I might have been able to snap some photos of the elaborate Iraq city set that "LOST" built at Honolulu Community College last week, but Rachelle Farmer of "The Farmer Files" blog got right into the middle of the action. After being jealous of other friends who'd worked as extras for the show, Farmer got the call last week thanks to her looks, which she says have been mistaken for Middle Eastern before.
Read how she got ready the night before, then nearly got lost on her way to the set. She documents her adventures with wardrobe ("No cleavage!"), and says she was dumbstruck by an unexpected encounter with Naveen Andrews. And Farmer has also written about the first part of her day, filming a funeral procession in Tikrit and spotting Michael Emerson. And she says she has at least one more chapter to tell.
I love hearing about other fans' experiences on the set. It's always eye opening to learn how a crew of over a hundred can work for hours (not counting another whole day, at least, for set building!) to generate a few minutes of footage, tops.
My friend Crissy got to see the back of her own head for a split second in last week's episode (in the Korea street scene with Daniel Dae Kim that I watched being filmed in November). And she's lucky. I worked as an extra for half a day a couple of years ago for a location shoot that shut down half a block in downtown Honolulu... and the scene (for "Lockdown") was cut completely. Didn't even make the DVD.
But, the experience alone was worth it. And a few months later, pay stub in hand, I got my "LOST" crew shirt and hat. Score!