Hobnobbing with soon to be screen legends....

Today was spent babysitting the set of Lions for Lambs. As you read in a previous post Mitel's phones are used as props in the movie. They are to be fully functioning props so there was concern that Tom Cruise would pick the phone up and either it wouldn't work, or more likely, he wouldn't know how to use it.

This morning started at 6:30 on the set. We set up some "receptionist" style phones which was a big deal with flashing and solid lights to make it look busy. I'm sure these lights will never be seen as the shot was filmed from the other direction this afternoon. Oh well. Then we hung around and waited, and waited and waited. I wondered why people had magazines, papers and laptops at their little stations. It was to entertain themselves throughoutthe day. We were told of the rules:

1. Do not look Tom Cruise in the eye. (hehe get real)
2. When they say quiet on the set, it's a dead stop, no coughing, no whispering, no moving, stand still.
3. Never enter the sound stage (or exit) when the red light is flashing.
4. No personal cameras. That was ok because I forgot the memory card for mine. DUH!

Around 10:30 we heard a call "The senator's coming!" That meant that Tom Cruise (Senator Irving from Illinois) was coming into the sound stage. People scurried around and got real quiet. They spent about an hour filming about 1 second of footage of Tom Cruise holding some critical piece of paper at the Senator's desk. How time consuming.

More tomorrow....

Lions for Lambs

My company's publicity department is providing the phones for this 2007 Robert Redford directed film. We have a department that specifically provides phones for "product placements" in movies, series, etc.

Lions for Lambs stars Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. He's a senator in the film and according to the prop people a real monster if things aren't perfect on the set. Based on that whole Oprah incident I suspect he's a monster all the time.....so dramatic...... So we have to install the phones 3 days before to make sure they are correct.

The Washington, DC scenes will be filmed on the lot at Universal in the next 2 weeks. Apparently this movie has 3 different story lines that parallel one another, similar to Babel. How we are all connected whether we know each other or not. Unfortunately, due to a move in the shooting schedule I will be unable to put the phones in as I have a prior committment so I have to delegate it.