Faith and Our Founding Fathers

Remember how I said that I really wished I would have lived in colonial times? Well, I had the unique opportunity today to be an extra in a PBS documentary called "Faith and Our Founding Fathers". The portion I was in was filmed in Colonial Williamsburg. My call time was very early this morning, so I had to leave home at 3:15 am......not something I would want to do on a regular basis! After getting my costume and visiting hair and makeup, this is what I looked like.

I was officially a "street person" and was one of the lower class peasants or servants. I have never been on any kind of a movie set while they were filming, so it was a fun experience to see how things were done. We had to be ready to film as soon as the sun came up, so the children were practicing their part while the director, Lee Groberg, watches in the background. He is an incredibly kind and gracious director and I couldn't get over how complimentary he was to everyone who worked with him. There was never any yelling and there was always lots of praise to go around.

These two cute kids are in my ward. Their dad worked on the production crew, so they were assigned children's parts. I LOVED the little girl's costume!

It started misting right before the sun came up. I didn't even realize it till I took this picture and it looked like it was snowing! Fortunately, it stopped pretty quickly and didn't develop into rain.

Here is the black preacher practicing his part before the sun came up.

It was fun to see all the diversity in costumes. I kept stopping people and asking to take their pictures! The incredibly cool costumes of the fine ladies made me wish I wasn't just a poor servant!I absolutely loved this lady's hat and jacket! Isn't it so cool?!!!

And here they are, filming at last! I think we had been on the set for 2 1/2 hours at this point.

Mark Mabry was there taking pictures for a companion photo book that will come out when the movie comes to PBS. You may know him from his "Reflections of Christ" photo exhibit.

We had a time schedule to keep; we had to be out of Colonial Williamsburg by 9 a.m. when it opened to the public. We filmed right up to the last second and they told us all to be ready to grab our stuff and RUN as soon as they said "CUT"! It was hilarious to see everyone running as fast as they could holding onto hats and props! It was pretty cool to see how quickly the film crew could move their stuff out of there!

All in all, it was a fun experience. I was in several scenes that may or may not end up in the movie. You might see me in the background washing windows, walking, putting coins in a collection plate, watching a preacher speak, or standing outside a factory listening to young boy read the newspaper. It will probably be at least a year before this movie is shown.

Oh, and I made $75 for my few hours of work, so I spent the rest of the morning at the outlet stores before I had to be home to get my kids from their bus stops!