OH.

To join SAG, a performer must pay an initiation fee of $2,277, plus the first semi-annual basic dues payment of $58. Thus, the total fee to join is $2,335.

FML.

back to life.

This morning was the final night of shooting for Greenberg and by far the longest and the coldest night. We were called at 5pm and of course sat around for a few hours in Zoe's cabana and watched TV mainly. I re-learned a monologue I am doing tomorrow at my audition for Agamemnon tomorrow afternoon. I did it a couple of years ago so it actually just came screaming back to me fairly quickly. Breakfast was yummy, fruit and uncrustables, which are so gross/amazing at the same time. And oddly enough, even though the whole point of uncrustables is to not have the crust of bread, I still don't eat the faux crust. The pot pie like edge, if you will. I just dont like the ends of things I think. In life or in my food.

We came across the first mean, curmudgeonly person on the entire set last night when we went up to crafties to get breakfast. This woman was telling everyone that because we all ate everything the crew never got any bagels or food and se kept hovering and trying to keep people from eating the food that we were all entitled to. She was a major bitch and kept saying "we just put a bunch of food for you guys down in holding". Which by food she meant chips and candy. Idiot. Not to mention the fact that five minutes earlier I had witnessed the crew get their own cheeseburger bar that no one else got. She was lame. I think someone must have said something to her because she changed her tune later in the evening.

Around 9pm we broke for lunch and it was THE BEST. Mexican food complete with tamales and mole and rice pudding which I adore. Then at 10pm on the dot we started filming and shot straight until 5 3o am. It was long and intense and FREEZING because we shot all the exteriors. I volunteered along with Mariana to play beer pong so we also had to chug alot of O'Douls. Well, I had to chug more because she is shockingly good at beer pong. My toes were completely frozen after an hour and I literally thought they were going to fall off.

We were all delirious with exhaustion and frozen, but the funniest moment was when this oddball kid named Joey was sitting up in the tree behind me during the whole scene. He was up there for a few hours when all of a sudden I hear a giant thump and I turn around and Joey had fallen asleep and rolled out of the tree! It was hilarious and horrifying. More hilarious because Mariana called him a Keebler Elf earlier in the evening.

Despite all the fun I was very glad when we wrapped at5 30 am.

Oh yeah:

What the What!?!?!?

WARNING: EPIC POST


It's just completely insane and random how things in life come to pass. After years of freaking out over building some kind of tangible career, of stressing over how in the world I was going to ever take the tiny baby steps to get me anywhere in life, it just lands in my lap.

As most of you know, this past week I have been doing extra work on the set of a film called Greenberg. Directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Ben Stiller. I got the job because Mariana has a friend, Zoe Di Stefano, who originally auditioned for the lead and though she wound up losing the part to this trick, Noah loved her so much she asked her to come back and do a party scene and have a few lines. Zoe is da bomb. Noah and or the casting director decided that for the party scene they should invite friends and family of the cast to do background work as opposed to hiring real extras. That's where I came in. Zoe asked Mariana to do it and Mariana asked me, and I asked Ty. Cherish was also involved.

We knew that there was the off chance that we would get SAG vouchers but were really doing it for the cash munny and for the opportunity to hang out on an awesome set and watch Noah and Ben work.

It seems that after this project is over tomorrow morning, both Ty and I will be able to join SAG which is a HUGE HUGE HUGE step in our careers for both of us. It signals a kind of sea change in the way not only in how we will approach getting jobs but also in the way people respond to us and the opportunities that we will get as a result. Needless to say, we are beyond thrilled. Over the moon, you might say.

Now I shall give you the deets. Basically we show up around 4 or 5 pm and check in with the 2nd 2nd AD named Ian, who Ty has tentatively renamed the King of the Extras. Then we go to wardrobe if they didn't like what clothes you brought and change into what they gave you. They like my own clothes so I don't have to. (Thanks for the hat Max, I think it brought me good luck cuz peeps think I'm adoro) Then we literally sit around for hours. Thank baby Jesus that Zoe has a bungalow because she has lines, so we go and hang out in there. We usually have breakfast around 5pm, then hang, read, play guitar, until rehearsal which last night was at 8pm. Then after that we had lunch and began filming around 1o pm. Last night they only used Ty,Mariana, Zoe and myself until about midnight then we went back to Zoe's suite and made up insane harmonies and played with internet cameras and were all around delirious until about 2 30 am when we went back on set for an exterior shot. Only worked about a half hour then we were wrapped for the night. I got home at 4 am.

Tuesday night they used me a TON more, basically in the party scene, if you are so interested in knowing, they had me placed in various positions and doing some crosses during the party. I worked from 10pm straight til 4 am that night. It was totally worth it to get to watch Ben work.

He is incredibly generous with all the actors as well as the extras and really takes the time to connect with everyone in the room. He has been very polite and gracious, especially considering that he is old and probably really tired and he has two small children. He told yesterday that when he got home Wednesday morning at 5 am he stayed up so he could play with his kids all day. BALLER. He is basically awesome. And he said hi to me last night when we practiced our cross a few times because I am supposed to cross right in front of him.

Noah Baumbach is THRILLING to watch. He is adorable, first off, and he is really respectful of all actors and when you make eye contact with him you feel your spine melt from the intensity.

This experience has been so incredibly fun and I am so lucky to have been able to go through it with my friends. Tonight is the last night of shooting and while I am glad to not be a vampire anymore I will miss it. Even though its only been 3 nights! I get so attached. geesh.

Shout out to Zach Appelman. His friends (now my friends) Davey Franco and Talia are also working on the film, Davey has a really great part and he is the cutest individual I have met in a long time. They also know my lovely friend Amy Gumenick who has also had quite the week. I hope everyone watched the Natalee Holloway movie on LMN because she was spectacular!

Ok I know the epicness of this epic post was almost too much to handle, but i had to share. I will have more details of the final night tomorrow. I hope that they let me jump in the pool. You get paid more for doing crap like that.

OH ps. and just so that God could remind me to not get too happy, this morning, after getting home at 4 am, my next door neighbor decided to cut down the enormous tree that lives right under my bedroom window at 8 am. It was just cruel. I was so tired and confused. I mean who does that? RUDE. What the hell kind of GD shit is that?

Title.

I had another crazy weekend though not as exhausting as the last one luckily. On Saturday I had a rehearsal for As You Like It, which went great, it just takes every ounce of strength in my poor body to get up for an 8 am rehearsal. Especially when I had to work the rest of the day as well.

Sunday I had a rehearsal in the afternoon at a lovely park in Hollywood that I had never even heard of before and it was pretty cool. It had art installations and live music and a theatre, but we rehearsed outside. It was ridiculously hot but it wasn't too awful. Except for the fact that Jake had his bicycle stolen. That was not cool. As a person who has never stolen anything in my life I just don't understand how one can walk off with someone else's belongings! It is ridiculous! And the fact that no one saw anything just perplexes me.


I'm doing some extra work for Greenberg starting tomorrow and I'm starting to get worried that they won't give me some SAG vouchers which is really the primary reason to be doing this. I just really really need to get in the union. I'm over this! So I really hope to get a voucher out of this. Especially since I am going to have to be a vampire for the next three days. And I'm doing a raw food cleanse so I'm going to be starved the whole time and having to stay away from Craft Services which is actually the greatest part of being on set. Le sigh. I hate "The Secret" but I am going to Secret those vouchers into my hands if it kills me.

On a similar note:

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Top officials at the bitterly divided Screen Actors Guild said they approved a tentative contract on Sunday, clearing the way for the 120,000 members of Hollywood's biggest union to vote on the deal.

"Our board voted by a slim majority to send out a deal to our membership," said SAG President Alan Rosenberg, who is opposed to the contract and described it as "terrible."

The vote, following a two-day meeting of SAG's national board of directors was 53.4 percent in favor of recommending the deal.

The membership vote, which requires a simple majority, is likely to happen in the next four to five weeks. For now, the bitterly divided union's supporters and opponents will draw up their arguments and rebuttals to present to voters.

SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents movie studios, announced on Friday that they had struck a tentative deal after months of often rancorous talks that helped bring production to a standstill amid fears of a strike.

The agreement -- covering actors ranging from struggling extras to big-name stars in movies and TV -- delivers 3.5 percent effective annual increases. It will not be retroactive to the June 30, 2008, expiration the old contract, which was a major SAG goal.

As a result, SAG members would lose tens of millions of dollars in pay increases they would have earned had SAG accepted the AMPTP's offer last June, one source said.

A key issue was how much actors should be paid for work delivered by new media, including the Internet and mobile phones, which are seen as a vital future distribution outlet. The new pact largely offers nothing extra in these areas.

Film production has slowed in Hollywood due to the labor uncertainty and the recession, and experts said a deal should pave the way for some increase in moviemaking.

Hollywood has feared a rerun of the 2007/2008 writers strike that crippled most television production and cost the Los Angeles-area economy an estimated $3 billion.

The lengthy talks split the SAG membership, with a moderate faction in January ousting hard-line chief negotiator Doug Allen, a Rosenberg ally, and forming a new negotiating team. Talks resumed, but then broke down again in February.

"I wouldn't say it's our finest moment," Rosenberg said of the infighting.

Rosenberg told reporters he would not resign from his unpaid post if members voted for the pact.

Rather, he hoped a "no" vote would force the studios to "finally deal with us in good faith when it comes to the Internet, when it comes to the future."

In a statement, the AMPTP said both sides reached a compromise deal that promised SAG members "meaningful" wage increases.

"With this agreement in place, our entire industry can work together to overcome the enormous economic challenges before us," it said."

Eeep.

The Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors today voted 73% to 27% to “reject the AMPTPs last, best and final offer dated February 19, 2009.”

Wonder what this means for me.