On the set of Duplicity, JFK

(from April 15th, 2008)

I worked on the set of "Duplicity" this past week. It's a feature film starring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti(Played 'Pig Vomit" in the Stern Movie, Private Parts).

Last week we were on this movie where they were shooting a huge auditorium scene where Paul was the CEO of this fortune 500 company and we were the shareholders. There were 1500 extras there and NO food at all!!! The only concession they made for us was water from the Hudson river.

This week I was booked on this movie again through another agency. This is one of those bullshit movies where they say that if you have been on it once, you can't work on it again deals. So when I called up the agency, they asked if I worked on it before, of course I said no. I knew it was a cheap movie, though I need the work and money.

This time we were booked to be at JFK airport, Terminal 4 to play passengers.

We were told to bring our own suitcases and carry on luggage. Smart people brought tiny bags and purses with newspaper fillings inside the bag to make it light like Shakura did posing in this picture:

The "newbie"s to the business of course brought the biggest and heaviest suitcase imaginable, thinking of course they would get wavered for their effort. Of course that never happens, or rarely.

Our call time wasn't bad though. Surprisingly our call time was for 8:00am bus pick up in Manhattan to take us to JFK. Another nice surprise was the bus was a SAG bus with a VIP lounge in the back! This was So different form the Non-Sag bus. On the Non-Sag bus, it's like the "Fred Flinstone" express where it's rickety and falling apart with no "stewardess" service.

On the SAG bus, you felt like you were going on tour with Bon Jovi as it was luxurious and cushiony. In fact as we were going through the mid-town tunnel through to get to Queens, it was such a smooth, clean ride it felt like you were in First class.

So it was nice to experience the nice SAG bus for a change, even though there was no "Bus Stewardess" on duty to take our orders of martinis. So we got to the airport at record time. It was the usual cavalcade of people and of course the usual segregation of Sag and Non-Sag.

However when we got there, there was No breakfast food set up at all. So me and a couple of friends went downstairs to purchase a coffee downstairs in the food courts which of course had airport prices. Even McDonald's at the airport is expensive. So I figured I may as well get good quality and purchased a corn muffin and medium coffee at the Bon Pain which was Manhattan prices.

By the time we get back upstairs to the holding area, which by the way was so confined and tight with all those people and trying to fit these bulk suitcases, the PA calls for lunch at 11:00am. We saw the catering setting up this mini-buffet which I was thinking was in no way enough for 200 people. Sure enough the PA makes the announcement that there is not enough food for non-SAG and that we would have to purchase our own food in the expensive food court.

We were like Oh great, Non-SAG is making 75 dollars for 14 hours, while SAG clears over $200.00 with meal penalties and we are denied food.

Then the PA really makes us non-union feel like crap when he says, "This is why people join the union!" We were like "Thanks, than give us a waiver so we can get into the union.

After an hour once the SAG line went through and the food was sitting there getting cold, the crew took pity on us and said we could take the remaining scraps of food. We were like gee thanks for letting us have a piece of macaroni to split with 200 people! How gracious of you!

Soon after wards, we were called to set which basically consisted us going up and down escalators and stairs. The Sag got the escalators and of course us non-Sag got the stairs. The only good thing about where I was positioned was that I was near the end of the rotation of people to go down the stairs, so I didn't have to go down and climb back up every time.

That was the extent of excitement that day. We saw Clive Owen and no Julia of course. She is too busy having a million dollar breakfast and manicure and can't share her scraps with the non-SAG players.

Seriously this has to be the cheapest set I have worked on in a while. I mean I could see when there are 1500 people on set, but with a set of 200 and you can't feed us. Ya right.

The only good thing was that we were wrapped at a decent time of 4pm. Could have been way worse I suppose. Still No waivers after working on all these crappy movies.

Yet I am hearing how these 20 year olds get on these sets, smile, wink their eye and get 4 waivers. I just don't get this business anymore. It's SO depressing.

Sigh :(