On-set and behind the scenes at Reginald the Vampire (Part 3)

This continuation of the series covers my second day watching filming in Victoria, BC

Missed the earlier posts in this series? Start with Part 1 here.

I slept in the next day because why not? Shooting last night had gone until something like 2am. Nobody would be doing anything yet anyway.

So, to kill time, I perused Victoria. It’s a charming little town — and, Driver Jeff told me, nothing like the hurly-burly of Toronto, which is one of Canada’s capitals of filmmaking. I played my folding travel guitar a little, managed to break a string, and then went out in search of a guitar store. The place was just so friendly. Even the guitar store guy was cool.

The schedule for my second day was roughly like the first day, but with more night shooting and less day. That meant an even later start. It felt like I’d gone to Victoria, randomly and alone, given all the “wasted” time in the first part of the day. But what was I going to do, stay in my AirBnB? The owner had warned me that the building next door was under heavy construction and I’d told her I didn’t care because I’d be gone all day. All day. Joke was on me, I guess, seeing as I ended up around all day and gone all night, just like any other vampire.

Jeff took me to the set in the late afternoon, which was again at the Slushy Shack. I’d spent a few hours the day before, but I’d kept my distance. I’d met crew, but not a lot of cast. One way to say it was that I was out of my element and being uncharacteristically shy. The way I preferred to think of it, though, was that I was being respectful. Nobody wants some entitled visitor all up in their faces with no clue how to behave.

The second day, I wanted to be less reserved and meet more people. If only I could get close enough to do so.

Covid strikes back

One thing I haven’t explained yet is that Covid compliance didn’t stop after I was cleared by my third test in as many days. Covid was a huge deal on set as well, with everyone doing the best they could but also clearly sick of it.

If you see people with big reflective X’s on their vests in my pictures, those are the Covid compliance people. On set, everyone called them “Covid cops.”

Everyone wore a badge on a lanyard to prove they were allowed to be there. Here’s mine:

The fact that my lanyard is red was significant. It meant I had the highest level of access, allowed to approach anyone I wanted from a Covid compliance perspective. Others with different colors were restricted to certain zones — so some could only get close to crew but not cast, for instance.

That red lanyard meant I could go wherever, but it didn’t mean I could drink coffee inside the video village tent. Everyone was just a little bugged by the Covid Cops. They were doing their jobs and keeping the production from shutting down, but that didn’t mean people weren’t annoyed when they were told to walk off into the middle of nowhere to take a sip.

I learned this because my mantra on set became: Be cool. Be helpful. People were granting me deference I hadn’t earned and that I knew better than to accept. For example, I asked if I could take pictures. The reply I got was, “YOU can.” But that’s not what I was asking. I don’t want to be the exception: the guy out there doing what’s forbidden to everyone just because he’s the damn author.

I was careful to always keep in mind that I was a guest. I was in their workplace as a tourist, and I was eating their food, and I was definitely in the way a few times. I wanted to be respectful and not take my being there for granted.

So one of the things I started doing, considering how much time I spent in video village with Alison (who accepted no bullshit) and Boris, was to get them whatever they wanted from Crafty. At first they said No, thank you, it’s fine. I persisted and eventually they started loosening up and letting me bring them food and drinks. Boris even had a usual. I forget what it was, but when I went to Crafty and said to Rich, “Boris wants this thing; he says you’ll know what that means,” Rich rolled his eyes and said, “Yeah, I know exactly what that motherfucker wants.” It was quite the crew.

We had to wear N95 masks every moment unless we were eating or drinking, which was supposed to be done in specified places. But people kept rolling their eyes the way Rich had and saying, “Eat and drink. Just don’t let the Covid cops catch you.”

Lunch was hilarious. They’d put these X-shaped plexiglas partitions across the tops of round four-top tables, and when you sat with other people, talking to the other three at your table was like trying to get service at a late-night gas station.

Covid was the only thing about the visit that was kind of a downer. Because everyone was always wearing masks, you never really saw entire faces — except the cast, of course, because they had to act. I posed for a few pics without masks, but only for long enough to snap the photo. I think we all know this from a few years of Covid, but when you can’t see the lower half of someone’s face, it’s harder to connect with them. There’s nuance in their expressions that simply goes unseen. So for instance, when I finally saw the lower half of Jeff’s face after talking to him for days, I saw that I’d imagined it differently than it actually was. That kind of thing is a serious disconnect. You think you’ve met someone, but then the mask comes off and your brain says it’s a whole new person.

I ended up finding the ultimate hack for the masks-and-connection issue, and it’s pretty devious. I’ll tell you about that at the end of this post.

I meet people and act stupid