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I was booked by Central Casting to do a
couple of days on a film called.. get this.. "Plague Season". I
really, really hoped that it was just a working title! Sounded kind
of like a "B" movie to me, but what the heck.. it had Kurt Russell in the
lead so how bad could it be?
I was very happy when given the address that I was to report to.. the
American Legion building in Hollywood, which was only a few blocks up from
where I was living at the time. That meant I could just walk up to
it and wouldn't have to find a place to park which is usually a horrendous
task in Hollywood. Even when the production company provides leased
parking for you, it's usually a bit far from the shooting location and you
have to shuttle over. When the morning of the shoot arrived, I
grabbed my wardrobe bag and walked up to the American Legion, arriving at
about seven. I had been on a shoot there once before, on the TV show
"Providence". The American Legion facility in Hollywood is HUGE and
is often used for film and TV shoots. When we shot Providence we
were given the auditorium area of the building to hang out in because the
scene was being shot in the restaurant area in the basement. For
this film, it was the opposite. I was sent down to the basement and
found several hundred extras there milling around, setting up chairs to
relax on and eating breakfast that had been obtained from the catering
truck up in the parking lot. I grabbed a chair and staked out a
little area off in a corner, and then went up to grab something for
myself.
About a half hour later, the AD in charge of us had everyone gather
together outside for instructions. We were told that this film was
about the Los Angeles Police Department (referred to here on as LAPD).
It's a fictional story but has a factual setting.. the 1992 L.A. riots.
The lead in the film is Kurt Russell. Just about all of the extras
were playing cops and families of cops, but not all in uniform. A
small percentage were uniformed but most of us were just wearing suits
since this scene was an awards ceremony we were attending. After the
rundown of the scene, we were all given our vouchers, told to get checked
at the wardrobe trailer and then just hang out until called.
The call came about an hour later and we were all ushered in to the
auditorium. There were chairs set up in rows on the main floor,
bleacher like stands on the sides and a platform up front with chairs on
it. A few tables were set up in front and a huge LAPD shield (badge)
mockup hung over the platform for decoration. Of course, no
principle actors or stand-ins were on set yet.. extras are ALWAYS the ones
who get placed first and have to wait around for them. So, we were
assigned seats, a process that took about forty five minutes and I ended
up on one of the sides about four rows back. Actress Lolita
Davidovich is also in the film, and in this scene she sits in the row in
front of me about four seats down to my left. (Ironically, or
perhaps NOT so ironically, she happens to be married to the film's
Director, Ron Shelton. In the film she is married to Kurt
Russell's character).
One of the Production Assistants hired to help out on this shoot was
CHIP, who is the regular second Assistant Director on the TV show "Gilmore
Girls". I had worked that show on several occasions and Chip
remembered me from it. Gilmore Girls was on break from shooting at
the time, and Chip hired out his services to other production companies to
pay the bills. He sat people along with several other PA's, and
after we were all in place then of course we sat around for an hour and
watched the crew tweak the lighting, adjust the sound, etc. until finally
they seemed ready to rehearse the scene. The first AD stepped up to
the platform, introduced himself and proceeded to give us a rundown of the
scene in much more detail than we'd been given earlier. He said that
at certain parts we'd be required to applaud, other parts we'd "look
shocked and talk amongst ourselves" and towards the end of the scene we
would all get up and rush out in response to a particular announcement.
He said that they probably wouldn't get to that part of it until tomorrow,
and that's why they had booked the facility and all of us for two days.
After his speech, the
Director walked through the scene with the stand-ins. They did a lot of stopping so that lighting could be adjusted and so forth. This is
where we learned where all of our cues were to applaud and looked shocked.
After a while all of the stand-ins were replaced by principle actors and
the Director was ready to shoot it. Kurt had come in and was hanging
around watching, but wasn't up on the platform because he isn't in the
first part of the scene. I recognized a lot of the actors that were
up there (all known character actor types) and was pleased to see that
Ving Rhames was seated at a table in front of the platform, wearing an
LAPD Captain's dress uniform. I'd been a fan of his work since "Pulp
Fiction".
This was a film shoot, NOT television, and they had us for TWO whole
days. That meant that they weren't under the gun and they could take
their own sweet time.. and they did! The scene you'll see in the
film will probably play out in about ten minutes, but it was filmed in
bits and pieces, slowly, painstakingly and very carefully. We did a
lot of sitting around reading and talking (softly!) between takes, and the
actual takes were never really over two minutes at a time. Then they
would readjust cameras and stuff, and we'd just sit there until the next
one.
Fans of Kurt probably want to know what he was like on set.. I'll get to
some cool things about him in a minute, but at this point he was just
working. He was smiling and jovial between takes and would cut up
with the Director and some of the crew, but when cameras rolled he was all
business. There was one funny thing I observed concerning Kurt and
one of the young ladies booked as an extra. She was a real looker, a
young blonde bombshell of about twenty and I had noticed during the times
we were out of the auditorium (lunch, etc.) that she seemed to be quite
full of herself. She was just one of those girls that carried
herself in such a way as to say "I am so damn SEXY"! Anyway, she had
been assigned a seat on the end of a row and she was in my line of sight
during the entire shoot. Between takes, Kurt would walk by her and
EVERY TIME he went by she tried to get his attention in some way.
She would bat her eyes and smile, stretch out her legs (she was wearing a
skirt and had killer legs) or even go so far as to make a comment like
"good job" or "hi again". This was interesting because outside she
was a total snob and didn't talk much to lowly extras. Well, with
the exception of when she would say something to him, Kurt totally ignored
her! On the comments like "good job" or whatever, he'd flash her a
patronizing little smile and continue on his way. I've always liked
his work, but I never truly became a Kurt Russell fan until that moment.
I also found it interesting that she didn't return for the second day of
shooting. So they placed a similar looking young woman in the seat
that she had been sitting in.
In the scene, merit awards are being handed out to cops for particular
things they have done in the line of duty, and Kurt's character is one of
the recipients. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen the
film, so I'll just say that at the end of the scene the ceremony is cut
short because an announcement is made that citizens are rioting (the
actual 1992 riots that took place in L.A.) and so, since we are all
cops, we all go rushing out to take care of it. We didn't get to the
rushing out part until late evening on the second day of filming, just as
the first AD had predicted. One fun thing for me was that as Kurt's
character is "rushing out", he gets stopped by reporters about midway down
and I have left my seat by this time and coincidentally end up right next
to him. So I stand there with a bunch of other guys while Kurt
answers the reporter's question, then we all go rushing out together and
that ends the scene.
During the first rehearsal of the part where Kurt leaves the platform,
starts rushing out and is stopped by the reporter, we were all told to
head for the door when Kurt did and to stop when the reporter stops him.
Of course, they had to shoot it about twelve times, so each time we had to
go back to our seats to start over and try to duplicate our "rushing out"
as closely as we could each time so that we would end up in the same place
when the reporter stops Kurt. So I ended up standing next to Kurt
off and on for about the hour it took to get that part in the can.
After the last take was declared usable by the Director and he yelled
those wonderful words "Check the GATE"! (meaning that was the end of the
scene and they were going to keep it, thus the end of the shoot for
everyone which meant we could all go home now), Kurt jumped back up on to
the platform and got everyone's attention for a minute so he could say a
few words. He made a little speech thanking crew and extras for the
past two days of hard work and he said we all did a great job and he had a
great time working with us. He knew he was going to see the same
crew again, so he saved most of their praise for the final wrap of the
film, and he spent most of the two minutes or so talking about US because
he knew we were all done after this and wouldn't be back. Most
impressively, he said that good extras make the film's star look good, so
we were to thank for that. I couldn't believe what I was hearing!!!
A major Hollywood heavyweight thanking us and giving us the credit for
making him look good. I think I remember that moment so well because
it's probably never going to happen again! That sort of thing is an
absolute rarity.
I had spoken to my wife on my cell phone just moments after that to tell
her that we had wrapped and I was on my way home, and when I had gotten my
wardrobe bag packed up and I was signed out, there she was at the front
gate with our two dogs waiting for me. I told you we lived close!
She had decided that since she had to walk the dogs anyway, she might as
well come up to the complex and walk back with me. No wonder I've
stayed married to her for all these years. As we were walking back,
I looked at the Best Western Hotel which is right next to the American Legion
building there in Hollywood where we had been filming all day. I
remember thinking how ironic it was that the place was full of tourists
sleeping in their hotel rooms and that they were probably all looking
forward to the next day when they'd go to Universal Studios, take a tour
over at Warner Brothers or sit in the audience of some lame sitcom.
Because
Kurt Russell had been filming a scene for a major motion picture about a
hundred feet away from them on the day before, and they never even knew it.
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Kurt Russell and wife Goldie Hawn at the
2002 American Film Institute awards honoring Tom Hanks. I was
fortunate enough to have worked on the security team for the event and had
just checked Kurt and Goldie's passes a few minutes prior to this photo
being snapped. I don't think he remembered me from "Dark Blue"!
At the BET awards held a few weeks after the AFI awards, I worked on the
security team once again and THIS time had the good fortune to meet up
with Ving Rhames, who has a significant role in "Dark Blue" and who was
present on set the couple of days we shot the scene described on the left.
Ving had to wait for clearance at the entrance to the red carpet because
he had misplaced his pass, so I spoke with him for a few minutes while he
waited. Of course, we talked about "Dark Blue"!
Lolita Davidovich, who is married to the film's Director in real life and
to Kurt Russell's character in the film.
Set in the Los Angeles Police Department in April 1992, Dark Blue is a
dramatic thriller that takes place just days before the acquittal of four
white officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King and the
subsequent L.A. riots. In this racially-charged climate, the LAPD's elite
Special Investigations Squad (SIS) is assigned a high-profile quadruple
homicide. As they work the case, veteran detective Eldon Perry (Kurt
Russell), known for his tough street tactics and fiery temper, tutors SIS
rookie Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman) in the grim realities of police
intimidation and corruption. Meanwhile, Assistant Chief Holland (Ving
Rhames), the only man in the department willing to stand up to the SIS,
threatens to end Perry's brand of single handed "justice" on the Los
Angeles streets. While navigating through the tumultuous neighborhoods of
South Central L.A., Perry and Keough must track down cold-blooded killers
and face their own demons, which prove to be more ruthless than the
criminals they pursue.
© 2002 United Artists Films
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