Standoff

Fox aired the premiere of Standoff last night, and I was watching, but this time, not just for myself. When we shot this back in March, I was pulled out by the technical advisor and placed near the command tent with the backgrounders portraying FBI technicians. While waiting for the next shot, one guy approached and said, "Hey Steve, remember me?"

It was one of my high school classmates, who does background work on a part-time basis.

And that's how weird the business can be at times, if not most of the time.

The other interesting factoid about Standoff (originally called Primary when filming the pilot) is the opening scene. It took place on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles near the 110 Freeway. We shut down a whole city block and dealt with pedestrians and curious on-lookers while rolling. Such is the case for location shots.

At one point, a semi-deluded homeless man kept screaming at the crew from the next block (now, this isn't particularly strange or unusual - the homeless in downtown LA tend to scream a lot, especially at film crews). The director, Tim Story, kept looking up the block, along with the other crew members in video village. I thought he was going to send someone to quiet the guy up, but instead he told the others, "No, no... I'm just interested in what the guy is trying to say.

Recalled on one of my regular gigs for later today.