Sort of slept in today... Didn't have to get up before dawn, put it that way.
Our family day out was a shopping trip to Valencia... Fun fun fun.
Watched Dukes of Hazzard (why?) and was fairly underwhelmed. To give everyone their due, I'm guessing that they were all given the direction of 'send yourself up' and 'try and look as cartooish as possible'. They were some fairly funny moments every so often and, of course, the General Lee was the star. Pretty incredible stunts and totally unrealistic leaps and landings. I mean how is a car supposed to jump 200 feet and then head off down the road in a stright line? Ain't gonna happen, is it? Looks good though!

Friday and up at 5.30. For the first time this week, it's a struggle to get up. Shaved again (I hate shaving EVERY day). On set at 6.30. J pulled up at the same time. Her call time had been moved an hour earlier to mine. Gonna be a long day. LOADS to get thru. Dressed, hair and make-up and into my flying harness. The prospect of at least 12 hours in this thing isn't a fun one as, when it's tight, it cuts off the blood to my legs - nice! A very long morning with everyone basically trying to line up the planets with every shot, that is to say, asking for all three of the flying guys, the two guys in green just underneath me in shot, the camera guys and me to get every move, every look, every word, every tuck, turn and twist right every single time. As you can imagine, it's impossible to hit your marks when you're flying 12 feet in the air so the guys were all pretty busy! That's why it was a very long morning. Broke an hour late for lunch. Went to my room, ate half my lunch and passed out. Came to with about 10 mins to spare before going back in. Pulled everything up, hair & make-up touched up and back to set.
Seven more hours of flying and I was done, as was everyone else on set. At one point, during a re-rig I stepped outside and almost cried, I felt so strange. A mixture of the fatigue, the frustration at retakes and the length of the day, I suppose. Anyway...the VTR man was doing some live mixing of the plates and the green screen footage to give everyone a rough idea of what it would look like. I have to say, it looked pretty amazing.
The whole crew, especially my 1st, 2nd and flying guys were so concerned about giving me breaks at every possible opportunity, I cannot thank them enough. Everyone, without exception, said 'well done' or 'thank you for going above and beyond' - everyone was incredibly supportive and complimentary.
Today was meant to be the last day of shooting in LA but with everything we had to nail today, we still have some more shots to finish so we're pushing over to Monday.
Home and bed...

Thursday and another shooting day. J picked me up and we arrived to find that the set (which is going to be wrapped tonight) had grown! Cool! Hair and make-up. P brought in her 'Flock of Seagulls' headshot from the 8-'s. Amazing. (I'll post it once I've scanned it!). J put in a DVD of a film he was the 1st AD on. It looked great. It even had a car chase which he planned in it - lo budget too.
The day's shooting opened with mulcho animal action. The little furry critters did their stuff and the director was very happy.
Next up was the descruction sequence shot as a rapid tour of the set. Pyros were set, wires and tubes were primed ready to fall and off we went. Flawlessly. All of that rehearsal is done for a reason you know chaps. We have a very HOT crew and no mistake.
A few more visits to crafty and then... D & J arrived for their visit - yea! Was worried they weren't going to make it. Everyone, including T was incredibly generous with their compliments of me. So nice. Their timing was perfect as we were about to shoot one of my lines. Quick rehearsal, picture's up, print it! Again for safety. Done. Moving on.... D & J seemed very impressed. I love 'em both! Can't get enough of them. PLEASE let J go theatrical and rep me. PLEASE! She said that she had to straighten out everything in her mind during her vacation this summer so she would deceide on pretty much everything then. D's last month at the agency then off to promote his book.
Next up, the gorgeous J. She nailed her pick-up line in time for lunch!
My missus and littl'un arrived just after lunch and were made to feel very welcome by everyone they met. R headed straight for crafty and grabbed some tasties! We had some pics taken on the green screen which looked very ghostly because of the smoke on set. Should be funny to look back in 2017 and tell him where they were taken.
He was very sweet, shaking hands with everyone and introducing us to everyone by our first names, rather than Mommy and Daddy. Very funny!
After lunch, we had a ton of publicity photos taken, striking just about every character pose we could think of. Then it became a free for all and everyone was taking pics! Saw J's other recent film set in the desert (Death Valley) starring one half of an 80's Brit brother duo and the guy android guy from Alien. $700K project. Looked pretty good.
Wrapped J a little later and I headed for the green screen, decked out in my multi-layer antichaffing pants and harness. J was really sweet and came back to watch after getting changed. Up I went and we tried a few moves. After a little while, I decided I wanted to try it without the lower frame (with my snoboard on) and just have a free board. They attached a new pair of boots to the board and a rope to stop me twirling uncontrolably in the air.
Seemd to go quite well. Lowered down to adjust the harness and Sh L arrived while my trousers are around my knees! Laughed a lot and I went back up. ShL told me to tell her when I was available and she would start booking me for more auditions. Superb. I love her so much! She so thoughtful and I owe her More moves and more experiments. Holy shit, my harness is really digging in. The FX techs were very attentive and gave me frequent breaks to take the weight off my crutch!
Wrapped at 6.30 and walked home 3 miles! Seemed like a good idea!

Whatho, day 3 of shooting. Went very well although we were doing a lot of effects shots without too much of us leaping around (as per previous days)! Hey ho, that's how it goes somedays.... I thought it would be better to mothball my previous posts about the shoot just in case it breaches some vague confidentiality agreement I MAY have signed SOMETIME in the past. Best to be safe eh! When the job goes live next year sometime, I'll publish them again. Deep joy!
What else? Oh yes, I was sent a jury summons this week! Great eh? Spend my entire life in the UK and never hear a peep from anyone official and I'm in LA less than two years and they want me on a jury. Nice to be wanted I suppose. Mind you, I'm away when they want me so I need to postpone. That'll probably be a nightmare...

sunday - kinda calm
park
chess
rest
peace

Saturday... what a night! Screaming kid, screaming parents. Not good.
Fallout settling throughout the day so dad and son off to the zoo to cool off.
Daddy put child to bath and bed and then crashed out early so peace returned to the evening.
I'm drawing a heavy veil over today...