The World Of WD - With Photos And Video

Such a sunshiny feeling having a pocket full of money

Sorry so late! Was waiting on the set photographer to get me some cool pictures for you.

Okay so new week, new music video, new artist. We’ll call this artist SM for Smiley Music. She seems to always have upbeat happy-making music and this new song is no exception.

Same director as the PS shoot. He’s a wonderful, gentle, brilliantly creative man. For real. I’m really excited to get this gig. Making money is always a good thing, unless it’s through prostitution. That would not be my ideal. The thing with music videos is they don’t let you know they are shooting until 5 days before. Then they tend to move the date up at the last second. So they call me and asked me to
do it.

Right off the bat they say “jump from window in office building something something 15-30 feet (big difference esp in a fall) something something parachute jumper.” Hmmmm stunts isn’t so much a “something something” type a gig. You pretty need much need to know “exactly exactly” How high is the actual fall? What is the jumper wearing? Who does it need to be? A double of the artist or an character in the video? Parachute huh? Like a real one or one that we can cheat? Sky scraper downtown LA huh? Interesting. The good news this team was all pro. They arranged a location scout. I couldn’t go so I sent stunt man extraordinaire John Dixon.

So before John calls me, this is what I know. 1. It’s supposed to be the artist jumping so I’ll be doubling her. (I’m actually a great match for her for this) 2. It’s a 15 foot jump. 3. We are shooting on Thurs. 3a. Which means I have Weds to practice (it’s been a couple of months since I’ve done a jump) So far so good. John calls from the location. NOW 1. I’m still doubling SM 2. It’s a 25 foot fall
3. We are shooting weds. 3a. No practice for a jump that I’ve never done that high. Awesome.

Here’s what’s keeping me from running. 1. I already got myself into it. I’m not a big fan of flaking. 2. John knows what I can do and he thought I could do it. 3. The guy bringing the air bag I was falling into, Scot, won an Academy Award for his air bag design....wow I just noticed...I’m being very list-y today. 1.2.3.

We are shooting on the stop of skyscraper in downtown LA on the PERFECT day. You can barely see the Hollywood sign but it’s there.

I get to set at 6 AM. Everyone is so cool and friendly. We set up the airbag. John and Scot give me a little coaching and I go up to give it a try. I try a “suicide” first, called that because that’s what it looks like. You step off facing out and fall straight down and at the last minute flip your feet out and land on your back. Those I feel pretty comfortable with. But I wanted it to look more like I was doing a parachute jump since that’s the premise of the video. So I tried something new for me. I stood on the ledge and leapt out with my arms out and my chest parallel with the ground. Kinda like Superman, if he sank like a rock when he jumped off a building. That was it. That was what they wanted, and man, was it fun!

When we got to shooting it they put a parachute pack on, 10 pounds, a pencil skirt on me and wanted me to wear heels. Which I couldn’t with the air bag. That was a totally different experience. I was more top heavy than I expected and landed face first in the bag and managed to kick myself in the head from behind. Interesting. Didn’t know I could bend that way. Knocked the wind out of myself. Not pleasant. But I did it 2 more times after that. And got the hang of it. Neck is a little sore as I write this but that was one HECK of an air bag!

Here’s a clip but it stops before I land.

Then on to SM in a harness. They had to give me hair extensions since my hair was shorter than hers. So when I walked up to her dressed like with my hair styled like her her face lit up and she said “You’re me!“ In her wonderful accent. She was such a cool person. Totally up for anything. The harness was not a comfortable one. But we had to use it because it had to fit under her outfit. She was a trooper. No snark her about her. Here she is in the harness.
Then I was wrapped for the day and went straight to acting class until 11PM.

Thursday.

Later call time. Thank God. Today we are supposed to harness a few dancers to land with the parachute and I’m to double SM in the harness to get a little extra footage of that. But first we had an unexpected job. So there is this really cool moment when SM lands on the roof with other dancers. All still in their packs with the parachutes out. Have I mentioned that we are on a heli-landing pad on top of a sky
scraper in downtown LA?
And it’s windy. And they are wearing packs with open parachutes...see where I’m going with this? So John and I were tethered to the dancers “just in case”. There one point after the dancers dropped their packs and the wind picked up. John and I were dragged a couple of feet across the roof. Thankfully we were far from the edge and the crew jumped on the chutes to squash them.

Next on to the harness work. So much fun. The dancers picked it up right away. And I got to do some fun things.
Here is some of the graffiti art that is featured in the video.
All in all great day. SM was cool. She is clearly someone who is living her dream, not someone else’s. Her face lights up when she sings and I found myself smiling when I was watching her.