Dancing Queen

Sometimes I wonder if my friends have as many strange, random experiences as I do.  Last night, Brian and I were walking to dinner when we were approached by someone about being extras in a movie scene.  I agreed because I thought it would be a student film, and I’m a sucker for helping out fellow students – I always answer polling research calls or fill out surveys for students who are in classes.   Anyway, keep reading to hear about my aspiring stardom. It turns out it was a little bit bigger than a student film, though seriously not much bigger.  It turns out that the scene was a 70′s disco club, and they desperately needed to make 12 extras make it look like it was hoppin’ crowd.  When we walked in, the disco lights were going and everyone was decked out in 70′s duds – with some of the ladies wearing embroidered cowgirly looking things.  The wardrobe people immediately handed Brian a white collared shirt and loud vest.  But me?  They said my outfit was fine as it was. Is that good or bad???

Actually,  I happened to take a picture of my outfit that day because err… confession… I wasn’t sure if my outfit matched, and  looking at a photo gives me a more neutral view. Whaaat? Is it that weird?  I was wearing this:

Plus these gloves. They asked me to take the sweater off, but I left the gloves on and they didn’t say anything.

The casting dude asked us if we had ever done anything like this before.  Embarrassingly enough, two times came to mind:

1) Danny Bonadeuce & his reality show came into a bar I was at, and he needed people to make it look like he had a lot of friends & entourage, so they begged everyone to sign releases and join his “party.”  It was lame.

2) This summer, I had an encounter with a member of The Real World.  Oh, and I was wearing zombie makeup.  Based on the dramatic 3 minute scene, I predicted that MTV’s angle would be to portray him as “black man with anger issues, possibly hits women”.  Guess what? I was right.  They asked me to sign the release form, I said no.

Anyway, to add to my wildly impressive film credits:

We started to take our places.  They really did yell “Places everyone!!” and “Quiet on the set!”  Our “makeup” consisted of getting our faces powdered, and luckily I had put on some bright lipstick before we left the house.  Our job was to boogie our butts to the same Donna Summer song about 10 times.  We had to look like we were having the time of our lives every time, and the director wanted us to use big gestures, also suggesting that we do “you know, 70′s moves.”  I know nothing about how disco dancing is supposed to look, so I pretty much felt like I was spazzing out – gyrating and waving my arms in an exaggerated ridiculous fashion.  At first, we stood towards the back of the crowd, but my antics may have cursed me because after the first couple of takes (hehe), the director put Brian and I exactly front and center of the group.  I felt really silly so I allowed myself to just laugh hysterically at the entire situation, hopefully it makes me look like I’m having a blast up in da club.

I didn’t notice until halfway through that they made all the guys unbutton like 4 buttons on their shirts and their chest hair was all hanging out.  Seeing Brian like that also made me crack up periodically, which I suppose added to the “energy” of the scene.

Towards the end, they film the main character walking into the club, and he starts dancing.  Guess who he starts dancing with? Ugh. They did that “take” a couple of times and then they yelled “That’s a wrap!”  Just like on TV.  Turns out they’re filming just a trailer/pilot which they will pitch to investors and if that works out, then they do the whole movie and we get paid.  The director is a local TV personality, it’s half plausible that the film will get picked up but who knows.