing song.
And no one even knew what an adventure I had while they were busy listening to the speakers!
Well, that was fun. My most memorable organ experience! I played the organ in Port Coquitlam, Calgary and High River, too. But that was a long time ago. We have lived here for nine years. I have only played the organ as a substitute once or twice in all that time. One time, it was on the Sunday close to July 4. I practiced something like "America the Beautiful" only to get to church and have them change it to "Oh say can you see" which I have never played in my life! I had to find someone else in the ward to play that song--I would have been sight-reading and that would not have been good. For anyone.
So yah. That is why I quit. There are people in this ward who have master's degrees in organ performance. And I don't have the courage to be up there sight-reading.
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