October visit to Pink's Hot Dogs

In catching up on my travel photos, I came across these from our visit to Pink's Hot Dogs on October 6.  We'd been meaning to go for years to this iconic tourist destination.  The day we finally went, it turns out that they were filming a segment of Access Hollywood there.  These 3 pictures are screen captures from when it aired.

So these obviously aren't photos of us, but if you look at the background we are behind the 2 owners of Pinks as they talk to Natalie and the other host, I forget her name:

It was kind of fun to do two Hollywood things at once - go to Pinks, and to be an accidental extra on TV at the same time.

Fifteen minutes of fame, by proxy

As I wrote a month or so ago, my car got a gig as a background actor on CSI (Original Vegas version).  On December 9 it aired, and my nondescript Corolla had it's big moments on the small screen.

Here it is in its first scene.  This is part of the setup- we see the stressed-out woman who will be the primary murder victim buying groceries at night.  The camera breaks away and shows my car driving by outside the grocery store, for an establishing shot.  (It's not me driving it, my friend is a background actor and he borrowed it for the day.)

For the keeners among you, here's the video!

Then there's around 40 minutes of dullness until my car's next scenes, which are at the climax where they explain the crime.

Now, don't be distracted by the gun at the left, or the two murder-victims to be... see the backdrop?  That's my Corolla!

Here's the grocery bagger going down:

There's his body lying on the ground in front of... my car!  Phew, no bullet holes!

Here's the murderer shooting the woman one last time for good measure:

Again, video if you want to see it all go down:

OK, third scene.  My friend says this is filmed at an intersection that's kept open to regular traffic.  The three cars (there's a third that doesn't make it into the frame) drive to a gas station nearby where the assistant director gives them instructions on what to do when they go through the intersection.  One of the instructions is to drive carefully, as they're on regular streets and the car has fake plates on it (they switched it to Nevada plates for the day, although they never show up on camera.)  The assistant director was in the Corolla with my friend.

Anyway, the scene is of the killer, who is driving the van, being caught on surveillance video.  That's my car behind him.  The other three cars at the intersection are just people in L.A. going about their business as part of a show is being filmed in front of them.

There's my car after the van had turned out of the frame:

The video:

If you're wondering what a car earns for the day, it's $15 extra on the background actor's paycheque.  Yeah, that much!  I guess it's an economical way to provide cars for a set- have the poorest paid, lowest status workers bring them to work for an extra $15.  Still, my friend says it was a lot of fun.  As a Corolla-wrangler he was more a part of things and in a different way than he usually was as a background actor.  Funny thing is, that he didn't actually show up himself anywhere on this episode!  He had been playing a bystander at some daytime scenes when the bodies were lying around in the sun, but was cropped out of the shot in the end.   I had teased him before that they didn't really want him, it was the Corolla they were after...

Extreme Skypeing

The title of my last post reminded me of the time Grise Fiord was on Oprah via Skype.  I didn't have a blog back then so I hope you'll indulge a blast from the fairly recent past.

Oprah discovered Skype in spring of 2009.  For one of her Skype shows, the theme was extreme skypeing.  To prove that you could skype "anywhere", she skype-visited the high arctic, the antarctic, an airplane in flight and a submarine at sea, along with a few less extreme places like Harrod's in England to fill up the show.

Here's the video, and if this doesn't work, it's also on Youtube.  I'm the one in the red coat in the middle as they scan the non-studio audience:

Yes Oprah, it was cold out there (-18 C), but with the sun that was mostly only because we stood around so long during the show.  I was surprised at how few people turned out for the taping.  There was too much glare for us to see anything as it was being taped, but we could hear, and listened to the whole thing as it was being done.

The funny thing was, the theme of the show was that you could skype anywhere, but in actual fact, you couldn't skype under normal conditions to any of the four chosen areas.  Grise Fiord was probably the most skypeable, but they spent days before the Oprah visit setting up a special connection that would work, and even then the connection was lost many times during the taping.  Video skypeing from Grise just didn't work that well in April of 2009.  Some people there were using it in real life, but usually with the video turned off to make it work.

The other three destinations had probably never been skypeable.  When Oprah asked each destination in turn "do you use Skype", each replied that they don't due to technical limitations, and had set up a special connection just for the show.

So much for proving the hypothesis that you can go anywhere in the world via Skype, but it was still a lot of fun.  I found Oprah a bit snide though when Janice was showing her around the town.  Hmm.  I'd rather be in beautiful downtown Grise Fiord than a Chicago studio any day.

My car is going to be on CSI !

A friend of mine works as a "background actor" (extra), on TV and in movies in his spare time.  A few weeks ago he was complaining about the fact that he couldn't use his car for many parts where the extra had to supply one to be used on camera, as his had a big dent in the back of it (many cars in L.A. do, as they get hit by uninsured drivers, which there are a lot of), and it would stand out too much.  I told him that I rarely drive mine, and if a job came up where he needed a car to get the part, then he could borrow mine for the day.

Well, yesterday at dinnertime, my Corolla got the call.  It's been discovered, and it's going to be on CSI !

Why, just a couple of years ago this car was sitting in a parking garage in Ottawa, lonely, neglected, rarely going out except for a quick trip to Loeb or Zellers.  I inherited it when my Mom passed away, and quickly expanded its horizons by driving it across the continent three times.  Still, I'm sure it never dreamed of a career on prime time TV. 

Here's a picture of my Corolla last evening, getting into character:

Today is its big chance- it's on set as you read this.  TV episodes are typically filmed about 2 months before they air... I will be sure to let you know when to mark your calendars to watch my Corolla's debut performance.

Can an Emmy for Outstanding Sedan in a Drama Series be far behind?  It would be an honour just to be nominated.

The Jay Leno Show

On Wednesday I attended a taping of The Jay Leno Show at NBC studios in Burbank.

It was fun.  While Jay Leno is not as funny as Craig Ferguson, he has a much better rapport with the audience- we actually felt like we were part of the experience, and not just onlookers.  It's an efficient taping too- it's "live on tape", so the one hour episode took one hour to tape... well, just over, since we had a quick field trip outside.  Jay also comes out before he changes into his suit, and chats with the audience for a few minutes before the show, answering questions and posing with audience members for photos.  It's a nice touch.

Look, here I am in the audience!  Yeah, I didn't have the greatest seat- it was actually front-row, but waaaaay off to the side, behind the producers and cameras, which you can't really see here (the centre rows go much further forwards than the side rows).  This actually suited me fine, I find the making-of the show to be much more interesting than the show itself.

The main guest was Heidi Klum.  The lucky part about sitting in my way-out-of-the-way section was that we were herded outside during a commerical break to provide a small outdoor audience for Heidi to drive the Green Car Challenge course.  Various guests drive this electric car around a small track, trying to avoid obstacles and beat the time of other celebrities.

 

Here's Heidi doing the course...

Overall, a fun and efficiently-run show, if not terribly highbrow (not that I was expecting highbrow!).  The only negative to the experience was how long they kept us waiting outside before the show- I was one of the later arrivals, arriving just after the 2:15 pm deadline, and it was over an hour before we were herded into the studio.  That's a long time to stand in line.  Good thing I wasn't early!

Note:  it's obvious these aren't my own photos, right?  They're screen captures of the video of the episode from the NBC site.   Shh, don't tell them, I'm sure it's frowned upon!

The Late Late show

OK, I'm getting behind in the documentation of my activities here (blame Nevada!).   Eons ago, on December 11, I went to a taping of the Late Late show.

That's one good thing about L.A., if you want to be part of a studio audience for a taping of something, there are lots of opportunities.  Indeed, in the off-season, I think they are sometimes short of audience members, as this taping had a separate row in the waiting area of well-dressed beautiful females not all of whom were seated in the end, so I guess they were probably actresses/extras who were hired to attend as needed.

So anyway, in deciding what show to attend, I used the following criterion:  What's within walking distance?  As it happens, I live a 20-minute walk from the CBS studios, so that narrowed it down to either the Late Late show, or The Price is Right.

The waiting area had three rows, and a friend and I were able to deduce that they were dividing us up by, at the time what I thought was by looks (since one section was obviously full of glamorous beautiful women), but in the end I think were these 3 categories:  people who had dressed to meet their stated dress code (upscale, don't wear white), people who hadn't (sweats, white colours), and the beauties in the third section who I think were paid to fill out the audience as needed.  We were in the "met dress code" section, which at the time we thought was the "average looks section".

We spent at least as much time waiting around and being herded and coached on clapping and cheering as we did watching the taping, but it was still fun.  I'd never actually seen a full episode of the Late Late show before, but I'd seen internet clips, and Craig Ferguson is as funny in person as he is on TV.

One interesting thing though- the reason he comes through so well on camera, is that he plays completely to the camera, he doesn't interact with the audience at all, not even an aside now and then.  The camera is his audience, we're just there to provide live clapping.  We were far more tightly bonded to the audience warm-up guy, it was kind of like we were clapping for the warm-up-guy's friend Craig who happens to have this show on TV.

The reason I picked this actual night to attend is that there was actually someone I had heard of featured as a guest!  I am kind of out-of-it as far as pop culture goes, but last year I watched the Big Bang Theory (sitcom that is actually usually funny), so when I saw that Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon, was to be the guest that night, I booked tickets.

The interview was short and not all that gripping, and involved the night's recurring joke of "bingo wings" (those loose fat flaps some people have on their upper arms).  I can't remember the actual joke though (it's been almost a month, sorry), but it was very cool to see someone who I usually see only on TV walk in as a real live human.  It's a very small studio, too, so even though we were at the back, you're still close to the stage.

I'm planning on attending upcoming tapings of Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien to compare and contrast, so don't touch that dial!  They don't advertise their guests far enough ahead of time to pick and choose though, so it will probably just be some pathologically good looking famous person who I've never heard of.

Filming something

On the street beside MacArthur Park, they had closed the street and were filming something, maybe a commercial? It had a water truck, a taxi, a bank and Santa Claus. Maybe not a commercial? If you see any scenes in anything that have those elements, I was there.