Famous Cam Still Working

After seeing Half Blood Prince recently, Cameron and I have been working our way back through the earlier books and movies. Honestly, I'm gonig to feel a pang when it's all over. I actually found myself worrying about the final movie(s) and how they'll treat certain scenes, or even if they'll include them...silly, because even through we are very big fans here, we really don't take things personally when it comes to the movies.

We also laughed especially at some of the big action scenes--Quidditch, for example, or the GoF sequence where Harry fights the dragon--because it really is movie magic that turns a hell of a lot of standing around into what you see on the screen. With all those special effects, what the actors are actually doing bears little resemblence to what you see...and the setup would take hours for each shot. I assumed that multiple cameras were shooting multiple angles on shots--they are, but scenes are filmed, then re-set up (lights, props, etc.) for a different camera and a different angle. So a scene might be done several times for one angle, then reset up for several times at another angle, and then again...

Last week, as many of you know, Famous Cam went to work, leaving the house at 4:30 am and returning at 8:30 pm. It was brutally hot and humid that day, and he was at the Forbidden City (nary a tree in sight) wearing pants. He spent about 5 of those hours in front of the camera.

Today he left at 6:00 am and go back about 6:30 pm. He spent about 2 hours in front of the camera, all of it sitting in a cafeteria. It is unbelievingly, mindnumbingly dull, at least for the extras. Jaden Smith, the lead, comes and goes throughout the day; presumably he has other things he's working on or rehearsing, or he's doing school work. But it does mean that he (a 12 year old) works 15 hours a day, 6 days a week, which is pretty amazing. It's clearly an industry where, no matter what you're doing, you spend a lot of time waiting for someone else to do their thing. I suppose the leads and the directors are constantly busy, but there are always so many people just waiting for whatever it is they do to happen.

I confess, I stopped going. Really, watching Will Smith for 12 hours just wasn't worth it. And when the kids are on set being filmed, it can be difficult to see them and impossible to hear anything--Cameron can barely hear the dialogue when he's in the scene! He continues to be happy for the opportunity, but happy on the days he doesn't have to go, too. He's scheduled for this whole week and has to leave at 5:00 am tomorrow.

Of course, if something like this every showed up, you know I'd be there all day, every day. Pathetic, yes, but true.