I stood out in the freezing cold on the edge of the set for over six hours last night. What the hell is wrong with me????

But it was worth it!

Sorry these shots aren't better. He was moving fast, it was relatively dark, people kept moving in front of my camera, and let's face it...I'm definitely no professional photographer.

The security men there were the surliest I've ever encountered. As soon as he came walking up to us, they started screeching, "Put your camera away NOW!" People were taking pictures, anyway.

Mark Wahlberg was way cool and so nice to the gawkers, as always. He signed about thirty autographs but had to get back to the set. He kept apologizing to everyone for not being able to stop and pose for pictures and for not personalizing his autographs.

He was only with us for about three minutes, then he had to go back down to the next block where his scene was being filmed. They must have done at least a dozen takes on this one scene where he gets hit by a car. There was a padded mat on the street by the curb, and we watched him pretend to walk into the path of a car and then tumble onto the ground over and over again.

Big shout-out to Giovanni's at 5th and Main in Royersford--they carted out a stack of piping-hot pizzas and fed all of the gawker holdouts around 1 a.m. Yummy!

Labels: celebrities, local news, Lovely Bones, Mark Wahlberg, movies, Philadelphia, Philly burbs

I somehow managed to infiltrate the "backlot" of the set late this afternoon. I guess I picked a good time to do it...everyone was on their lunch break!

I spent over two hours sitting on a wall in the parking lot of the Royersford Police Station, looking out over a section of Main Street. They didn't do ANY filming during my time there. Unbelievable, isn't it?! Two hours of set-up...can you imagine?

There were all kinds of huge light fixtures positioned throughout the set, and several smoke/dry ice machines were pumping out steam onto Main Street. Techs and assistants and extras and locals were milling around, chatting and hoping to catch a glimpse of someone important.

Truth be told, I actually got bored after a while. After watching the filming of The Happening a few months ago, I have decided that moviemaking is an unbearably tedious process.

By 6:30, I was positive that my ass was frostbitten, so I headed home. I had no feeling in my feet or my fingers, despite my gloves and heavy socks.

Anyway, I didn't see any movie stars tonight, but I did catch a few glimpses of Peter Jackson (not close enough for a worthwhile photograph) and also a man who looked suspiciously like Steven Spielberg. Hmmm...

Labels: celebrities, local news, Lovely Bones, Mark Wahlberg, movies, Philadelphia, Philly burbs

Taken this evening. Some not so great...sorry!

This story takes place in 1970s suburban Philadelphia, and the level of details that went into making Main Street in Royersford (which will be the fictional town of Fairfax in the movie) look the part really impresses me. All the storefronts in a four-block stretch have been done up with authentic (or at least authentic-looking) props.

From what I've gathered, filming starts tomorrow. Security was EVERYWHERE and parking was sparse. Pretty much all street and lot parking is off-limits within a three-block radius of Main Street.

Labels: celebrities, local news, Lovely Bones, Mark Wahlberg, movies, Philadelphia, Philly burbs

Pardon the crappy camera-phone pic. Tonight was one of the rare times I didn't have my real camera in the car with me.

I'm doing a little reconnaissance work this evening, since I just learned that The Lovely Bones (Wahlberg, Sarandon, Tucci, Weisz, et al) will be filming in my zip code for the next couple of days.

I'll post later...

Labels: celebrities, local news, Lovely Bones, Mark Wahlberg, movies, Philadelphia, Philly burbs

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving...be back soon!

Labels: holidays

I was all ready to buy the presale Foo Fighters tickets this morning on Comcasttix.com. I had all my credit card information and the presale password ready on my desk and my finger on the trigger at 9:59 a.m.

As soon as the clock moved to 10 a.m., the servers went kaput!

I tried and tried and tried to get through, but the only thing that kept appearing on my Internet browser was "The page you're trying to view is currently unavailable right now." I even had The Huz trying from his T1 connection at work, and no go!

I finally got through around 12:30 p.m., and the only tickets that were left were for very crappy 300-level seats, which I wouldn't even bother with for this show. Not for my favorite band in the world.

So then I did some comparison shopping (eBay, TicketLiquidator.com, etc.). Some of the prices were so inflated that I almost choked! But I finally found two General Admission/Floor Seats on StubHub for a very reasonable $100 each. Of course, you have to then tack on the 10% commission that StubHub charges, plus the FedEx 2-day shipping cost, which brought the total to $230. Yes, it's costly, but in a city this large, I guess it's expected.

Just for giggles, I'd gone on Ticketmaster earlier today and checked out the presale for Nashville's Foo concert in January, and had absolutely no problems at all logging in and ordering two tickets at $45 each. I guess the fan base in Nashville just isn't the same as it is here.

I told The Huz to consider this my Christmas gift.

Edited to add: Wow. I just read that the floor tickets during the presale sold out in FOUR MINUTES.

Labels: bitching, concerts, Foo Fighters, good news, holidays, Illadelph, music, technology

Nothing earth-shattering going on here. Same links, same layout.

Just a new URL.

Thanks for reading!

Labels: good news, technology, writing