Summer Sights: Me in the 80's

This is me at the beginning of the day on Thursday, June 28. Wearing plain, non-descriptive clothing, I could easily blend into a crowd. And that was the point. That afternoon I would play an extra in a GVSU film project, To Live or Die in Dixie. It is the college's first full-length feature film ever attempted. It is based on a true story from 1980's Louisiana, where a murder suspect was found "not guilty" because the "wrong questions were asked." So this women spends the next few years of her life working to bring the man in question to justice.

The directions asked for me to bring 2-3 different pants and a 5-6 shirts for the costumer to chose from. I had to bring clothes that would look like I was attending a basketball game in the 80's. One slight problem with that: I had no clue what 80's clothes really, truly looked like. I was born in the tail-end of the decade, so I had to look up 80's fashion on the internet. It stinks.

I spent an afternoon going to thrift stores, forcing myself to look at shirts that I would normally glance over by mentally growling "that's ugly!" After buying a few shirts and a pair of jeans, I felt I was all set. In fact, I thought that what I was wearing in the picture above looked kind of old. I was hoping that would pass for 80's. It didn't.

This did. And yes, the collar is popped. They did that in the 80's. It still doesn't look good. (Factoid: The costumer also decided I should wear khakis with this shirt.) The hair/makeup person also briefly worked with my hair, making it look more decade-appropriate. After spending a long time in a "waiting room," watching Maury Povich with the other extras (and some of a "Most Shocking Celebrity Scandals" special, too), we were called up to the second level of the GVSU Fieldhouse to do some filming. Our first scene was simple: We were exiting a basketball game. One of the main characters of the movie was waiting for his girlfriend to come and greet him, and we were supposed to be all chummy and excited to see this guy. After about six run-throughs and six takes, we nailed that scene down.

Next, we filmed entering the basketball game. We did that quickly (about three takes, I believe), then waited a while as they re-worked the staging area so they could film that scene again, from a different angle. We did that, but had the extras paired off with different people. For that last scene, I was actually paired off with one of the film's production people, and we mouthed "watermelon" to each other, to make it look like we were talking. We became more and more animated each take and eventually started to fake-laugh while the cameras were rolling. If you see the movie and see two people in the background, after the basketball game, laughing their heads off, that's us.

I arrived at 3:30 and the last scene wrapped up filming a little after 9. So it was a long day, but it was also lots of fun. Certainly not something one does all the time, that's for sure!