First rehearsal started off with more photos of my face and hand. In the film the monster uses his dendritic tentacles to fasten me against the wall and then it drains the life out of me. My skin gets covered with black veins and then I believe the skin gets sunken in as I perish. So at some point my arm and face are replaced with a digital version, so they take super high res photos so they can get every pore and folicle exact.
The crew is quite an international bunch – a Spaniard serving as director, a German on texture duty, and I believe two Chinese fellows round up as producer and photographer. So there’s lots of hilarious cultural gaps and ESL foibles, to my delight.
We went through the shots one at a time, and surprisingly in sequence of the story rather than convenience of camera setup.
Later that week I was to meet them at the Blenz by Commercial skytrain for a fitting. Seemed like a strange place but that’s Hollywood for you. We met up with Attila the wardrobe guy and then we all bused down to the Value Village on Hastings where we vexed the lady in charge of the change rooms who decides who goes in what change room and makes sure nobody goes in with more than 5 items. We basically spent an hour and a half trying on pants, shoes, shirts and sweater vests, with other shoppers confused about the change+critique+repeat process. Finally they found something they liked and after they left I did a little shopping of my own.
A second rehearsal was practically the same as the first (they dropped one shot), except this time in costume. The shoes scuffed up the floor pretty good.