{"id":272,"date":"2008-09-20T16:51:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-20T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/09\/20\/i-build-spaceships\/"},"modified":"2008-09-20T16:51:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-20T16:51:00","slug":"i-build-spaceships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/09\/20\/i-build-spaceships\/","title":{"rendered":"&quot;I build spaceships&quot;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"left\">This is how Mr E Man described his job when I had my first proper conversation with him. On closer interrogation he turned out to be a carpenter on movie sets, and had just finished building the X Jet and other cool stuff for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0290334\/\">X2<\/a>*.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 0px auto 10px;text-align: center\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_Xjsb8ObOj0k\/SNLB7rgphaI\/AAAAAAAAAbs\/008M4a2FBwg\/s400\/200px-Cerebropicture.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"> <em>My husband built this! But somehow I still don&#8217;t have the shoe rack he promised me 3 years ago<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">A word of advice: if you ever meet one of these people, it is not considered cool to squeal &#8220;oooooh, just like Harrison Ford!&#8221;. Even if said carpenter is hunky and has Harrison Ford-esque scars on his lip and eyebrow.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily he forgave me this transgression, and even the subsequent one, a question that I have heard pretty much every new acquaintance ask him in the almost 6 years since that fateful night:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do you get to meet all the stars?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>His answer is always that he <em>sees <\/em>them from time to time, but that if everyone on the crew tried to <em>meet <\/em>them, the movie would never get made. So, not really. Although he did make my trekkie Mum very happy with a story about Patrick Stewart buying iced coffees for the whole X2 crew on a hot day. (&#8220;Oh, I knew he&#8217;d be a nice man. He seems like a nice man. Doesn&#8217;t he seem nice? I&#8217;m glad he&#8217;s a nice man&#8221;). However his attempt to get her Patrick Stewart&#8217;s autograph on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0376994\/\">X3<\/a> was thwarted, because there was never a good time to break professional ranks and stroll over with a pen in hand.<\/p>\n<p>Mr E Man&#8217;s job has many benefits for me**: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div align=\"left\">Free swag (they mostly hand out t-shirts and jackets in the size that fits the actual crew member, but I have been promised a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1078912\/\">Night at the Museum 2<\/a> jacket in my size. I also have a metal water bottle from the same movie and a very nice leather portfolio binder thingy from a TV show called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0281432\/\">Dead Zone<\/a>)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"left\">Occasional visits to look at sets (soooo cool. I thought they&#8217;d look all two dimensional, with clever lighting and camera work making them look real, but standing in the main set for the original <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0477347\/\">Night at the Museum <\/a>was like standing in an actual natural history museum. The curving staircase looked like real marble, but when I touched it I realised it was actually made of styrofoam. Ditto the authentic-looking Egyptian temple carvings)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"left\">Reflected glory (especially when we took our 5 and 7 year old nephews to see NATM and the 5 year old loudly said &#8220;thank you for making this movie, Uncle Mark&#8221; at the quietest point in the film)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"left\">Tickets to cast and crew premieres, a day or two before general release (I love these; the extras shout &#8220;there I am!&#8221; at random moments, and everyone stays for the credits and cheers when they see their own name)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div align=\"left\">Wrap parties<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"left\">I am under strict instructions to &#8220;be cool&#8221; at these latter events. Yes, even if Hugh Jackman is there (which he never is, sadly). My resolve to follow this advice is very rarely tested however; I&#8217;ve had a director or two pointed out to me, but I&#8217;ve only been to one wrap party with any recognisably famous actors.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good story though. I&#8217;d spotted Ben Stiller chatting away to various people and thought &#8220;oh, look, it&#8217;s Ben Stiller&#8221; (as you do), and then resumed my conversation with one of Mr E Man&#8217;s buddies. I love these conversations because everyone always tells me what a great carpenter my husband is &#8211; the art director even came up to me once and said &#8220;this man saved the movie!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And then&#8230; as we were talking&#8230; a tall blond guy strolled by, and very definitely looked at my boobs.<\/p>\n<p>I was, of course, completely outraged. I mean, I wasn&#8217;t even wearing a <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/drugmonkey\/2008\/09\/scientific_meetings_the_male_g.php\">name tag<\/a>! How dare he! But as he passed by, I suddenly realised that it was Owen Wilson.<\/p>\n<p>Mr E Man came back from the (OPEN!!) bar, and I immediately told him that some guy had been checking me out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Oh yeah, who?&#8221;<br \/>&#8220;Owen Wilson&#8221;<br \/>(Quizzical look of the &#8220;&#8230;and?&#8221; variety)<br \/>&#8220;Pretty cool, eh?!&#8221; I said proudly.<\/p>\n<p>I think Mr E Man was quite relieved that I wasn&#8217;t all scandalised and outraged. Giving one of the movie&#8217;s biggest stars the old tap on the shoulder would definitely count as breaking professional ranks AND being decidedly uncool.<\/p>\n<p>My point?<\/p>\n<p>NATM II wrap party tonight, baby!! w00t! I will report back&#8230; if I survive the (OPEN!!!!) bar.<\/p>\n<p>___________________________________<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:85%\">*he even got a credit! This is a very rare occurrence for most people in the construction department, which is a real shame because they contribute so much to the movie. I&#8217;ve sat through the credits of a lot of terrible movies (all of them with awesome sets, obviously &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0296572\/\">Chronicles of Riddick <\/a>being a prime example), just to be disappointed when Mr E Man&#8217;s name doesn&#8217;t get listed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:85%\">**However I don&#8217;t appreciate the occasional spoilers that come my way, e.g. on X3:<br \/>Me: &#8220;so what are you working on right now?&#8221;<br \/>Mr E Man: &#8220;Xavier&#8217;s tombstone.&#8221;<br \/>Me: &#8220;WHAT??!! Noooooooooooo! Don&#8217;t tell me that!&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is how Mr E Man described his job when I had my first proper conversation with him. On closer interrogation he turned out to be a carpenter on movie sets, and had just finished building the X Jet and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2008\/09\/20\/i-build-spaceships\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,46,19,25,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embarrassing-fan-girl","category-movie-review","category-personal","category-silliness","category-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}