John Carpenter is considered by many to be the greatest director of modern horror, although he has in fact made movies in a number of other genres. Many horror/sci-fi/indie filmmakers have expressed admiration for Carpenter's work, from Robert Rodriguez to Guillermo Del Toro to Quentin Tarantino to even the critically praised Paul Thomas Anderson of Boogie Nights and Magnolia fame. His earlier films are considered classics and his latest film "Ghosts of Mars" was coming to town to film.
This was awesome news, but how on earth would we be able to find a movie set to meet the cast and crew? Thankfully Earl managed to get information to where the movie was filming, but didn't know the dates of when they were shooting. After a couple of failed efforts to find them we were giving up hope on finding the set. After these failed attempts, Sterling had completely given up hope and wasn't planning on going with Earl on this last attempt. Earl finally talked Sterling into going and we headed off in hopes that the third try would a charm.
As we approached the location we were shocked to spot trailers and all of the other signs of a working movie set. We had finally found it, but there still was much more work to be done. These film sets aren't advertised because they don't want crowds showing up, so we were afraid they wouldn't allow us to hang out for autographs. Our nerves were killing us and for awhile we couldn't leave the car because of it.
Finally we built up some adrenaline and decided to just walk right in and hopefully nobody would mind (a little Matt Damon deja vu). This is probably the most nerve-racking time we have ever experienced and we didn't know quite where to stand and wait. We decided to wait close to the trailers, but far enough so that it remained respectful. They were filming inside the building and it didn't seem to bother anyone walking by that we were standing there. From their perspective we could be the producer's children for all they know, so that could be a factor in the reason they didn't mind our presence. We eventually settled in and became a lot more confidant of the situation and now could focus on getting autographs.
After quite some time passed a lady decided to walk up to us and asked who we were waiting for. Sterling was honest (which could have been a bad thing) and told her that we were there to meet the stars. The lady revealed that she was the assistant to Director John Carpenter. It didn't seem to bug her at all that we were there to get autographs and the next thing she did for us was surprising.
She took us to her car and opened the trunk; hopefully she wasn't about to get rid of the pesky autograph collectors, if you know what I mean. Instead she handed each of us 8x10 b/w signed pictures of John Carpenter! We couldn't believe how nice a gesture this was and thanked her so much for them. They were really great pictures and since they were dark he signed them silver, which added to the great look of the autograph.
If that wasn't enough, she said she would try and get us on the set. Unfortunately the producer wasn't as generous and informed her that she couldn't bring us on the set. That was really nice of her to do that for us and we thanked her for trying. After that we felt we were accepted on the set and nobody cared if we waited for autographs.
Throughout the day we kept seeing some of the stars of the film, but they were busy rehearsing for the coming scenes and we respected their space during those moments. At one point we spotted John Carpenter in his trailer pacing before the next scene, it was cool to see him in person. After they had finished shooting for the day our autograph opportunities had finally come, continue to the stories of Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Clea Duvall, and Pam Grier.
