The Road to Stardom (almost)

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The pictures will be here soon. Sorry about the delay.

Erin and I were out having a beer with our friend Joakim on Friday night when we received a call from the movie company asking us to come over as soon as possible. We arrived at their hotel room at about 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning where we proceeded to interview for another role in the movie. They told us that they needed two westerners to play doctors in their movie. The only problem was that the location was about 8 hrs away and we would need to leave the next morning at about 6am. We accepted and hurried home to pack.

The next morning, the three of us, along with Artemus, got into our private car and headed towards a province called Yan'an. It is seen as the birthplace of the Cultural Revolution. It's really gorgeous country up there. Lots of hills and terraced farmlands. We didn't get as many pictures as we would have liked. It was a little difficult to take pictures from the car. When we arrived we were taken to a hotel and given our own rooms. They were fairly decent rooms actually, it's kind of a rarity in China that someone else will book you a nice room. Usually you have to fight for one. We were also given all our meals and drink for free. It was really cool. After dinner Joakim was called to get his hair done for the part. When he came back he said that they were now saying that they only needed one of us. Why they brought all three of us is still beyond me. We went to talk with the assistant director and we decided that I would do the part. He also told us to translate it into English and learn the lines that way. After spending a few hours translating, practicing, and memorizing the lines we went to sleep.

At 6am we were up and after breakfast we headed out to the site. With all my lines memorized I was feeling a little better but still fairly nervous because the scene I had to do was about 5 minutes of dialogue with a couple of fairly famous Chinese actors playing the parts of Chairman Mao and his general. During this scene I had to yell at them, call their policy ludicrous, and throw some medicine at them. It was a little intimidating.

Once we got there I quickly got into costume and headed up to talk to the director. As Joakim and I talked with the director we quickly realized that he had not been informed that I would be doing the scene in English. He wasn't happy about that and made me give my costume to Joakim. I was a little relieved but also a little disappointed. It was my big break! The biggest problem at this point was that Joakim had to learn all that dialogue in Chinese in under an hour! Luckily his Chinese is good enough that it wasn't a problem.

We spent most of the day sitting with the director, watching the filming. It was really cool to see how the scenes are put together. It also takes a little longer to film a scene here because they only use one camera for everything. The scene was filmed probably 40 or 50 times from all different angles and distances. Also, Joakim had a mask on when he was doing his lines and they planned on dubbing his words anyway so it didn't really matter what language he spoke anyway. One of the big actors actually told him to do the lines in Swedish just to make it easier. The really famous guys even had their assistants sitting just under the shot feeding them lines at full volume!

After the shooting we were rushed back to the hotel for lunch and then to the train station. As we were entering the train station we were stopped by the guards because they said that Artemus wasn't allowed on the train. This is really strange in China because on a bus it's not unlikely that you would share a seat with a chicken. We ended up paying the driver of one of the busses headed to Xian 50yuan (about 6 dollars) to bring her with him and drop her off at the hotel. The train ride lasted about 13 hours. We arrived Monday morning and were picked up at the train station by a driver and taken to the hotel where Artemus had spent the night with the Director. We were a little worried about how she might be treated on the bus but apparently she was adopted by a group of Chinese women. When we got her back it was apparent that she had been well taken care of. She had the fattest stomach I've ever seen on a puppy. I'm not sure if she did anything on that bus but eat.

All in all it was a good weekend. We'll probably get more calls from this and/or other movie companies in the future so eventually I WILL get a speaking part. Also, the show will air towards the beginning of this coming year so I will try to get a copy and have it sent home. Hope all is well back there. I'll write again soon.

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