Other side of the fence

Note: This post and probably from here on out, includes some language of a possibly offensive nature.

Right now I'm not surprised we hear about all sorts of killings in the USA made by kids with guns. Watching TV this morning I came across a show all about deer hunting. Intrigued (purely due to the subject matters controversiality) I watch the show. In it, it glorified the art of using rifles to take down deer, and the fun in doing it and how everyone should do it. But the one thing that got me, was this specific episode. It featured the normal shows presenter, or head hunter dude guy, taking a 12 year old hunting. Of course this 12 year old was no normal 12 year old, otherwise he wouldn't have been on the show! He had had cancer of the bone and had to have his leg replaced or something, he lived though, obviously, and, apparently, had always wanted to be a deer hunter and shoot big guns at defenseless things. So this famous dude had decided to take him hunting, and show him how to do it. The main point that jolted me slightly, was when he gifted this 12 year old with a massive rifle with a fancy scope and heaps of bullets and goes "hey here you go, this is yours!". The kids eyes lit up and he smiled from ear to ear as if he'd just lost his virginity. It just, unsettled me slightly, felt slightly... ironic.

I move in to my new room today! Woooo! It's a sweet apartment with 2 other people in it and has all the bit's I could need (dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, 65" HD TV, xbox 360, etc..). Also, the heat's died down a little bit, so it's a little bit more tolerable now :) Today shall be my tourist day, after this I'm going to take photos of stuff and pretend I'm only here for 2 days so I can get away asking people to take pics of me standing next to things. But the main reason I'm posting this, is to talk about last night.

Walking along Hollywood Blvd at about 7pm I came across an entire 2 blocks of the street that had been blocked off to cars (pedestrians could still walk down them, for now). At my end of the street a massive fire engine looking truck sat on the other side of the fences, with a massive lighting rig attached to it, and i mean massive. This thing illuminated both blocks single handily. Seeing this told me there must be someone shooting something interesting somewhere. After a bit of walking around, looking like one of those annoying people that follow stars down the street or stand behind the gates and scream as Justin Bieber exits one of his shit concerts, I found out what was actually happening. They were filming a scene for a provisionally titled film "Friends With Benefits" in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater. After a while people realised this and a crowd started to form. Eventually the started cordoning off parts of the street, herding the passers by like cattle. Eventually about 20 cars drove into the street, some for the actual take, some full of people that were acting, and all the cameras got pulled out and the lights went up and the were ready to shoot. Their rehearsal takes and blocking takes amused me slightly, as they were just using crew to block the main action to get the camera sorted etc, yet all the tourists presumed it was the actual shots, so they each took a million photos and were all asking each other who they were and who was famous etc.

Then the actual extras rolled out, covering the place in people, and then the actual people who were the main cast. One of them being Justin Timberlake. It was interesting though, as most of the people watching didn't realise this until about, this 9th or 19th take. That's when the cameras exploded. It felt like being in Africa in the middle of a starving group of people as food was thrown from the sky via an aid helicopter. It never actually died down, it was if they had a lust to just maul him or be him or something. One lady started kicking up a fuss because she felt he was spending too much time filming and not enough time coming over to us and giving us a wave. She wasn't just casually saying it either, she was going absolutely fucking mental. Screaming something about how we pay for ticket to see his films so he should come over here and hug us all, shake her hand and write his name on her tits. Suffice to say, she was removed rather quickly by 2 big policemen.

IMDB link for the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1632708/

It was interesting watching how an actual feature film crew work, and how quickly they do it too. It was all so organised and... well, organised. I did have a long and very interesting chat with the production assistant of the shoot, who was a really nice guy. He'd worked on that Michael Jackson film that got released to make money from his death, and some TV stuff like Glee among others. But no matter what was going on or what happened, I couldn't help wanting so much to be on the other side of the fence.