February 23, 1992
We have a historic moment here. I am writing about this gig as it is occurring. I'm sitting in my trusty Chevy Corsica with Hank's Towing notes still scribbled on my windshield and a brand new window on the passenger side as I work as a "driving extra," I guess you'd call it, during the shooting of a car-chase scene. The movie is a Mel Gibson-Jamie Lee Curtis spectacle called "The Rest of Daniel." Patty's roommate Kara is on the 2nd unit production team and got me and Patty the job, which pays better than the average extra stint. We get $60 base pay instead of $40 and then an extra $15 for using our car. Cool.
The fringe benefits so far included, of course, FOOD. Upon arriving on the set, Patty and I made our way over to the honey-wagon where I had cream cheese, tomato, and onion on a bagel. But that was just the appetizer. I ordered an egg-n-cheese burrito and loaded on the ham, onions and salsa. Mmmm. A couple of donuts and two muffins were washed down with 3 little cartons of chocolate milk and I was ready for a morning of hard labor.
As of this paragraph, we have done three takes, each one involving a trip down a stretch of Route 118 about 4 miles long. I can barely see the camera truck when we're driving, so the Corsica isn't going to get too much camera time.
We just had a break, so I grabbed an orange and some hot chocolate and took a Diet Pepsi to keep me company in the car. The plan now is to turn it around and shoot from behind the cars, so the extras will be traveling in front of the action. Ah, Hollywood.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. All went smoothly up until lunch. Then, FOOD. I had stuffed chicken breast, noodles with pesto sauce and pasta in tomato sauce, plus a little Italian noodle salad and some cherry yogurt washed down by 2 more chocolate milks. This is the life.
At about 1:15, we returned to our cars to begin the afternoon shots. I sat in the driver's seat awaiting further instructions, but when they came, it was the last thing I expected or wanted to hear. "Oh, I forgot to tell you," Gary, the guy in charge of our group of extras says in a quiet, matter-of-fact way, "You have to change your tire." I was confused. Did they look wrong? Were they the wrong color? I returned a confused look and a "What?" or a "Now?" And he returned, "You're tire is flat. You have to change it." The week of car agony was not behind me, but was, in fact, continuing, becoming a part of my everyday life.
And so, as the train of extras drove off into the sunset, I moved my car to a level surface and went to work on my second ever flat-tire change. (And I don't even know if you could count the first, which took place on a cold winter night in the St. Patrick's Church Parking lot, and I could not successfully accomplish the task, and resorted to calling Big Jim into Binghamton to deal with it.)
So there I stood in the middle of a gully in Simi Valley with my owner's manual open to the "Problems on the Road: If a Tire Goes Flat" following the directions step-by-step. Changing a tire is, luckily, a fairly simple task. Of course it took me over a half hour to unload all my stuff and re-read every instruction at least twice to make sure I did it all correctly. Eventually, I was the proud driver of a Chevy Corsica with one "temporary spare tire" securely affixed to back, left side of the car.
I loaded up the trunk and drove back to the base to wash up. The honey-wagon had been moved, though, so I asked two guys if there was a place I could wash up because I had just changed my tire. Not only did they point out the honey-wagon's new location, but they also pointed out the mechanic and said to tell him what happened. Seemed pointless, but I went and told him my dilemma. That was the best move I've made since coming out to this coast. I took my car over to the "repair truck" and they put a plug in the hole, and declared the tire "as good as new," good for "an eternity" of driving. So, I put it back on (in about 10 minutes) and returned the spare to the trunk, having clocked a good 1/8 mile out of the 3,000 it's good for. If, in fact, the tire is perfectly healed, then I made out like a bandit today - paid for the time spent changing my tire plus the money saved on a professional repair job. Could it be my luck is changing? Or will the plug blow at high speeds tomorrow on the freeway?
Now I'm back with my squad. I missed a couple of takes, but we're up to about 5 this afternoon, and we are nearly an hour into overtime. That's good financial news. It's $11.25 per hour overtime.
Home...Ah. Bed...Mmmm. Sleep...Nice. It was a long day, over 200 miles officially clocked and over 8 hours of the 10 hour day spent in the car. I got a lot of stuff done, though, and got a tire plugged to boot. We got paid $10 for gas, a flat rate established by the extras casting agency for non-union extras. Union people get 40 cents per mile, or for today's adventure: $80. Oh, well. All told I made about 90 bucks, not a bad day, but add in $20 worth of food and a $50 repair job. Now I just need a real job.