BACK IN YOUR HEAD!!!
okay, so i completely and totally can't believe i actually did it, but last weekend i flew to seattle from atlanta to drive to vancouver to be in tegan and sara's next music video. yes, i was pretty certain i'd lost my mind... they'd posted on the 4th that they needed extras, and here i was on the 6th contemplating leaving on the 7th... and i'm taking the georgia BAR EXAM in less than TWO WEEKS... however, despite my potentially better judgment, i realized that this could quite possibly be one of the coolest things ever...
the next day was a rough trip from atlanta to phoenix to seattle, and then the next morning was a sleepy drive to vancouver. i've never even BEEN to the pacific northwest, so it was pretty cool just to drive and look around, but i was terrified of getting lost and missing the shoot! luckily, mapquest was my friend, and i was driving down a tiny side street and came upon the elementary school i was looking for just in time to see a bunch of random stragglers milling around the basketball courts outside of the school. i'd found the extras! i hurried to get a move on as i saw them starting to go inside, since i was already slightly panicking about not knowing anyone and wondering what the hell i was doing!
once inside, they led us down into the cafeteria of the old building... god, did that bring back memories of my catholic elementary school days... *shudders* we hung around a bit more until the guy who seemed to be in charge of all the extras told us to come sign our paperwork and cross our names off of the list, and then we lined up and he took each of our pictures and had us write down our name next to the picture number. (i'm really wondering what they DO with those pictures...) they announced that we needed to take off all watches and jewelry... but that piercings were fine (and i was looking around the room thinking, they sure as hell better be, have you ever BEEN to a tegan and sara concert?!?!?) then we went to get in ANOTHER line where they had started handing out the costumes. the costume people were like, "okay, now it's really going to be like elementary school... let's get in line according to height!" all of the midgets moved to the front (okay, okay, so i was a little jealous because i'm tall...) and they started handing out white t-shirts, white sweatpants, white socks, and white balaclavas to everyone (while me and the girl behind me had a conversation about how we'd had to google "balaclava" when we'd gotten the email from t&s's production crew confirming that we'd be there for the shoot because we had no idea what it was! everyone let me off the hook because i was from the U.S... apparently it's a canadian thing?? in the U.S. it's just a ski mask!) after a while they ran out of white sweatpants, and all of us tall people were slightly disappointed.
the woman who was handing out the clothes (who seemed very stressed out about the whole thing) eventually asked some of the kids who had gotten full outfits to put them on so that she could see the effect. despite the stress she looked pretty pleased! (us tall kids were again jealous.) she joked about having everyone assume a ninja pose, and everyone seemed only too happy to comply...
eventually they ran out of white t-shirts too, and the kids who had come in late were given full black outfits. (at that point all of us early, tall kids were like, wtf?? not fair! it all worked out in the end, though.) we were soon ushered up the stairs to the auditorium where all of the equipment was being set up, and a guy started to direct us into rows on the right. we were constantly reminded to tuck in our hair, straighten the eye holes, pull the balaclava flat on our head, tuck it into our collar, fix our neighbor, etc. etc. etc... finally, the stressed-out lady looked us all over and was like, "i'm not gonna say you look GOOD... but you look WEIRD!" and gave us a thumbs up.
once we were all situated, the fun began! we were told that we were supposed to move our heads slowly from right to left as if watching someone walk across the stage. turns out it's kind of hard to get everyone to do that together. the guy that was directing us all got up on stage and tried to walk back and forth, which was really rather funny because all of the lighting and camera equipment was up there, and he kind of had to quickly climb and crawl so we would all still be moving our heads in the direction we were supposed to. (someone shortly thereafter came up with the brilliant idea of putting neon green tape up on the walls in the shape of numbers so that we could just look at 1... then 2... then 3... then back to 1...) we started to get the hang of THAT, and then they wanted us to do MORE! god forbid! when the chorus of the song started, they wanted us all bop our heads left and right (rather mechanically) to the beat. there was general murmuring of disbelief and nervous embarrassment about looking reeeeeallly stupid doing this, and we all pretty much did the first time they put on the music and half the crowd lapsed into giggles when we got to the head-nodding part. (out of the other half, some went left, some went right, and some were on their own beat completely...) the directors had a general expression of mixed annoyance and amusement as we worked on this several more times (who the hell knew this was so hard???) but we got it mostly down (part of the problem was that while the director was yelling "LEFT!" he was nodding his own head to HIS left, which was OUR right... and confusion ensued...)
once we had filmed that part (successfully!) a few times, the REAL fun began! we had all started out sitting on the right side of the auditorium. well, next, we all got up and moved to the right half of the middle section of the auditorium (all of the people in the white pants had to stay on the outside row to give the impression that we were ALL wearing all white... and finally the mystery was solved about why only some of us got pants. mind you, still not everyone was completely satisfied about not having pants, but what could you do.) from our new positions, we filmed the head shifting and head-bopping again (we were getting to be pretty good at this), and then we got up and moved to the left side of the center section, and then the left section, and did it all again each time (WHITE PANTS ON THE OUTSIDE ROW SEATS PLEASE!!! oh, and did i mention that the people in white sitting in the front row got white GLOVES too??? no fair!!!) every time we got to a new seat, it was readjust the balaclava, sit up straight, hands in your lap, feet on the floor, knees together... man, we were great little robots. :)
next, things got even more interesting. people in BLACK started to come into the picture! at first there was only one person in black, then more and then more. many of us in white had been given a black shirt and a black balaclava, so after the people with the full black outfits had come in, some of us changed to black as well when we were told to. (look how good someone was being... helping her (his? we were all completely faceless at this point) neighbor get all tucked in!)
a very funny part here occurred when the director said over his walkie talkie that he needed "more black people"... after some general confusion and amusement about this un-PC statement, they were thence referred to as "people in black." heh.
get up, sit down, tuck in, stare at the "1" under the camera... get up, sit down, tuck in, stare at the "1" under the camera... get up, sit down...
by this time, we were beginning to gain an audience, as emy and others appeared in the wings to take pictures and videos of us (at this point i'm sure i wasn't the only one who was glad i was going to be completely unidentifiable during the head-bopping... they seemed very amused by us...)
soon after, we were no longer shifting and bopping (bummer, it got really addictive after a while) but were moving to our new seats, putting on our new colors, sitting up straight, and staring straight at the "1" under the camera while they filmed us for a few seconds. in a particularly amusing moment, tegan walked across the stage (the first time most of us had seem either of them) and little murmurs swept across the crowd. the director, who seemed not to notice, was calling for everyone to begin filming again, and for all of us to look straight ahead and not move. tegan was standing off of the stage watching, though we could all still see her, and, should they decide to use that particular shot, look closely and you will see 70 sets of eyes flicking back and forth between the neon green #1 under the camera and the left side of the stage!
to add the the excitement, gray was added to the mix. stand up, sit down, put on gray, put on black and throw the costume people all your gray, they throw you back the gray... throw them back the gray... hold on to your black, put on gray, put on white... arrrggghhh! soon we all became pros at removing and applying balaclavas, though everyone's hair was beginning to look more and more disastrous. :-D
dude, it's HOT wearing three shirts...
then, just as everyone was truly beginning to look their sweaty, ruffled best, who should come into the auditorium but tegan and sara, with a VIDEO CAMERA! (yeah, i hope that gets into a documentary... man, will we look GOOOOD...)
they thanked us for coming, and said it was great we were there because their family was there and we were helping to prove to their family that they had actually chosen a good path for their lives... LOL. then sara told us that they had actually been watching us from the back the whole time and laughing at us (thanks guys!), though the best was when sara said, "this looked really cool in my head... but you all kind of look like burn victims!" (hard to disagree, there...) then sara asked if we were being paid (we all laughed) so then she says, "well, thank you for donating your time... tegan has promised (tegan looks at her curiously) that she will give you all pleasure at the end of the day. (everyone cracks up and tegan turns and walks as if to leave the auditorium and says, "thanks a lot, sara, our FAMILY is here, i mean, our MOM is right here!") TOO funny, my god...
we were then dismissed for a short break, and tegan and sara hung around to talk to everyone (and sara told us not to eat the donuts... so that SHE could eat the donuts...) and emy continued to film us (this will be an awesome documentary... :)
after the break (which was all of five minutes) we were called back, and some of us were given red to wear (i admit it, i hovered around until i got a red... i just wanted to feel special like the people with pants!!! but wouldn't you know it... out of the 16 people with red, only 10 got pants, and it STILL wasn't me!!!)
this time, the red got to make cool geometric shapes within the white, which apparently will look like they're moving when you see the video. once again it was sit down, stand up, switch places, sit down, readjust, watch the #1, don't move, stand up, switch places... since i was AGAIN one of the ones without pants, i often got relegated to the back (no bitterness, i swear! :)
i got to sit next to some fun people, and it was just so amusing that we all looked so goofy (the costume lady continued to tell us, "okay, i won't say you look good, but you look WEIRD.") everyone did become oddly faceless, and one girl i sat next to was like, "i lost my friend!" *looks around at the sea of masks, bewildered* "oh well, i guess i'm never going to find her..."
everyone was getting extremely hot and tired and antsy, so luckily we were almost done. t&s came out again to take pictures with the whole lot of us, which was awesome.
at that point, almost everyone was free to go... everyone except a few of us, who had volunteered to stay for the entire rest of the shooting process to be wherever else we were needed. (i looked at the list the guy in charge of the extras was keeping, which had the names of the people who were staying late... on there was "girl from atlanta"... HA! i was like, dude, i travelled this far... :) we took a break for dinner (YAY FREE FOOD!!!) and to await further instructions.
the rest of the night was really cool, because tegan and sara finally started filming their parts of the video! it was awesome just to watch how the whole thing was done... you always see the finished product, and it was so interesting just to see what went into it.
the girls were on the stage we had been staring at all day, and the lighting had been rearranged to be on them. tegan was at the drums and sara was at the piano (playing the piano hook from the song over and over and over and over and...) and it was a lot of fun to watch them give input, wait for instructions, look bored, mess with the instruments... (i loved it when sara started playing chopsticks to amuse herself and us... that's about the only thing i can play on the piano!)
the drums and piano were way out of tune (since the sound doesn't actually end up in the video anyway) so i'm sure it will sound WAY better in the video (not that it was their fault!) sara was actually singing most of the time too (i still think it's got to be super weird to have to listen to yourself on repeat like that).
the girls filmed the first verse and refrain, during which time sara walked back and forth across the stage (OH!!! WE FINALLY GET IT! all of us burn victims in the audience are watching HER walk across the stage! OHHHH okay!)
unfortunately, it was very hard to take pictures sitting out in the audience looking up at the stage, because the lighting was just NOT kind to my poor little camera. luckily, they soon asked for eight of us dressed in black to come up on stage to walk in behind tegan and sara, and the lighting was MUCH easier to take pictures with from backstage! (while we had been waiting for this next part of the shooting to happen, most of us still hanging around had been given full black outfits, complete with gloves! i finally had gloves! AND PANTS!!! SO EXCITING!!!)
once we got on stage, our job was to wait until the right time (which, the guy in charge of us extras was holding a sheet with the lyrics on it so he could follow along, and the sheet, i swear, had the WRONG lyrics. not that the lyrics booklet is out yet or anything so we can know for sure, but now that i've heard that song about 400 times in one day, i'm pretty certain they were wrong! where the heck did they get their lyrics from?!?), and then to walk onto stage behind tegan and sara, turn to face the audience, and just stare forward blankly... until we hit the refrain again, at which point the head-bobbing recommenced! (AHH! we all thought we were done with that!) we practiced walking onto stage several times (which was much more difficult that you would imagine, because there happened to be a lighting rigging tripod RIGHT in the doorway we were entering the stage from. quickly climb over light rigging and then gracefully walk onto stage. riiiiiight.)
it was pretty entertaining standing back there, though, because the girls would talk to us in between takes (tegan: "are your outfits comfortable, at least??" (we all groan... what with the lights of the stage, we were all in mini-saunas) tegan: "yeah, i know, i'm so sorry it's so cold in here, we tried to get the heat turned on for you guys and everything..." :)
after a few takes, unfortunately, the powers-that-be decided that eight of us on stage was too many... and the two of us at the end were cut out. somewhat heartbroken, we were determined to stay backstage in the hopes that we might be needed... and to get good pictures! ;)
deep in concentration watching the playback...
sara getting some instruction...
i was terribly amused by the makeup and hair people, who would flutter onto stage periodically to do touch-ups... the girl with the makeup had one plastic bag that had "sara" written on it in sharpie, and one that said "tegan," which for some reason was funny to me. we were all standing there in our masks, pretending to be all put out ("where's OUR makeup?? hmmmm???")
sara getting made over...
tegan's turn...
time for some close-ups! (at one point they were doing close-ups of sara's hands playing the piano melody over and over and over, and all of us were sitting out in the hall going, "oh god! make it stop!!!" when sara came out into the hallway, we were like, "hey, sara, we've decided you should play something else. we're tired of hearing that one!" she was like, "no kidding...")
one of the other amusing incidents was right after the black people drift on stage, it hits the part in the song that says "when i get a little... run, run, run..." and tegan and sara take off running off of the stage in the direction we were coming on from. unfortunately there was that whole LIGHTING POLE there, and the first time they tried running off of the stage, sara seriously collided with it (sara: "i'm okay!" (as the people standing up on the ladders she had run into regained their balance) sara: "i was sure... i thought, 'this is it, we're all going down!'") they ran off more carefully the rest of the takes. ;)
the two of us who had been ousted also ran into emy in the hall and asked her what the hell all of these crazy outfits had to do with the song. what she said finally made it make a little sense... just about how all of us had started out wearing white, but then gray and black were added to the picture more and more, and how it was symbolizing negativity creeping into a relationship ("like the things that just get under your skin...") which is what the song was about, and about how at the end it's just darkness ("you don't know how creepy it is when all of you in black just glide onto stage and stare!") more and more i just can't wait to see what this thing is going to look like when it's done!!!
then, a VERY exciting thing (for me!) happened... they needed to do more shots with us creepy black people walking on into the background, and since most of the original people who had been in the earlier shots had left, those of us who hadn't were ON! man, were we excited about that!!! we were all still complaining about being hot and tired and taking the balaclavas off and on and off and on, but you know we were loving every minute of it...
tripping over the lighting pole:
me climbing back over the light rigging to get off of the stage...
while we were standing up on stage, tegan and sara were supposed to run back onstage on the opposite side they had run off from. this was especially entertaining because they were supposed to run on looking all breathless... so in an attempt to be breathless they were back there doing jumping jacks, jogging in place, pretending to beat each other up... (tegan: (jumping) "have you done jumping jacks in a long time??" sara: (jumping) "no." tegan: "they're hard!" .... sara: (jumping around, breathless) "i am a lazy person! i am going to have a stroke and die right here and we're just going to have to make do with what we've got!") it was just so funny, that at one point, right after we finished a take, the costume lady came up to me and was like, "do you know you were smiling through that whole time? you have to look serious!" and i'm like, "serious! right! i'm serious!" like it's possible to be serious with their running commentary going on between every take... i got it together, though. :-D
while they were running back onstage, the six of us were supposed to be behind them, bobbing left and right again to the beat of the music until the end. unfortunately, every time tegan and sara did what the directors wanted them to when they ran on stage, i think we were screwing up in the background... it wasn't entirely our fault, they kept starting the music on a different beat every time, and one of the director guys was moving his head in the wrong direction and telling us to follow him! (director: "do you guys want me going 'LEFT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT!'?" us: "YES!" me: "we need all the help we can get back here." sara: "WE need all the help WE can get back here...") hopefully it will all look okay in the end and we won't have made them jump around forever in vain!!!
while the crew finished up with the close-ups they needed, we waited outside for what was going to be the last scene, in the boiler room downstairs. by now it was around 11PM (they'd told us they thought we should be done at 8, but we knew better. :) and for those of us still there, we didn't really CARE!) everyone was getting a bit sleepy, but we were hanging in there.
i <3 my balaclava...
me and metaldave!!!
once they got all of the equipment moved down into the boiler room, they attempted to try to choreograph all of us in motion, so we all got our spots and instructions.
this did not work out so well the first time, and there was much colliding. however, things smoothed out after we did it a few times (and we all agreed that WE would be scared if we ran into people like US in a boiler room...) our one new addition to the group of extras was a 7-year-old boy, who got to be our tiny black-masked one, and got to hold a bunch of black balloons.
emy taking more pictures of us...
after we had filmed the black segment a few times (with tegan and sara running through the middle of all of us) we changed into white and did exactly the same thing.
the camera guy announced that they had only 45 feet of film left (yes, they were using FILM...!) and so we had to get it down with the white costumes, and then we were done! the last few takes ended up just fine (thank god) and it was all over.
everyone went to get changed out of their costumes, and people started trying to take pieces of clothing (when we were onstage behind tegan, she was like, "do you guys at least get to KEEP those things?" we all shrugged, and she was like, "i'll put in a good word for you...") so when the costume lady started freaking out at us, someone was like, "tegan said we could!" and the lady was like, "she can't just make an executive decision like that!" and disappeared back into the boiler room... a few minutes later she came out and told us we could each keep ONE outfit. yeah, we see who's in charge around here. heh. :) i grabbed black sweatpants and a black t-shirt (the socks and gloves were just gross at that point) and a white balaclava for them to sign (tegan wrote "don't wear me" on mine... not a bad idea, there... especially having no idea how many other people wore that white thing that day...) i actually had to grab a second balaclava and have them sign it again because someone TOOK my first one (seriously people, it's not like they weren't right there able to sign one for you!) but they were cool about it, they seemed so glad that all of us had stuck it out for the whole 16-hour day! they hung around and took pictures for a little while...
i seriously love this one because it looks like sara has butterfly antennae, which is just too cute...
when everyone was satisfied, they headed out of there to go home! metaldave was kind enough to let me follow him in his truck to get back to the highway, and i tailed them the entire way to the canadian border (this time going through customs i actually told the guy that my reason for being in canada was that i'd been in a music video... on the way through i totally had made stuff up about visiting friends... i was convinced they'd think i was crazy and wouldn't let me through!)
i drove until i was about an hour and a half outside of seattle and i was getting so tired that i was afraid i was going to drive off the road, so i pulled over and took a nap in a denny's parking lot for a few hours (seriously, it was the safest looking parking lot i could find, and it was better than driving off of the road, i figured...) i finally got back to my friend's house in seattle at 6AM (i had to wake him up so he could let me in, and he was like, where the hell were you?!?) and at 11AM it was back off to the airport!! i ran the whole way and barely made my flight... things went smoothly from seattle to las vegas, but then my flight in las vegas got cancelled and i ended up spending another 8 hours there... finally got on a flight to atlanta, and landed in atlanta at 6AM! drug myself to my car (had to pay $60 for parking because i'd lost my ticket) and then drug myself to class at 9AM (i slept through almost the entire second hour of the lecture... i decided it was totally not worth it to stay the rest of the day and left at 1...) and passed out on the couch at 9PM and didn't wake up until 10:30 the next morning (missed the morning class... arrrggghh!)
looking back, i seriously can't believe that i did all that! i'm finally only now starting to tell my friends where i actually WENT over the weekend (i only told like two before i left because i was convinced they'd think i'd lost my mind. they still do, only now i know the experience was so worth it that i DON'T CARE! seriously, a conversation with my study buddy: "um, so remember how i told you i was babysitting last weekend and that was why i needed you to let the dog out for me?" her: "yeah?" me: "ummmm, wellll... i actually flew to vancouver and was in tegan and sara's music video." her: "you WHAT?!?!?" *laughing* "you're CRAZY!" me: *grinning* "i know!")
but wow, i am so glad i went (even though it will perhaps be another month before i get that song OUT of my head...) it was totally worth the time and trouble to be a part of something that cool, and i can't wait to see the video (i'll be one of those crazy grandmothers pointing myself out to my grandkids someday: "see that?? that's me in the white in the fifth row! now i'm in gray! no, seriously! where are you going??") just, wow.
man, i hope they do this again someday! i will SO be there...
the next day was a rough trip from atlanta to phoenix to seattle, and then the next morning was a sleepy drive to vancouver. i've never even BEEN to the pacific northwest, so it was pretty cool just to drive and look around, but i was terrified of getting lost and missing the shoot! luckily, mapquest was my friend, and i was driving down a tiny side street and came upon the elementary school i was looking for just in time to see a bunch of random stragglers milling around the basketball courts outside of the school. i'd found the extras! i hurried to get a move on as i saw them starting to go inside, since i was already slightly panicking about not knowing anyone and wondering what the hell i was doing!
once inside, they led us down into the cafeteria of the old building... god, did that bring back memories of my catholic elementary school days... *shudders* we hung around a bit more until the guy who seemed to be in charge of all the extras told us to come sign our paperwork and cross our names off of the list, and then we lined up and he took each of our pictures and had us write down our name next to the picture number. (i'm really wondering what they DO with those pictures...) they announced that we needed to take off all watches and jewelry... but that piercings were fine (and i was looking around the room thinking, they sure as hell better be, have you ever BEEN to a tegan and sara concert?!?!?) then we went to get in ANOTHER line where they had started handing out the costumes. the costume people were like, "okay, now it's really going to be like elementary school... let's get in line according to height!" all of the midgets moved to the front (okay, okay, so i was a little jealous because i'm tall...) and they started handing out white t-shirts, white sweatpants, white socks, and white balaclavas to everyone (while me and the girl behind me had a conversation about how we'd had to google "balaclava" when we'd gotten the email from t&s's production crew confirming that we'd be there for the shoot because we had no idea what it was! everyone let me off the hook because i was from the U.S... apparently it's a canadian thing?? in the U.S. it's just a ski mask!) after a while they ran out of white sweatpants, and all of us tall people were slightly disappointed.
the woman who was handing out the clothes (who seemed very stressed out about the whole thing) eventually asked some of the kids who had gotten full outfits to put them on so that she could see the effect. despite the stress she looked pretty pleased! (us tall kids were again jealous.) she joked about having everyone assume a ninja pose, and everyone seemed only too happy to comply...
eventually they ran out of white t-shirts too, and the kids who had come in late were given full black outfits. (at that point all of us early, tall kids were like, wtf?? not fair! it all worked out in the end, though.) we were soon ushered up the stairs to the auditorium where all of the equipment was being set up, and a guy started to direct us into rows on the right. we were constantly reminded to tuck in our hair, straighten the eye holes, pull the balaclava flat on our head, tuck it into our collar, fix our neighbor, etc. etc. etc... finally, the stressed-out lady looked us all over and was like, "i'm not gonna say you look GOOD... but you look WEIRD!" and gave us a thumbs up.
once we were all situated, the fun began! we were told that we were supposed to move our heads slowly from right to left as if watching someone walk across the stage. turns out it's kind of hard to get everyone to do that together. the guy that was directing us all got up on stage and tried to walk back and forth, which was really rather funny because all of the lighting and camera equipment was up there, and he kind of had to quickly climb and crawl so we would all still be moving our heads in the direction we were supposed to. (someone shortly thereafter came up with the brilliant idea of putting neon green tape up on the walls in the shape of numbers so that we could just look at 1... then 2... then 3... then back to 1...) we started to get the hang of THAT, and then they wanted us to do MORE! god forbid! when the chorus of the song started, they wanted us all bop our heads left and right (rather mechanically) to the beat. there was general murmuring of disbelief and nervous embarrassment about looking reeeeeallly stupid doing this, and we all pretty much did the first time they put on the music and half the crowd lapsed into giggles when we got to the head-nodding part. (out of the other half, some went left, some went right, and some were on their own beat completely...) the directors had a general expression of mixed annoyance and amusement as we worked on this several more times (who the hell knew this was so hard???) but we got it mostly down (part of the problem was that while the director was yelling "LEFT!" he was nodding his own head to HIS left, which was OUR right... and confusion ensued...)
once we had filmed that part (successfully!) a few times, the REAL fun began! we had all started out sitting on the right side of the auditorium. well, next, we all got up and moved to the right half of the middle section of the auditorium (all of the people in the white pants had to stay on the outside row to give the impression that we were ALL wearing all white... and finally the mystery was solved about why only some of us got pants. mind you, still not everyone was completely satisfied about not having pants, but what could you do.) from our new positions, we filmed the head shifting and head-bopping again (we were getting to be pretty good at this), and then we got up and moved to the left side of the center section, and then the left section, and did it all again each time (WHITE PANTS ON THE OUTSIDE ROW SEATS PLEASE!!! oh, and did i mention that the people in white sitting in the front row got white GLOVES too??? no fair!!!) every time we got to a new seat, it was readjust the balaclava, sit up straight, hands in your lap, feet on the floor, knees together... man, we were great little robots. :)
next, things got even more interesting. people in BLACK started to come into the picture! at first there was only one person in black, then more and then more. many of us in white had been given a black shirt and a black balaclava, so after the people with the full black outfits had come in, some of us changed to black as well when we were told to. (look how good someone was being... helping her (his? we were all completely faceless at this point) neighbor get all tucked in!)
a very funny part here occurred when the director said over his walkie talkie that he needed "more black people"... after some general confusion and amusement about this un-PC statement, they were thence referred to as "people in black." heh.
get up, sit down, tuck in, stare at the "1" under the camera... get up, sit down, tuck in, stare at the "1" under the camera... get up, sit down...
by this time, we were beginning to gain an audience, as emy and others appeared in the wings to take pictures and videos of us (at this point i'm sure i wasn't the only one who was glad i was going to be completely unidentifiable during the head-bopping... they seemed very amused by us...)
soon after, we were no longer shifting and bopping (bummer, it got really addictive after a while) but were moving to our new seats, putting on our new colors, sitting up straight, and staring straight at the "1" under the camera while they filmed us for a few seconds. in a particularly amusing moment, tegan walked across the stage (the first time most of us had seem either of them) and little murmurs swept across the crowd. the director, who seemed not to notice, was calling for everyone to begin filming again, and for all of us to look straight ahead and not move. tegan was standing off of the stage watching, though we could all still see her, and, should they decide to use that particular shot, look closely and you will see 70 sets of eyes flicking back and forth between the neon green #1 under the camera and the left side of the stage!
to add the the excitement, gray was added to the mix. stand up, sit down, put on gray, put on black and throw the costume people all your gray, they throw you back the gray... throw them back the gray... hold on to your black, put on gray, put on white... arrrggghhh! soon we all became pros at removing and applying balaclavas, though everyone's hair was beginning to look more and more disastrous. :-D
dude, it's HOT wearing three shirts...
then, just as everyone was truly beginning to look their sweaty, ruffled best, who should come into the auditorium but tegan and sara, with a VIDEO CAMERA! (yeah, i hope that gets into a documentary... man, will we look GOOOOD...)
they thanked us for coming, and said it was great we were there because their family was there and we were helping to prove to their family that they had actually chosen a good path for their lives... LOL. then sara told us that they had actually been watching us from the back the whole time and laughing at us (thanks guys!), though the best was when sara said, "this looked really cool in my head... but you all kind of look like burn victims!" (hard to disagree, there...) then sara asked if we were being paid (we all laughed) so then she says, "well, thank you for donating your time... tegan has promised (tegan looks at her curiously) that she will give you all pleasure at the end of the day. (everyone cracks up and tegan turns and walks as if to leave the auditorium and says, "thanks a lot, sara, our FAMILY is here, i mean, our MOM is right here!") TOO funny, my god...
we were then dismissed for a short break, and tegan and sara hung around to talk to everyone (and sara told us not to eat the donuts... so that SHE could eat the donuts...) and emy continued to film us (this will be an awesome documentary... :)
after the break (which was all of five minutes) we were called back, and some of us were given red to wear (i admit it, i hovered around until i got a red... i just wanted to feel special like the people with pants!!! but wouldn't you know it... out of the 16 people with red, only 10 got pants, and it STILL wasn't me!!!)
this time, the red got to make cool geometric shapes within the white, which apparently will look like they're moving when you see the video. once again it was sit down, stand up, switch places, sit down, readjust, watch the #1, don't move, stand up, switch places... since i was AGAIN one of the ones without pants, i often got relegated to the back (no bitterness, i swear! :)
i got to sit next to some fun people, and it was just so amusing that we all looked so goofy (the costume lady continued to tell us, "okay, i won't say you look good, but you look WEIRD.") everyone did become oddly faceless, and one girl i sat next to was like, "i lost my friend!" *looks around at the sea of masks, bewildered* "oh well, i guess i'm never going to find her..."
everyone was getting extremely hot and tired and antsy, so luckily we were almost done. t&s came out again to take pictures with the whole lot of us, which was awesome.
at that point, almost everyone was free to go... everyone except a few of us, who had volunteered to stay for the entire rest of the shooting process to be wherever else we were needed. (i looked at the list the guy in charge of the extras was keeping, which had the names of the people who were staying late... on there was "girl from atlanta"... HA! i was like, dude, i travelled this far... :) we took a break for dinner (YAY FREE FOOD!!!) and to await further instructions.
the rest of the night was really cool, because tegan and sara finally started filming their parts of the video! it was awesome just to watch how the whole thing was done... you always see the finished product, and it was so interesting just to see what went into it.
the girls were on the stage we had been staring at all day, and the lighting had been rearranged to be on them. tegan was at the drums and sara was at the piano (playing the piano hook from the song over and over and over and over and...) and it was a lot of fun to watch them give input, wait for instructions, look bored, mess with the instruments... (i loved it when sara started playing chopsticks to amuse herself and us... that's about the only thing i can play on the piano!)
the drums and piano were way out of tune (since the sound doesn't actually end up in the video anyway) so i'm sure it will sound WAY better in the video (not that it was their fault!) sara was actually singing most of the time too (i still think it's got to be super weird to have to listen to yourself on repeat like that).
the girls filmed the first verse and refrain, during which time sara walked back and forth across the stage (OH!!! WE FINALLY GET IT! all of us burn victims in the audience are watching HER walk across the stage! OHHHH okay!)
unfortunately, it was very hard to take pictures sitting out in the audience looking up at the stage, because the lighting was just NOT kind to my poor little camera. luckily, they soon asked for eight of us dressed in black to come up on stage to walk in behind tegan and sara, and the lighting was MUCH easier to take pictures with from backstage! (while we had been waiting for this next part of the shooting to happen, most of us still hanging around had been given full black outfits, complete with gloves! i finally had gloves! AND PANTS!!! SO EXCITING!!!)
once we got on stage, our job was to wait until the right time (which, the guy in charge of us extras was holding a sheet with the lyrics on it so he could follow along, and the sheet, i swear, had the WRONG lyrics. not that the lyrics booklet is out yet or anything so we can know for sure, but now that i've heard that song about 400 times in one day, i'm pretty certain they were wrong! where the heck did they get their lyrics from?!?), and then to walk onto stage behind tegan and sara, turn to face the audience, and just stare forward blankly... until we hit the refrain again, at which point the head-bobbing recommenced! (AHH! we all thought we were done with that!) we practiced walking onto stage several times (which was much more difficult that you would imagine, because there happened to be a lighting rigging tripod RIGHT in the doorway we were entering the stage from. quickly climb over light rigging and then gracefully walk onto stage. riiiiiight.)
it was pretty entertaining standing back there, though, because the girls would talk to us in between takes (tegan: "are your outfits comfortable, at least??" (we all groan... what with the lights of the stage, we were all in mini-saunas) tegan: "yeah, i know, i'm so sorry it's so cold in here, we tried to get the heat turned on for you guys and everything..." :)
after a few takes, unfortunately, the powers-that-be decided that eight of us on stage was too many... and the two of us at the end were cut out. somewhat heartbroken, we were determined to stay backstage in the hopes that we might be needed... and to get good pictures! ;)
deep in concentration watching the playback...
sara getting some instruction...
i was terribly amused by the makeup and hair people, who would flutter onto stage periodically to do touch-ups... the girl with the makeup had one plastic bag that had "sara" written on it in sharpie, and one that said "tegan," which for some reason was funny to me. we were all standing there in our masks, pretending to be all put out ("where's OUR makeup?? hmmmm???")
sara getting made over...
tegan's turn...
time for some close-ups! (at one point they were doing close-ups of sara's hands playing the piano melody over and over and over, and all of us were sitting out in the hall going, "oh god! make it stop!!!" when sara came out into the hallway, we were like, "hey, sara, we've decided you should play something else. we're tired of hearing that one!" she was like, "no kidding...")
one of the other amusing incidents was right after the black people drift on stage, it hits the part in the song that says "when i get a little... run, run, run..." and tegan and sara take off running off of the stage in the direction we were coming on from. unfortunately there was that whole LIGHTING POLE there, and the first time they tried running off of the stage, sara seriously collided with it (sara: "i'm okay!" (as the people standing up on the ladders she had run into regained their balance) sara: "i was sure... i thought, 'this is it, we're all going down!'") they ran off more carefully the rest of the takes. ;)
the two of us who had been ousted also ran into emy in the hall and asked her what the hell all of these crazy outfits had to do with the song. what she said finally made it make a little sense... just about how all of us had started out wearing white, but then gray and black were added to the picture more and more, and how it was symbolizing negativity creeping into a relationship ("like the things that just get under your skin...") which is what the song was about, and about how at the end it's just darkness ("you don't know how creepy it is when all of you in black just glide onto stage and stare!") more and more i just can't wait to see what this thing is going to look like when it's done!!!
then, a VERY exciting thing (for me!) happened... they needed to do more shots with us creepy black people walking on into the background, and since most of the original people who had been in the earlier shots had left, those of us who hadn't were ON! man, were we excited about that!!! we were all still complaining about being hot and tired and taking the balaclavas off and on and off and on, but you know we were loving every minute of it...
tripping over the lighting pole:
me climbing back over the light rigging to get off of the stage...
while we were standing up on stage, tegan and sara were supposed to run back onstage on the opposite side they had run off from. this was especially entertaining because they were supposed to run on looking all breathless... so in an attempt to be breathless they were back there doing jumping jacks, jogging in place, pretending to beat each other up... (tegan: (jumping) "have you done jumping jacks in a long time??" sara: (jumping) "no." tegan: "they're hard!" .... sara: (jumping around, breathless) "i am a lazy person! i am going to have a stroke and die right here and we're just going to have to make do with what we've got!") it was just so funny, that at one point, right after we finished a take, the costume lady came up to me and was like, "do you know you were smiling through that whole time? you have to look serious!" and i'm like, "serious! right! i'm serious!" like it's possible to be serious with their running commentary going on between every take... i got it together, though. :-D
while they were running back onstage, the six of us were supposed to be behind them, bobbing left and right again to the beat of the music until the end. unfortunately, every time tegan and sara did what the directors wanted them to when they ran on stage, i think we were screwing up in the background... it wasn't entirely our fault, they kept starting the music on a different beat every time, and one of the director guys was moving his head in the wrong direction and telling us to follow him! (director: "do you guys want me going 'LEFT! RIGHT! LEFT! RIGHT!'?" us: "YES!" me: "we need all the help we can get back here." sara: "WE need all the help WE can get back here...") hopefully it will all look okay in the end and we won't have made them jump around forever in vain!!!
while the crew finished up with the close-ups they needed, we waited outside for what was going to be the last scene, in the boiler room downstairs. by now it was around 11PM (they'd told us they thought we should be done at 8, but we knew better. :) and for those of us still there, we didn't really CARE!) everyone was getting a bit sleepy, but we were hanging in there.
i <3 my balaclava...
me and metaldave!!!
once they got all of the equipment moved down into the boiler room, they attempted to try to choreograph all of us in motion, so we all got our spots and instructions.
this did not work out so well the first time, and there was much colliding. however, things smoothed out after we did it a few times (and we all agreed that WE would be scared if we ran into people like US in a boiler room...) our one new addition to the group of extras was a 7-year-old boy, who got to be our tiny black-masked one, and got to hold a bunch of black balloons.
emy taking more pictures of us...
after we had filmed the black segment a few times (with tegan and sara running through the middle of all of us) we changed into white and did exactly the same thing.
the camera guy announced that they had only 45 feet of film left (yes, they were using FILM...!) and so we had to get it down with the white costumes, and then we were done! the last few takes ended up just fine (thank god) and it was all over.
everyone went to get changed out of their costumes, and people started trying to take pieces of clothing (when we were onstage behind tegan, she was like, "do you guys at least get to KEEP those things?" we all shrugged, and she was like, "i'll put in a good word for you...") so when the costume lady started freaking out at us, someone was like, "tegan said we could!" and the lady was like, "she can't just make an executive decision like that!" and disappeared back into the boiler room... a few minutes later she came out and told us we could each keep ONE outfit. yeah, we see who's in charge around here. heh. :) i grabbed black sweatpants and a black t-shirt (the socks and gloves were just gross at that point) and a white balaclava for them to sign (tegan wrote "don't wear me" on mine... not a bad idea, there... especially having no idea how many other people wore that white thing that day...) i actually had to grab a second balaclava and have them sign it again because someone TOOK my first one (seriously people, it's not like they weren't right there able to sign one for you!) but they were cool about it, they seemed so glad that all of us had stuck it out for the whole 16-hour day! they hung around and took pictures for a little while...
i seriously love this one because it looks like sara has butterfly antennae, which is just too cute...
when everyone was satisfied, they headed out of there to go home! metaldave was kind enough to let me follow him in his truck to get back to the highway, and i tailed them the entire way to the canadian border (this time going through customs i actually told the guy that my reason for being in canada was that i'd been in a music video... on the way through i totally had made stuff up about visiting friends... i was convinced they'd think i was crazy and wouldn't let me through!)
i drove until i was about an hour and a half outside of seattle and i was getting so tired that i was afraid i was going to drive off the road, so i pulled over and took a nap in a denny's parking lot for a few hours (seriously, it was the safest looking parking lot i could find, and it was better than driving off of the road, i figured...) i finally got back to my friend's house in seattle at 6AM (i had to wake him up so he could let me in, and he was like, where the hell were you?!?) and at 11AM it was back off to the airport!! i ran the whole way and barely made my flight... things went smoothly from seattle to las vegas, but then my flight in las vegas got cancelled and i ended up spending another 8 hours there... finally got on a flight to atlanta, and landed in atlanta at 6AM! drug myself to my car (had to pay $60 for parking because i'd lost my ticket) and then drug myself to class at 9AM (i slept through almost the entire second hour of the lecture... i decided it was totally not worth it to stay the rest of the day and left at 1...) and passed out on the couch at 9PM and didn't wake up until 10:30 the next morning (missed the morning class... arrrggghh!)
looking back, i seriously can't believe that i did all that! i'm finally only now starting to tell my friends where i actually WENT over the weekend (i only told like two before i left because i was convinced they'd think i'd lost my mind. they still do, only now i know the experience was so worth it that i DON'T CARE! seriously, a conversation with my study buddy: "um, so remember how i told you i was babysitting last weekend and that was why i needed you to let the dog out for me?" her: "yeah?" me: "ummmm, wellll... i actually flew to vancouver and was in tegan and sara's music video." her: "you WHAT?!?!?" *laughing* "you're CRAZY!" me: *grinning* "i know!")
but wow, i am so glad i went (even though it will perhaps be another month before i get that song OUT of my head...) it was totally worth the time and trouble to be a part of something that cool, and i can't wait to see the video (i'll be one of those crazy grandmothers pointing myself out to my grandkids someday: "see that?? that's me in the white in the fifth row! now i'm in gray! no, seriously! where are you going??") just, wow.
man, i hope they do this again someday! i will SO be there...