Once more, with feeling!
Third day on the set.

Show up.

Corset.

Make-up.

Rah rah rah- I’m betting you’ve picked up on the routine by now, yes? Sat in the waiting tent for our required stint, & when the makeup artist came around to make us all dirtier, she asked me if I had had my lips tattooed. People do this, it would seem. I was told that my lips just always seemed to be really, really red, & she was checking because we weren’t supposed to be wearing any make-up. Odd, that. Are your lips tattooed?

That morning, we did more from Calamity’s entrance. This would be a portion of the part that’s exactly the same - except different. So, again with the walking. In this one, they find out that the Injuns dun gone and kilt a settler family on the creek. (before anyone gets their hopes up - no, it wasn’t a massacre at Dawson’s Creek.) Which means I was once again climbing my friend the staircase. Then they turned the cameras for close up shots, and I wasn’t in the scene at all. This left me leisure to sit on the staircase and just watch them work. One of the crew referred to it on the first day as “a beautiful ballet”, and in a way, it is. Here’s your sequence :

Lunchtime, people. This time, there was an actual rib barbeque thing. Very neat in a Western sort of way. However, taking into account my ability to keep myself mess & muss - free, I went with the far less messy chicken breast.

After lunch wound down, we were all placed again for the next scene. This time, I was sitting in the alcove. Cool. Out of the way of everything. I start talking to Trip, my partner for the scene, & Denise, one of the other girls, comes to lean on a pillar & join in, since no one ever actually put her anywhere. The three of us settled in, figuring that we could just hang out for this part.

We continued to think that right up until the part where three of the principals walked over and stood next to us, that is. Turns out our little alcove? Pretty much the focus for this scene. Lovely. So Denise, who had just kind of chosen that spot because she had nowhere else to go, was now in the entire shot, and Trip and I were directly behind the dialogue for this one. Oh dear. It’s weird enough to pretend to whore yourself out to someone you’d never met until two days ago and most likely would never see again, but then knowing that hey! You’re right - in - the - shot! Yeah, that tends to make you a little jittery. Or, it does for me, anyway.

But I dug deep, found that Amazon spirit, and survived through it. I’m sure I’ll wince in horror if that shot actually makes it on screen & I’m in it, but I survived, and that’s the important part, right? Right!

Here’s hoping that the three principals block me completely, or those screencaps will haunt me for years, knowing my friends. Oy.

And then back to the speech. Except that since this time, since they were shooting it from the angle which would put me behind the camera, I was put in the background in an entirely different spot. All I have to say is, wow. Anyone who actually notices that is going to think, “Man, those whores were quick runners back then! That girl just went from one end of the room to the other in the space of three seconds!”

So then there was more standing, and pretending to give a care about the po’ set’lers that dun got kilt by the Injuns. However, in setting up for it, I found out from the first A.D. that his glittery boots were made from stingray skin, which is why they were iridescent. I didn’t know they made boots from stingrays, did you?

Finally, we hit the end. Extras were sent back to change. I unlaced my corset one last time, and turned in my petticoats. And with that, my dear friends, my career in Hollywood came to a close. It was a long, arduous road, and after getting my pay voucher signed, I shed a wistful tear while I drove away. Okay, so the tear was from dirt kicked up when all the cars were leaving.