Squishy's Bio
Squishy's Friends
Newsflash
My Friends
X-Men: The Movie My Comic Collection Cyclops' Bio
Age of Apocalypse Downloads
Links
Updates
Guestbook

And the story unfolds.....

It all began in mid September, September 12 to be exact, when Wai was surfing the net and came upon the juicy tidbit that the X-Men movie was shooting in Hamilton in mid October. We have waited one long month for this opportunity and it finally arrived. As most of you know, we came back to Hamilton the Saturday following commencement to check out the shoot with Ying's friend, Albert.

The shoot was to take place at the corner of James and Murray, both inside and outside of an abandoned railway station, no where close to the size of Union Station or Grand Central, but nonetheless a giant in its surroundings. The station had been fixed up by the crew to attain a more modern look. Large column lights adorned the front of the station and freshly paved grass and a row of giant conifers outlined the site. Overturned police cars, rubble and overturned clumps of earth scattered the lawn. Apparently, Magento had a disagreement with the local police.

To our dismay, we were told that there was no filming on weekends. We struck up a conversation with the security guard who told us to come back later that week. He was the steretypical done-nothing but nearing 30 kind of guy. Long hair. Baseball cap. A cigarrette and a coffee in his hands. Check this out: he's been in LA for 6 years and he is writing a script about a guy who writes scripts, and the movie is called, The Script. Chuckle. He wouldn't let us walk onto the set which sucked big time. He seemed like one of those bummed out writers who was waiting for a big break but probably would never get one cos his story sucked. He also told us that all he really wanted was to get laid, but that's another story.

We returned home disappointed, but we were determined to return later on Thursday night in the hopes of getting in on the action, which brings us to last night. This time we were accompanied by Matt, Albert, and Burke who was nice enough to provide a nice car ride to the site.

Burke, by the way, is the president of McMaster Student Union. So it was pretty cool being chaufeurred by such a character.

The first spectacle to welcome us as we drove closer were the enormous lights! Taller than the lights at a baseball diamond and three times as bright, these lights could be spotted from blocks away. You have never seen lights the likes of these before. We parked a couple of blocks down the road and walked to where a few onlookers were situated. Security guards and police kept busy trying to look important and intimidating by making sure we stayed on the other side of the street.

The rubble and police cars had been removed and new grass covered the lawn. We planted ourselves across the street and waited impatiently for a glimpse of a cast member. We had low expectations at this point, take a few pictures here and there, sneak a peek inside the station, maybe steal some memerabilia, and maybe, just maybe, get to be extras. As you can probably guess, we grew tired of waiting and wandered closer to the site, only to be told to go stand across the street. We were escorted back. Albert and Burke grew tired and decided to go home. We decided to wander down the other street towards the trailers but we again we were told to go stand across the street. As we walked back, the lights suddenly came on and we ran back not wanting to miss any action. Alas the lights grew dim and nothing happened.

Matt recognized one of the onlookers as a welcome week rep from his building, who introduced himself as Nick. We saw some people who looked like extras walking off the site and Nick casually asked if they happened to know if they would be filming outside that night. Yes, we will be filming outside in a few hours, replied the man, but we remained doubtful, how reliable a source was he? Nick asked the man how could he know that for sure, and the man replied by telling us that he was the director! The man turned out to be Bryan Singer, the director of The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil was directing the X-Men movie!

In the minutes that followed we watched in awe as we saw through our own eyes the intense concentration and talent of a big time Hollywood director as Bryan and his crew tried to decide where to shoot an outside clip. Then Bryan agreed to take photographs with us! Imagine that, being in a picture with Bryan Singer! What a sweet deal! Not only that, but he agreed to have us be extras in his movie, and he was happy to let us tag along as he and his crew checked out a site down the road! We felt like groupies, but what the hell! It was the experience of a lifetime. We were so incredibly excited!

Soon after, they decided that the second site was better and Bryan informed us that they would not be prepared to shoot for another couple of hours or so, and he invited us in for lunch! Can you believe it? A director inviting us in for lunch! We were floating on air! Not only that, but we were to sit with the cast and crew, which ate separately from the extras! We were so in at that time, you could imagine our surprise when we spotted James Marsden, the actor playing Cyclops! Woah! After we ate, Nick asked James if he would be so kind as to take a few photos with us and James, who introduced himself as Jimmy, politely agreed. Wow, at this point everything was surreal. It felt like a dream that was too good to be true! Jimmy was so friendly and open, like a normal guy, not someone who would let success go to head.

The food was great. It was served by real cooks in white cooking hats and stuff. Ribs, chicken, fancy stuff with sundried tomatoes. And there was a table with cakes only! Beautiful, chocolate cakes.

Nature called and we went in search of the washrooms. Signs were posted around the building that led around rooms full of props and interesting gadgets, but surprisingly the signs led outside to the outhouses. Why bother with signs that passed through the prop rooms when you could get outside through the lobby? Weird, but yeah, if they want to let us see cool stuff, we'd be glad to walk a bit further to pee. Two ladies came by and taped up any logos we had on our clothes and shoes with black tape. Haha, cool.

Later on, the cast and crew went outside to film a shot with Sabretooth (Tyler Mane), Magneto (Sir Ian McKellen) and Toad (Ray Park), all in full costume, as the extras stayed indoors waiting. And Bryan again took us under his wing and let us come out to watch! Wow baby, we were getting special treatment here! Normal extras can't ask for photos and weren't permitted to watch the shoot, but we were sooo in the zone with Bryan, we could do stuff we could never dream of!

After that, it was time for the shot involving the extras. We bumped into the security guard from Saturday night, he looked surprised to see on set, haha. We were tighter with the director than he was! The extras were mostly adults dressed as business people, and here we were, young people dressed how we normally dress, sticking out like a sore thumb. Where would they put us? Luckily Bryan was really cool and looked after us and the casting director gave us a wicked ass role. We even got props to use! Two nice ladies came by to take our pictures as Bryan happened to walk by and he jumped in front of our picture and posed all silly-like for us! Wow, it was like he was our close friend and he liked hanging out with us. Too bad the ladies got to keep the picture, man, that was sooo unreal.

Unlike most of the extras, whom received pay of course, we got to walk right by the camera! They were about 150 m away from the camera and we were a mere four meters away! Imagine that! We would walk towards the camera down a path as Cyclops (Jimmy) and Storm (Halle Berry) walked in the opposite direction! You wouldn't believe how many times Wai got in Halle's way. I mean, how often is it that you get bored of walking past stars? All they needed was about twenty seconds of film but it took five freakin' hours! Oh man, was it cold. But who are we to complain? Even if we got cut from the film, we had experienced so much that night that would more than make up for it.

At about 6:00 they were finally satisfied with the shot and we got to rest. Inside the station we found a fake newspaper, the Westchester Times. The headlines were related to mutants, genetics and the world summit, which easily gave it away as a prop, but the text was soooo weird. The sentences were grammatically correct but they made no sense whatsoever. They chose the craziest words to use. Weird.

We left the site at around 6:30 making sure to thank Bryan for letting us witness this utterly amazing experience. He is the coolest of directors! Nothing in our wildest dreams could ever have prepared us for what happened that night. If felt as if we were being watched over by some heavenly being and Bryan was his disciple! Hours after we returned, we still remain in shock. As Ying so elequently stated, it was as if something big had hit us and knocked up flat on our backs and we are still recovering from the the shock of it all to even try to get up. What have we done to deserve to get hit in such a way? Life seems so bland and unappealing now. Where's the excitment, the action? Nowhere. We return to our boring day to day lives and the cast and crew move on. Wow, we're never going to forget this night for the rest of our lives.

Good-looking chairs; from left to right: Ian McKellen, Tyler Mane, Ray Park, and Halle Berry

James Marsden (not in his Cyclops costume)

My taped-up shoes

Bryan Singer and I

X-Men Pics