Okay, Shoot Already!

LIZSAYS: It has been sort of gray for the past couple of weeks. That seems to be the way autumn starts in Paris. The weather may or may not get cooler, it may rain a bit more, but the most obvious change is the gray mornings. It may get sunny later in the day, it may rain, but in the morning its dark enough to make me want to turn on a light. So, we start finding things to cheer things up a little. We buy some flowers, put up more artwork, by lunch time, the sun hadn’t come out, so we decided to eat lunch at a bistro at our end of the Mouffetard Market. It’s colorful, with 2 fountains and flowers and we can eat outside with ‘chauffage’, these outdoor heaters that are supposed to keep you warm. The reality is, it’s not that cold, we can eat outside in a jacket. The chauffage actually only really reaches your head, so it dries out your hair but you still have to keep your jacket on.
The restaurant is located on a circular drive with a flower dressed fountain in the center. It’s very picturesque, a pretty nice place to have lunch. And, as it turns out a pretty nice place to shoot a film. Woody Allen occupied it for a couple of days shooting film that would end up on the cutting room floor.
So, when we noticed a couple of the telltale movie trucks and people with clipboards moving in rotation all around the circle, we had an idea what was up. Movie trucks always seem to look the same and these had “coiffure, macquillage “(hair and makeup) printed on them. 
Of course the mic sitting on the fountain was another dead give away. So, the sport became TV or movie? American or French? And spot the star.

It all happened pretty fast for filming, so we decided TV. We finally figured out the guy who couldn’t be bothered to carry his own umbrella must be the star and since we didn’t recognize him, he must be French.

Cords were run, lighting rigs were erected, the scene was walked through a couple of times when the cook for the restaurant showed up and double parked his car as he ran into work. Two of the rotating film guys lost their minds! They ran past us into the restaurant freaking out about some guy parking right in the middle of the scene. The chef was, “I don’t have to park. I am the chef. Other people park for me”. And, it’s true, everyone parks everywhere in the circle until a legit space opens up, or not.
 

It was hilarious to see these guys, who were trying to look so nondescript and film crew cool, with their clip boards, notebooks and cells, incredulous that someone didn’t notice all their cool movie stuff scattered about and kowtow to the entertainment machine. The chef on the other hand, was incredulous that anybody would even ask him to move his car. After the manly hissy war, the film guys won and the chef ran out and moved his car. Besides, now the cops had showed up to help the TV guys get on with it.
 
Well, we decided to have coffee, so we could see the scene whats his name was going to shot.
It was a brief walk in the drizzle part way around the circle until he almost gets hit by a honking van. So very Paris! After 3 takes, it was done. 
 
Lunch was pretty good, too.