Life's a Stitch

Vancouver is known as Hollywood North, as the Canadian dollar and landscape variety lend itself to reasonable film production. Within the Vancouver area production companies can shoot city scenes to rural settings within a half hour drive at a 25% discount as compared to the US dollar. 

When I retired I was asked what I was going to do? Many people told me of my potential to work as a consultant in the nonprofit field, given my years in management. Retirement means no work I'd reply. But, lo and behold, work in some form or  another, seems to find me. I've done some helping out other non-profit managers and I've sold my pantings and taken on an occasional commission. The one I wasn't prepared for was the work Chuck and I have secured in the film industry as skilled extras.

There is a demand for extra work here in Vancouver. Paying higher than minimum wage, it's an interesting way to spend a 12 hour day and the food is fantastic. Possessing a skill in demand, doubles your pay rate and currently the demand is for real artists to act as vendors at craft fairs. The beauty of this is that both C and I can work at the same time, he as a woodworker and me with my watercolour art. I understand the craft fair thing in the wholesome American greeting card company movies for which we've been hired, but this last one was for a science fiction TV show, premiering this fall. 

We're getting used to the drill. Show up at your call time, sign in, hit wardrobe and makeup, eat brekkie, set up your booth and report to holding until you're called for filming. We recently had a 15 hour day with not one minute of filming, it was all eating and hanging out. The days usually top out at 12 hours, and include two meals, snacks whenever you want, and most of the time spent socializing with interesting people including a fair number of knitters. 

We have just been booked in for our 6th film shoot.  Here are some examples of our setup:

Look closely, the entire process results in a blurry glimpse of us and maybe our artwork:

It's given me an appreciation for the complexity of film production. And I thought Taking My Parents to Burning Man was a complicated process.

I guess we're moonlighting, retirement being our first job. Literally moonlighting. Last night we arrived home under the light of a 1:30a.m. moon. Not a bad thing.