Hanging Out At The Home Of Nick On Sunset

It's been a fun week for Zach as he's been part of filming a show at this place:

The kid needed a fun distraction because the past few weeks have seen death, illness and surgery run rampant through our immediate and extended family.  (FYI...Those three items have been the reason for a lack of a new post in recent weeks)

The Artist played football for seven years before he set his sights on acting.  His football skills come in handy because (it seems) there are only three or four kids in the entire teen acting community that know how to play football.  The set this week is filled with the same three or four kids that Zach worked with on "Modern Family" and actual high school football players brought in to round out the team.

Nickelodeon On Sunset is the former home of the Earl Carroll Theatre which opened in 1938. Earl Carroll was a producer, director, songwriter and Broadway impresario.  He died in a plane crash in 1948.  The studio still has some items from the original theatre including:

The ticket booth/security guard booth when you enter the building

The other side of the ticket booth

In case you aren't sure where to go when you enter the building, here's a helpful guide:

One of the odd things about the Sunset Studio is the fact they only shoot a few shows at a time.  The building has limited stage space so the filming of some Nick shows is farmed out to other studios.

The show currently filming revolves around a high school football team with a female quarterback. Filming lasted all day because they had to film the team on the field in their practice jerseys as well as their game day jerseys.

Practice Jersey

Game Day Uniform

The exciting thing about this job for Zach?  It's his first acting job since joining SAG-AFTRA so he gets the union rate for working on the show.  More money for his college fund!

I think this might be the busiest set I've ever been on with the most "on the nose" crew I've watched in action.  The entire shoot has been a well oiled machine.  

It's also been a set filled with extras and extras and extras and more extras.  People playing cheerleaders, grandparents, fans, players, students and random crowd members.  There's no telling how much of the budget went to pay for extras.

Sweaty Day Crowd

The crowd enjoying the cool night air

The show takes place in Texas.  I couldn't help but laugh each time I stepped outside thanks to the hospital sign that was over the "Texas Football Stadium".

I was fascinated by one piece of filming equipment: "The Blimp".  The crew used this floating light to shoot scenes that required moonlight in the frame.  A set of crew members walked with the blimp behind the actors so the "moonlight" would follow them during the scene.

The blimp in action

The blimp at rest during the day

The one shot I couldn't get the entire shoot?  The stand-ins for the main girl and guy football players. The stand-in for the teenage girl is a middle aged woman.  The stand-in for the teenage boy is a balding 50ish guy.  You can't tell since they're wearing football helmets in all of their scenes.  

They reminded me of the running joke in "21 Jump Street" about the main characters looking way too old to be in high school.

I'll let you know when Zach appears on Nick in the near future.  He'll be the center trying his best to nail the long snap!

The Kid I Practiced Long Snaps With This Week

What Work Permit?

We arrived in the MO/IL area in late May to attend rehearsals for the "Marshall" movie.  Rehearsals had been going great and everything was good to go to begin filming the first Tuesday in June.

Until the email showed up...

The email in question listed everything I needed to bring to set the first day including a copy of his IL work permit.  My first thought was "what Illinois work permit"?  I knew they decided to film in Illinois due to better tax breaks.  No one mentioned needing a work permit.

I was told the permit was necessary in order for Zach to work on the film and to have it with me on set the next morning.  The time was 10am and I had until 4pm to get the permit.

I quickly figured out what I needed to secure the permit:

*Birth Certificate? Check!
*SSN Card? Check!
*Manger/Agent Info? Check!
*Well Child Checkup? No!
*Letter From His School Showing He Is A Student In Good Standing? No!

I called his former doctor and explained my situation to the nurse.  She politely told me they were really busy that day and my best bet was to visit a emergency clinic.  I asked her to check with the doctor and see if there was any possible way to fit us into the schedule.  She grumbled and agreed to ask the good doctor.  She called back ten minutes later and told us to be there in one hour!

Now it was time to call a school district in Illinois because I had to get a school official to sign off on the work permit.  I contacted the Belleville school district and was informed I called on a good day because it was the last day of school.  In other words, no one would be there the next day to answer my questions.  I was passed from one person to another person to a third person who told me I was on the phone with the wrong school district.  She gave me the correct district/number to call and wished me luck.  I called the correct person and was told to be there by 3pm because she was leaving early that day to get a haircut.

Great...One less hour to get the permit.

The next step was to obtain a letter from his California school.  I was afraid this wasn't going to happen because the school year was over and I didn't know if anyone would be in the office.  I got his teacher on the phone and explained my situation.  After waiting 30-seconds for her to stop laughing at me, I asked if I could get the letter.  She told me to send her what I needed the letter to say and she would get it to me within 30-minutes.  Twenty-two minutes later I had the letter from his teacher (on letterhead) as well as a scanned copy of his report card from Dana.

The only task left was seeing the doctor.

We arrived at the office where I was presented with paperwork and a "how dare you throw off my day" look from the nurse.  Ten minutes later we were in a room seeing the doctor:

*Height? Above average.
*Weight? Well within the range of his age group.
*Eyes/Ears/Nose? Still attached and working fine.
*Immunizations shots up to date?  No.

Zach and the doctor debated for five minutes on whether or not he needed to get a shot before leaving the office.  In a "dad of the year" moment, I looked at the doctor and stated I didn't have time for a debate so just get a needle and stick the kid in the arm so we could move on and get the permit.

Zach wasn't happy but he is up to date on his shots.

By this point, it's 12:30pm and we were facing a 50-minute drive to the correct school district.

It turned out to be a 75-minute drive thanks to road construction.

We hit Edwardsville, IL and had to find a Fed Ex/Kinko's to print out the school letter and the report card.  Doesn't that sound like an easy task?

Oh wait...There isn't a Fed Ex/Kinko's in Edwardsville!

I searched the Internet for Edwardsville printing companies and found a guy 5-minutes from us.  We raced into his place at 2pm and found the nicest guy to help us.  It tuns out he used to live in Los Angeles and wanted to tell us all about his glory days in LA.  We escaped 20-minutes later and raced to the school district office.

We sprinted into the building at 2:35pm and found our contact before she left to get her bleach blonde hair a deeper shade of fake blonde.

I gave her all of my paperwork and signed her forms.  We were all good except for Zach needing to sign one form.

I turned around and he was nowhere in sight.  I quickly realized he was in the bathroom.  I had to drag him out of the bathroom and back into the office to sign the form.  The permit was signed, processed and ready to go at 2:54pm!

I showed up on set the next day proudly carrying Zach's IL work permit.  They didn't ask me for a copy of it at all the first week.  Or the second week.  I finally asked them if they needed a copy of the permit during the third week of filming.

Their reply?

"I guess that would be good to have."

***Sigh***

This teen actor can work in IL if you need him! I have the permit!