DAY 27: Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Joel as Grant sprinting shirtless down Melrose Avenue on Capitol Hill kicks off a hectic morning.

Lauren’s first photo double, Trin, arrives; her hair is too short to be Lauren’s.  Another Lauren double, Madison, arrives with hair of appropriate length and color.  One problem:  Madison cannot drive a stick shift car, which she needs to do to pretend to be Lauren pulling up in the next scene.  Trin works in the car scene and Madison in a scene at the Comet, which involves Lauren sitting in the audience.

We move to the next location, the Seattle monorail. The crew appears to control all of Seattle filming this scene, making the monorail stop and start on cue and directing the city’s mayor as a background actor.

The mayor chats with Seattle Metropolitan’s Eric Scigliano, who wrote a piece on him called “The Un-Mayor Speaks.”  The mayor likes Eric’s piece, saying he has no problem with anything in the article.  “Oh no!  Then I didn’t write a good article!”  Eric exclaims facetiously.  Does this mean Eric will strive for controversy as he writes his piece on Grassroots?  We’ll see.

Jordanah Monjazeb, the winner of the set-visit contest, reads her haiku aloud to Stephen:

speed rolling action

childhood dream never fulfilled

eagerly awaiting

Stephen beams in appreciation as he poses with her for a photo.  He sees her as a fellow poet. I wonder if this movie could be the childhood film that he is eagerly awaiting to fulfill.