Only the sound of my hard bottom H&M boots pounding the concrete filled the street as a stomped angrily down 58th street in Flushing, Queens. I was running late to a video shoot in which I was playing a extra in a party scene. Although, the only reason I was late was because the staff had forgotten to contact me the week prior to tell me where the shoot would be I attempted to stay collective as I was walked uphill for 13 blocks. I had been walking across the street from a cemetery which I tried to ignore for the first 2 blocks, it was a bright and hot Friday afternoon but the miles and miles of cemetery gave the day an airtight stiffness that left my skin feeling eerie and cold. There is just something about knowing that there a thousands of bodies laying to rest in the cold dirt that no matter how sunny the day is, everything feels cold and wet. I plugged my headphones into my iPod and began listening to J Cole's newest album to drown out some of the thickness my thoughts began to create. A few moments of sleepwalking worked well until the cemetery that once occupied only one side of the street, had now spread its way to the side that I was walking on.
I stood there contemplating my options. The thought of walking through a cemetery made my stomach pull and tug on itself. I already walked several blocks, and the cemetery that stretched for miles made any alternate route impossible. There was no sidewalk, only a brown muddy pathway that had calf height brown grass growing through cracks in the wall that separated the cemetery from the walkway. I stood frozen in the street for several moments before thinking to myself that I was behaving ridiculously. "almost 20 years old and I am acting scared about walking next to a cemetery" I said to myself out loud, then I restarted my trek to the set.
I walked for approximately thirty more minutes before some kind of civilization revealed itself. Using the GPS on my phone I was beginning to think that I was lost until large set trucks and orange cones started to emerge from the sidewalk. Relief grew inside me when I saw a green sun stained street sign that read, in its bold pale block letters "Masbeth St".
Have you gotten hair and makeup?
No, I just got here
Well come over to my seat I will take care of you
Kelsey she has a tattoo on her arm that needs to be covered
Okay Ill cover the tattoo, while you do her face
I have one on my back as well
James can you handle it
Sure can honey, be over in a second
You get the superstar treatment today girl, you get to go and tell all your friends you had three people working on you at once.
Clusters of people walking in groups of four or five scurried by me, some to be fitted, others for hair and makeup. Time seemed to elapse at riveting speeds, none of which gave me a chance to catch my breath or even make sure my heart was still beating. The auditorium was filled one moment and the next we were all in line walking out the building to the buses that would drop us to the set.
The set we were filming in was an old basement in a building that look like it could have been hundred of years old. It resembled an old grey church with hint of design that resembled that of catholic architecture. Inside was another world altogether. Walking into the basement there were fumes of smoked that swiveled in the air making small eddies every time someone walked through them. There were graffiti on the walls with faint so distorted it was barley legible. I stumbled in and pushed past people with large afro's and patterns tops and platformed shoes. People were posted up against the walls others were in small group talking away. No one conversation was audible in the chaos that grew inside the basement. The staff began to come into the basement and quiet everyone down.
"Hello everyone, thank you for being here to be extras in this scene. As you all may know this is a party so we need high energy.
This is how this is going to go. You are in a nightclub it Friday night and the DJ is pumpin'. Julio is going to walk into the scene and as he walk by you you can give him a friendly face or a 'wassup'. How ever the kid walking in behind him doesn't belong here and i need to see that on your faces, so when the camera passes by you give it a nasty glare. we all got that?"
Everyone is unison sang that they understood and we were rolling. Energy was high, music was loud and everyone was dancing with one another as if we had know each other for years and were just enjoying a party like we usually would. The bass from the stereo seemed to shake the whole basement. I felt the rhythmic boom. boom. boom. stop and then restart my heart as I began to slowly get into character. And then we cut, and then we were rolling again, and then we cut, and once again the cameras were rolling. This cycle of starting and restarting continued for what felt like days. The basement had no natural light, only fluorescent bulbs in various colors aided in a light source. The basement was now filled in thin clouds of smoke from fake cigarettes and herbal joints along with the smoke that cascaded out of the smoke machines. There was no sense of time, I lost track of what number take we were at after about take 16. I remembered how fun this was only moment ago, or hours, or days I could not tell at this point. It was as if walking into that basement had actually sent me into a dance club from the 70's and I was stuck. Even the huge spaceship of a camera that rolled in and out of the room no longer made a breach in the reality of the situation. Where was I and how much longer would I be here.
