Supernatural 11x08 - Speight!

2015.09.30 - Ladner BC


Just Another Wednesday Night

After a heinous week where I saw myself getting sideswiped on Sunday and rear ended on Tuesday, by the time Wednesday rolled around I was ready for some good luck and something fun, either that or I was never leaving my house again. 


Ironically, Tuesday night I left a rehearsal in New Westminister and was driving home to Richmond when I decided I would take a quick spin by the Supernatural studio to see if it looked like they were there.  I heard that they were going to be in Ladner either Tuesday night or Wednesday filming.  If it was Tuesday night I wasn't going to bother because I had rehearsal.  Wednesday, though, would give me some more thought.  I could do Wednesday.  My goal was to get to hear Richard Speight call 'Action' on set since he was directing this episode, episode 8 of the season.  I wanted to see him direct.  

So I took a short (5 minute) detour on the way home  from my rehearsal to see what was shaking at the studio.  About 3 blocks away I was waiting at a traffic light for it to turn green so I could make my left hand turn when *smash* I got rear ended.  Hard.  By a tow truck.  Oh the irony.  My car was driveable but the poor back bumper and hatch were crunched.  I felt bad for the tow truck driver.  He really didn't mean to.  I guess the good news for me was I already had an appointment at a body shop for the sideswipe on Sunday.  After doing all the exchanges I took my short drive past the studio determining that it seemed they were still there and then went home wondering how I was going to explain that detour to my insurance company.  I know they always ask you where you were coming from and where you were going.  Geekness exposed!! Alert! Alert! Thankfully, the lady was very understanding and admitted to doing some of her own set watching.  Geeks everywhere.  Awesome.

Wednesday after work I headed out to Ladner.  I'd gotten some updates from people that lived nearby and a friend was already there.  I quickly found her and parked nearby, walking back to a park.  Half of the park was doubling as a circus and the other half was empty of set vehicles and it was separated by a hill.  Even though half of the park was circus and other half was open with no crew stuff around, I still felt a little too close, but that's just me being paranoid.  In the driveway where you went to the right where there was hills and picnic benches on the water or left where the parking lot continued where the trailers were, there was the Impala transport vehicle, wide open with a Baby sitting in it.  So pretty.  I picked up my friend and we headed away from the circus toward where we figured they were filming. 

It was a narrow, two lane road and we drove a little ways down until we saw another Impala parked on the side of the road starting a line of trucks and cars for the show.  There was a PA about 4 cars down and I realized that they had to be close to the road.  I didn't want to drive through the middle of their set so I thought about turning around but unfortunately I was trapped.  There was a house on my left but I didn't want to pull in their driveway to turn around since they were already inconvenienced by having all these trucks and the noisy Impala on their road.  I didn't think they'd appreciate having people use their driveway as a turnaround. I didn't want to get complaints for the production.  But I also couldn't make a u-turn at that point.  The IMPALA was on the side of the narrow road.  I'd never be able to get turned around.  I had no choice but to go through.  

The PA had a 'slow' sign and we smiled at him as we went through, I was panicking the whole time "I don't want to drive through the set, I don't want to drive through the set!" but there was nothing to be done now. We drove slowly through so as not to hit anyone and saw a barn with lots of action but the signs outside the barn were MRS1.  Supernatural's signs are JMATWB.  MRS1 is Minority Report, a FOX show filming here in Vancouver as well.  Confused, we kept going but recognized the workers.  This was definitely Supernatural.  We found the end of the vehicles and kept driving for a bit hoping to be able to turn up a side-road but we saw a No Exit sign.  Great.  Dead end. Meaning I'd have to drive through AGAIN to get out.  Awesome.  There was a little gravel pull off and my friend was saying she had been chatting to someone that lived nearby that had access to a barn.  If we were unable to watch because we'd be in the way on the narrow road, we could probably head to her barn and maybe see from there.  Not sure what side she was coming from I parked on the gravel and waited for more info.  We sat there a few minutes until a transport truck with the production pulled in to turn around too.  Again I had no choice, I was in his way, I pulled out and slowly headed back through the middle of everything, feeling like a jerk.  

We decided we were hungry and since everything was pretty up in the air we headed back into town to get some sustenance.  We picked up food to go and I parked on the road outside the park where they had the circus.  We went to the part without the trucks, the further picnic bench, and set up overlooking the water.  We were far enough away from the circus as we were on the right hand side of the park, not where all the trucks and everyone was, we couldn't see anything, thankfully, but I still felt a little antsy even being there.  We were waiting for word from the girl that lived nearby.  She had met up with another fan and they had donned bikes from her house to come and meet us.

We finished our food and found that the girls were coming from the other side of the road where they were filming.  We were hoping to meet them between the park and the shoot but we didn't have an exact location.  We walked back to my car and on the way by I noticed that the 2nd Impala that had been on the truck was now out sitting between a dumpster and  the truck.  I stopped and snapped a couple of photos because I just couldn't help it. 

We hopped in my car and started driving looking for the two we were to meet but as we got closer and closer to the set again, we didn't see them and they weren't answering the messages my friend was sending them.  I flat out refused to drive through the set again and knowing what was coming I felt I had no choice this time but to use the driveway of the house by the Impala to turn around.  I slowed down and checked my rear view noticing a Toyota SUV behind me.  A black Toyota SUV, bald head driving and someone in the passenger seat.  "Holy shit, Clif's behind us." I said, not hesitating to try and get out of their way as much as I wanted to get a good look at who was in the car.  As we pulled into the driveway, sure enough, Clif pulled by us to set.  The boys had been in the truck behind me.  I backed out this time and headed back to a raised gravel lot on the dyke wall that we had stopped in before to discuss our options.  

This time we parked and I insisted that we walk down.  That would give us a better feel for what was going on and give them a chance to turn us away if we weren't welcome. We walked the short distance to the Impala parked on the side of the road and toward the PA that was there.  We had a good look at the Impala, windows down, noticing this one had no back seat.  It also had some official looking papers on the front seat, but we didn't linger.  Didn't want access to any info we weren't supposed to have.  We headed to the PA and I told him that we were geeks just coming to check it out.  We hung around for a few minutes before sheepishly asking if we could walk down.  He was more than happy to allow that, said of course, no problem.  We started walking past all the trucks.  Suddenly we smelled coffee. They had a mini-craft services set up on the side of the road.  I started crossing away from there because I could hear people and that was too close for my liking so we walked by that on the side of the road where we'd seen the signs.  However as we got closer to the signs I crossed back.  I didn't want to be that close to the set, either.  We walked by, still with the wrong signs but we knew it was Supernatural.  This is definitely where they action was happening.  The Impala was here, the crew was familiar.   We thought maybe they'd stolen someone elses' signs for fun.  Wouldn't surprise us with this crew.

We kept walking right out the other side to the other PA that was there.  Stopped there and asked if they'd seen the people we were looking for on the bikes.  They hadn't.  The PA was chatting with an officer and was just relieving another PA asking if they'd seen the inside of the set, encouraging them to go look if they hadn't.  He also asked the officer, who hadn't been in, if he wanted to go see.  I jokingly asked, 'Is that an open invitation?' before the PA said something about the officer's uniform would get him through.  I was kidding anyway, but you get nothing unless you ask, right? :) 

We hung out for a few minutes waiting for these people on bikes to show up and started chatting with the PA and officer.  He was saying that there was another production coming in the next day to the same location and there was some kind of mix up, maybe SPN asked the owners of the property and Minority Report asked the renters?  In any event there were two sets in the barn right now.  Minority Report had a setup crew there and SPN was filming.  Made sense. 

As we continued to chat, the PA told us there would be an outside shot later, but we wouldn't be able to see it from where we were.  He encouraged us to move up a little, maybe up on the dyke wall that was above us so that we could see or just down the road.  We slowly started moving back toward the set with that invitation, but I was still leery about getting too close.  As we headed and were getting just where I was feeling like it was close enough, a whole bunch of things happened really quickly in sequence.  First, we saw a stream of people coming out of the set, across the road.  The unmistakable form of Clif, a handful of crew members and the boys, crossing the road about 25 feet from us.  I stopped dead in my tracks.  Too close.  There wasn't anyone there saying anything, but I wasn't getting any closer.  Nope, nope, nope.  

We watched them climb up the steep, heavily grassy, wall to the dyke to overlook the water and the beautiful sunset that was happening right then.  The phones were out, cast and crew all taking photos of the amazing scenery.  Then, as they were milling a little bit, there were bikers coming on the dyke wall from the other side, where we had come from.  It was the two we were waiting for and they were heading right for the pack of cast and crew.  Unknowing until they got close enough, they ended up having to manoeuvre their way around the boys and the crew, though to the other side. 

I knew one of them right away from the last set I was on and I called her, loudly, by name from the ground as I could hear her going sonic because of what had just happened.  They spotted us and walked their bikes down through the brush.  One of them said that Clif recognized her on the bike and as they came through he muttered, 'Keep going, keep going' so they knew not to stop. (I doubt they would have anyway but Clif was doing his job by making sure they didn't).  We conferred on the ground for a minute and a few of them wanted to go back up onto the wall.  They went first and I stayed on the ground.  I wasn't thrilled about climbing up the side of a grassy, steep hill but once they got up there I kind of wanted to see the sunset.  More crew was going up to take photos so I gave in and went up myself.  There were still a bunch of cast and crew down the way and I kept my back them, not wanting to stare.  Too close, too close.  I took photos of the sunset as well and eventually they all filtered back down the hill and inside.  I was just waiting for my phone to go off with a notification about tweets from the boys but, disappointingly, they never came.  A crew member named Brad Creasser posted two photos on Instagram but the boys didn't.  They also had the guest star for this episode up there with them.  He's playing Sam's imaginary friend from the looks of things.

They headed back in slowly, leaving a few crew members up there and they started to kind of head our way as, once the boys were gone, I felt it was alright to continue our journey that had been initiated by the PA on the outside of the set.  I paused and had a little chat with one of the crew guys about the beauty of it all and noticed that my friends had gotten even further down, closer to the barn, to talk to a crew guy we all know, Adam, the VFX guy.  He's always great to chat with and I love asking him questions about the technical points of his job. He'd never give anything even remotely spoiler-ey or insider away, which is great.  I always want to know how much involvement VFX has in previous episodes and he's happy to chat about that stuff. One of the girls was asking him a question that would have been spoiler-ey and he just stood there.  She asked again and I laughed, "Have you MET Adam?  He's not going to tell you anything about what's happening."

We let them head back down and they worked on the inside shot they were doing while some others set up outside.  There was a blue VW Bug that was part of whatever was happening and we heard that there would be a stunt involving someone getting hit by a 2x4 later. Sounds exciting!  (Any other context other than film does that get to be said?)

We headed back down the hill a little ways down from the barn and parked ourselves on the grass, waiting until the shoot moved outside so we could see something.  If they had said it was all interiors I would have left because there wasn't anything to see, but with the excitement of an exterior later and possibly even a stunt, I was stoked to see whatever was coming our way.  So we waited.  The 4 of us were soon joined by another girl and then 4 guys.  One of them was local and worked in the industry as a stunt man.  He knew a few of the crew members on the show.  His three friends were from out of town, they do a filming pilgrimage around different cities every once in a while to see shoots.  Two were from eastern US and one was from Australia.  I learned they were leaving the next day for LA to see sets down there.  So cool.  These are my people! :) I would love to do that one day and it made me feel good about my own set visiting when there are people that travel thousands of miles to see things film, whether they watch the show or not.  I'll go to sets locally that I don't watch just to watch the production. 

We had a variety of the regular crew members come over to us and chat.  We learned that it was episode 8, which I already knew because Richard Speight is directing. I asked about pranks and was told they're continual, no one gave us any specifics.  Everyone said he was doing great, though and things were going smoothly.

The exterior was pretty much ready to go after the crew had a snack.  Earlier we saw STOP signs coming in for traffic control in what looked like pizza boxes.  I guess they stack better in two pieces (handle and sign) in a box.  But then suddenly there were boxes and boxes of them coming out of a white van.  We quickly realized that these were not stop signs.  Pizza! :)  At least the crew is fed well. 

The boys went in and out twice.  Once while we were sitting on the grass and they loaded up and headed up to (I guess) circus for a minute.  When they came back Clif had no choice but to pull the SUV right up to us to back into the barn.  I felt bad, like we were in the way, but that's where they told us to be.  And I was temporarily blinded by the brightness of the lights since I was face to face with the grill of the SUV.  Took a while for that to clear, I don't know how stage actors do it.  Then, as they started to finish inside and move outside, Jared came and got in. I wasn't paying attention but apparently he said hi to us.  Then we saw Jensen just walking down the road away from us.  They had lit up the outside of the space and now the Bug was really visible but I didn't want to take a photo of it with Jared sitting in the SUV right in front of it.  That could be awkward.  So I waited. Eventually they followed Jensen up the road in the SUV and then quickly came back, Jensen still on foot. 

During a large chunk of the filming this exterior scene we were left without a PA.  Usually they'll send one over to babysit the fans to make sure we weren't causing trouble.  One of my favourite workers came over and told us that we would be left alone, she put down a pylon and told us to stay on that side of it and otherwise, just do what we always do.  Be quiet and follow the rules.  That we did.  When Clif brought Jared back the second time I realized why we were to stay on the opposite side of the pylon, he parked the SUV on the close-to-set side.  We could still see but they needed to park him somewhere where he wouldn't be in the shot.

While they ate they finished the set up and soon started running takes on the scene.  It looked like Jared's imaginary friend waves goodbye to the blue Bug driven by a girl as it passes by him and then he turns to Sam and they talk for a minute or two before Dean enters the frame, of course standing next to Sam and apparently showing his protective side.  During one take I saw a hard 'no' headshake from Dean.  Sam appeared relatively whimsical in the monitors at one point, but it might have just been because it was so cold his eyes were glassy.

Every time they pulled the Bug up (to a crew member waving it forward until it was to stop) I thought it was going to stall.  It idles so low before it goes.  I laughed in advance wondering how shit would fall apart in giggles if she stalled it. 

We were lucky enough to hear Richard calling action and cut outside as well as directing people, including needing the Bug to shut down faster to move the scene along.

We could hear them all laughing between takes, Jared's voice in particular carrying over to us pretty well.  At one point I heard the imaginary friend actor lamenting how hard he was trying not to laugh.  We saw a few good outtakes that ended in giggling and one where Jensen walked into the shot, stood and then turned right back out again and went again.  

There was lots of video going around it seemed.  I wonder now if it was the Season 11 trailer that was released around that time.  In the photos I have Clif with a tablet showing something to people and Jared also on his phone watching something it seemed.  Also in the photos I noticed that Jensen had stage makeup on over his left eye.  I didn't notice at the time, though.

We were chatting about the fog throughout the night.  It rolled in just after sunset and I laughed that this was the first SPN shoot I'd been at that they didn't have a fog machine and someone fanning fog for 10 hours.  It was foggy.  And it obstructed my photos.  Damn fog.  It made all my photos pretty fuzzy but I was a little happy when part way through the exterior scene it lifted! But THEN they broke out the fog machines.  Damn. 

They ran the shot from a couple of angles and I was again amazed at their ability to do things in so few takes.  Also, with all the goofing around and the light-heartedness I was amazed how quickly Jared and Jensen can go from cracked up and laughing to in character.  It was impressive seeing the transformation happen in an instant. 

I heard the sacred words 'moving on' and they started to change things around.  The car guy (Jeff I believe) went to get the Impala.  He had driven it by us earlier through to the other end of the shoot.  We saw flashlights going out with the cones on them.  Traffic control  We surmised we were going to see an Impala scene.  Well that got us all excited.

Clif had been sitting silently in the SUV just feet away from us as we stayed on the 'good' side of the sacred pylon.  Our friendly PA came over and added her coffee cup to the top of it and 'arms' as a twig at one point saying she wanted to see that on Twitter. 

As they were changing set ups Jared crossed the street toward the SUV but came over to us instead of getting in.  He said hi to us and smiled saying he couldn't see anything with the lights behind us.  Couldn't tell who was there or anything.  The girl that I knew from the past sets gave him a hug and chatted for a minute and then I motioned to our new friends from out of town.  Two of them at least were huge fans of the show and I wanted to make sure they got a chance to get a photo.  Then the other girl that came as well, she hadn't met them before as well as the girl that lived nearby.  She was a newer fan to the show as well but this was her first set.  I wanted to make sure they all got a chance in case Jared wanted to go in a hurry.  After that my friend wanted to get a hug and a couple of us took the chance to snap a photo of that.  Jared squinted out to the light asking if there was anyone else.  I sort of mumbled that I have a photo thinking that I didn't wan to keep him, but he asked, "You don't have a photo tonight?" and held his arms out.  Like I'm going to say no.  One of the guys from out of town had been snapping photos on his iPhone and, with mine dead, I asked him to take a photo.  I stepped up and grabbed on, wrapping my arms around his waist and saying 'You're WARM!'  We were cold and damp from standing out there and sitting in the damp grass while we watched.  I held on while the photo was snapped.  I don't know what it is about me and smells, but this time he smelled like mint with a hint of that same aftershave (deodorant? I don't know).  He must have been chewing gum anyway for the mint.  

I was holding in my hand a CD.  I felt like an idiot for doing this but it was for him.  Let me explain.  I had a trial of SiriusXM (I miss that service but can no longer afford it) and heard an artist named Greg Holden (no relation to me).  I really loved the song that he had on the station called Hold On Tight. Basically it's about enjoying life and not taking for granted the things you've been given.  After the subscription expired I really wanted that song.  So I did some research on the artist, liked what I heard and read and bought the album on iTunes.  It contained a lot of really moving songs but the first time I heard one called Save Yourself it really made me think of Jared, his Always Keep Fighting campaign and how it connects to the SPN Family helping each other through tough things.  The chorus lyrics are:


You've gotta save yourself
So you can find a way to save someone else
It won't make any difference if we don't all help
We all need help so try and save yourself

I thought that nicely represented the idea that everyone needs to help each other and support each other through tough times and the SPN Family really gets behind that.  I thought if he ever needed a song to use for the AKF Campaign, this would be a good one. I felt pretty damn stupid giving it to him, though and I really doubted whether I'd be able to go through with it at all.  I'm not that type of person.  Celebrities, in my opinion, don't really need 'gifts', people buy things for them but we don't really know these people, really.  If they want something, they can go get it.  Or their families and friends can get it for them.  Fans don't really need to be doing that.  No offence to people that do at all, but I always thought it was something I would never do.  Unless it's something that was made by fans to get a message across. That's kind of different. 

Anyone else this is probably something I would have tweeted to him, but these guys are so overwhelmed with tweets and stuff that it would never be seen.  By putting it in his hot little hand I know that at least he's seen it.  If he actually bothers to listen to it, well, that's not my call.  But at least I've done everything I can.  I wrote out a brief letter explaining how stupid I felt, apologized if I stepped over the line, explained the song and why I was giving it to him and begged him not to have me blacklisted as some psycho, tucked it in the case with a print out of the lyrics and stuffed it in my little baggie o' set-visits. Still wasn't sure I was going to do it.  When I saw him coming over I dug it out and held onto it, that's why my hand isn't flat in the photo with him, I'm hanging onto the CD. 

So, after the photo was taken I looked at him for a second and asked, "Can I give you something?" He looked back quizzically and said, "Sure."  I hadn't thought of this at all, didn't really know what to say, I just held it out and said, "It's a CD, there's a note in there to explain."  I smiled, squeezed his arm and walked away.  I couldn't explain it just then.  I think he said thank you? I'm not really sure.  I still don't know how I feel.  Who knows if he'll even look at it, doesn't really matter to me if he does.  I just don't want him to think I'm some crazy person.  Totally outside my comfort zone.  I went back around to the small crowd to lick my pride wounds.

Jared told us through the ensuing casual conversation that he was wrapped but Jensen wasn't yet.  He still had another scene to do.  He also said that he had hurt his rib on Sunday.  Well my heart just dropped.  I'd squeezed him pretty damn hard for warmth and, well, because I could. That's how I hug, I'm a squeezer.  I'm always worried that I over-squeeze my friends kids.  I mean, he didn't say anything directly and I said 'Sorry!' over the group.  He said that it wasn't too bad, just a little sore.  If I hadn't been completely mortified that I might have hurt him a little I would have asked for details.  He was at a Con this past weekend I think.  Another run in with Orsric Chau? Probably not but would be funny if it was. 

I can't remember if I asked him about Richard, I don't think I did which is too bad.  Missed opportunity.  He said he had to run which was great.  He explained that he had a Skype call with his kids every morning before school Texas time and did a good impression of himself half awake or falling asleep, 'What?' and I think he semi-impersonated one of the kids asking 'Daddy? Are you there?'  He pulled the handle and found the SUV locked and walked around the drivers' side asking if Clif was asleep in there.  I don't know if he actually was but he rapped on the window and Clif unlocked the back door so Jared could jump in.  Off they went. 

About that time I noticed that the other two guys of the four weren't there.  The local one and one of the fans.  They had gone to chat with the car guy since they kind of new him already.  The fan had missed Jared.  I feel for him.  Bad timing.

We hung around some more and the friendly PA backed us up a bit saying that the Impala was going to be coming down our way.  Well that reminded me of a few months ago when we had Jensen driving the Impala next to us.  That was fun.  I started thinking of things to say if we were going to have a casual encounter.  This time I'd be ready! Instead of just saying like 'hi' as before. 

Soon, Jensen was in the Impala and backing it out of the driveway but he took it the other way down the road away from us.  I expressed a little bit of sadness (not anger, I was just kind of geared up for 'up close and personal with the Impala and Jensen') and the PA apologized (totally not necessary) saying she had it the wrong way.  She explained they had to be careful because there was another production here and they didn't want people to recognize the same place if they see both shows so they had to do some careful and creative angling to keep off the front of the barn.

Clif had returned and put the SUV back on the property, not next to us again.  I guess it wouldn't be in the shot anymore.  While we were waiting in between, the stunt coordinator came behind us into his truck to grab some stunt mats.  YAY STUNT TIME! 

Jensen only did one take bringing the Impala onto the property, he jumped out and went running to the building then we heard a bang and that was it.  Unfortunately because we were further back now since we thought we would be in the shot for the Impala driving scene, we no longer could see inside the property.  

Between the one take this took and what turned out to be the final shot of the night, we were standing there hanging out and suddenly the director himself was walking over to us.  Richard Speight Jr., white baseball cap and moustache, were sauntering down the street.  He came right over to us, slowly, and said hello.  I made sure I called him 'Mr. Director' and we asked how things were going and he seemed to not engage to much in the answer, must be modest.  People jumped in and started asking for photos and I took my chance as well, getting up next to him for a quick opportunity.  This time all of the four guys were there and, just as he was saying he had to get back they lined up and snapped one with him too.  I thanked him for his time and he made his way back to the set. 

The last setup of the night was Dean getting out of the car, just another angle of what must be a stunt shot.  He gets out of the car and crosses over to, I'm thinking the imaginary friend, and gets whacked by a stick.  They did it in one take.  Can't believe these guys and how efficient they are.  Apparently they were behind schedule.  I don't know what their wrap time was supposed to be but it was around 11:30 when they pulled the pin.  

Suddenly someone kicked the beehive and everyone suddenly started streaming out, more staff than I imagined could have been there.  We wandered down the road, back through the set toward my car and almost physically ran into Richard again as he crossed the street to the crew van.  Made sure I told him it was a pleasure and not to let them give him too much of a hard time.  We headed back to the car and off we went, another awesome night on the Supernatural set. :)
Supernatural 11x08


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