Pizon

If you were a big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 like I was -- rejoice! The gang is back in a new show called "The Film Crew". It has much of the same spirit as MST3K without the campy puppet aftertaste.

I found this link on Flickr. Some of the people who were at the filming thought the facial expressions I made were pretty funny.

Yeah. They're right.

Here is a video I found of a scene we shot yesterday.

There are two "civilians" in this video. I am on the opposite side of
the street directly behind the police car.

There is a police officer that is already hit (other side of car) The
other officer sneaks behind the car to tend to him as John Dillinger
(Johnny Depp) and Homer Van Meter (Stephen Dorf) spray bullets the in the direction of the police car at the end of the block (direction I am running).

In the ensuing chaos, the ill-fated officers find it difficult to get a clear shot at their attackers.

I am very sore today after we spent 12 hours filming this scene (or parts of it). Each take required that the background actors run panic-stricken down the street. I'm very sore today.

More photos may be found on Flickr.

Back in a bone-chilling day in early March, several hundred of my closest friends and I stood outside an Oshkosh middle school waiting for the casting to begin. Even though I was over an hour early there were at least 500 people before me in line. I came prepared with the requisite photo of myself and an extra large coffee to keep me warm in the freezing morning.

I had spent most of the week leading up to this day calling costume shops in an effort to get my hands on "vintage" clothes. Most costume shops were either completely out or were asking outrageous prices ($100 rental -- plus deposit). In the end I decided the clothes I had were actually more in keeping with the look than what I was finding anyway. More importantly, they looked like they fit.

While in line I had ample time reflect on my lack of adequate reading material. I stopped fussing over what I was wearing when I took a survey of the line. One man adjusted his broad-rimmed white fedora with bright pink bands that accented his shiny spats. He looked well dressed for a prom. The woman he appears to be with climbed over an icy snow bank holding a pair of open-toe shoes in her hands. The snow came up to her bare knees.

At that time, my choice in clothes did not seem too bad.

The crowd cheered when the doors finally opened. We were allowed inside the school only in limited numbers. Once inside, we were directed down the hallway to the place the staff refer to as "the big room". The line snaked between the cordons.

I began to regret that extra large coffee I had earlier.

Fast forward to late March. The whole city has been completely abuzz about the changes the film has made to the look of downtown. A comic book shop was transformed into a woman's fashion store. The local record store morphed into a Walgreens. The barbershop becomes... well, nothing really happened there.

Usually I spend my weekend mornings at the New Moon cafe (now the "Skalsa Restaurant"). The baristas struggled to keep up with the surge in business this past Saturday as people toured the new look of downtown. I met up with several friends and we joked about the odds of anyone we know getting to be cast for the film.

I got the call at 9:30 that night. The director, Michael Mann, had selected me to be an extra in the film "PUBLIC ENEMIES".

I found this message in my email today. As a student at UW Milwaukee, I receive "Campus Safety" reports. This is the latest:

Aggressive police patrols of the UWM neighborhood have resulted in six arrests over the past 10 days.

“Because of the actions of suspects and the evidence gathered at the times of the arrests,” said UWM Police Chief Pamela Hodermann, “it is reasonable to believe that some of the people taken into custody may have been responsible for the robberies and other incidents that have taken place recently near the university."

Doesn't that beg the question as to what "actions of suspects" means?