Nicely shot

I do love it when a film comes out, and it's ok to talk about it... just saw Antoine Fuqua's "Shooter," and while I found the ending a bit disappointing, it's a decent popcorn film. My involvement was tiny: Wrangling picture cars, in DC and Baltimore. The DC scenes were in Freedom Plaza on E street, a day shot where Wahlberg is scoping (and being scoped), plus a night shot in the pouring rain on the Mall. In Baltimore, we had The Windiest Day Ever atop Federal Hill Park, followed by a quick shot of Wahlberg hopping into a cab (one I helped hire out, btw. Ah the glamor of film!) Finally we did the scene where the injured Bobby rolls his POS pickup into the gas station. That place actually required very little dressing; it really IS a used tire store, and it really DOES look like that. It was the champagne scene, too: Principal photography wrapped that night, someone handed Wahlberg a beer, and everyone stood around for a while. I'd been resetting the truck for him all night, so he'd seen me around, and we shook hands. "I'm Mark," he said. Which almost made me laugh; "No shit," was the first phrase that came to mind. But he was a nice fellow, and had some photos taken with the locals.

Now comes the weird part. The first day in DC, I saw this fellow hanging around, a little guy, mid-20s. He had about a dozen bullet holes on his face, courtesy of a very good makeup artist. I assumed he was an actor awaiting his scene, but he never went in front of the camera. In Baltimore, this same guy had his face painted ghostly white, with red crosshairs bifrucating his face. This of course drew a fair number of stares, which the fellow didn't seem to like. Finally a bystander asked him what was the deal with makeup. In a strange voice he replied, "I'm the shooter." Finally I heard from a PA that this guy was part of Wahlberg's entourage. Whatever.

Oh, and as for the photo above, I wasn't part of the set dressers who, as a friend recently pointed out, hung the flag backwards.. the blue field should be on the left.

Hey, but the car looks nice...