So, some time ago I spent a day in Estacada at an old lumber mill musing over a crime scene. Seems a federal agent had been murdered, so I was called in to take over the case from the local law enforcement. The hitch was they only needed two FBI agents and there were three of us on hand. I was odd man out.
But I just got a second chance. Once again there is a murder, an abandoned car our only clue, and I would be on hand to help.
This is how I returned to the set of Grimm.
We had a very early call time, forcing me to leave home long before I normally wake. I had to head out to the remote reaches of north Portland's industrial district. Actually, the Grimm studio is right down the street from where the Tomato Fight had occurred.
I was really excited because this time I would get to be a uniformed police officer. Last time I wore my own suit, trading in the suit jacket for the blue FBI field windbreaker. Both times I got a gun, but police have a utility belt which comes with "mace" (a live can of training mace), handcuffs (let the fun begin!), a radio with shoulder mic, and a telescoping beat stick. I played with all of my toys while waiting for filming to begin.
For the second time in my extras career, my "character" actually had a name. From the random grab bag of name tags I was given "Oster". That's Officer Oster to you.
Our group was composed of several cops, a couple detectives, and a few perps. We were filming on the main PDX police station set. I've never watched the show (although I nearly did once, which is almost a story of it's own), so I can't say what kind of action has taken place there, but I can tell you where this fictional police station sits within downtown Portland. Since the building is just an artificial set in a warehouse, the view outside the windows is a huge photo panorama. Pictured is what you'd see if you were standing outside Whole Foods Market looking south (on Burnside and NW 13th).
I wasn't working with Nick (David Giuntoli) and Hank (Russell Hornsby) this time around (but I did when I was an FBI agent, though they were rather stand-offish). However, I did have Sgt. Wu (Reggie Lee), and he's a really nice guy. We were just goofing off, trying to stay out of the way while the crew set up the lighting for the scene. We were joined by Captain Renard (Sasha Roiz), all of us checking the doughnut box for treats (unfortunately, there were none).
When this episode airs, I'll probably just be this blur way in the background, as the scene takes place inside the Captain's office while the rest of us are out in the main area. When it came time for filming, my job was to get some coffee. I got a surprise here. Unlike the doughnut box, the coffee machine was not empty. It was full of nightmare. A horrific black sludge, probably made by Cthulhu the last time the stars aligned, poured into my prop cup. The rest of that coffee table was just as scary. There was a half empty cup of joe behind the machine that was hosting its own little evolution experiment.
We did the scene many times and then headed back to base camp. Most of us changed into street clothes for the next scene. We were taken down to Union Station to act as passengers coming off the train. Obviously, our ride was interrupted by a freight train blocking the back road we were on to get between the studio and the station. When the train came to a complete stop several minutes later, still holding us up, we decided to take another route. Once on location, I was paired with a woman and we were to be a couple arriving from St. Louis. We were asked to improvise our story, so I soon became her whipped boyfriend.
It's a difficult thing to maintain control of a public space, especially one where there is constant in and out traffic. We closed off part of the street and part of the sidewalk, but people continually tried to walk through, or become gawkers while on camera. The cool bit was when an Amish family came out of the station in time to be in the background of our final take. I just image trying to explain what we were doing to them.
After we finished, we piled into the van to return to home base, catching a ride with Reggie who thanked us for our help.
That was the end though, a short day overall. The biggest disappointment being that they didn't feed us!
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