June 28, 2008

Frank Loyd Wright designed this house. It is right down the street from his house.

Here's a picture of Frank Loyd Wright's house and studio.

Babyface's grave (Lester Gillis)

Tony and Clarissa upon their arrival in Chicago.

Saw some disturbing grave stones at the cemetery. A good portion of the grave stones had photos of the people. This must have been cutting edge at the time. The disturbing stones were the ones that had pictures of the dead little babies on them.

Here's a close up. They must have used these photos when they didn't have a picture of the child in life.

The clouds rolled in. It started to pour about twenty minutes after I took this.
I stopped by the house Ernest Hemingway was born at.

Public Enemies - Round 2 - June 25, 2008

I e-mailed the casting company and said that I was interested in being an extra for some of the scenes they were shooting in Chicago. To my surprise, they called. On Friday, June 20th I woke up at around 3am and headed to Chicago for my haircut/wardrobe fitting. The drive wasn't to bad and I ended up getting down there about an hour early. I ended up walking around for a while.

About 7:45 I headed over to the building. There were a few other extras there. There was a girl there who had been in the Biograph scenes. She told me that for the interior scenes they were bussed up to a theater in Milwaukee. Some of the other people were extras in The Dark Knight. At first I thought that they didn't know I worked in Oshkosh, but I soon found out that they knew, and had no problem with it.

They told me that I was going to be part of the "newsreel crew" during a scene with Hoover. I was pretty excited because there were only a few people on the newsreel crew. They had us fill out some paperwork and then we went outside and were led to a trailer out back. The trailer was a portable salon. I got the same haircut that they gave me in Oshkosh. After the haircut, I was told to go back inside to get fitted for wardrobe. At 10:00 it was all over. I hopped back in my car and headed back to work in Appleton.

Brian from Public Enemies called the night before at 11pm to tell me that call time was bumped from 7:30 to 7am. Wednesday came pretty fast. I got up a bit before 2am and was running on three hours of sleep. The drive down went exactly like the first. I was told to go to a different location this time and without my GPS I would have been lost. It was a language school downtown. There were about thirty other extras there. They had us out in a big tent outside the school. There was a nice breakfast buffet provided. They didn't have their stuff together and we didn't get checked in until about 8:30. Then it was off to makeup and wardrobe.

They took the mechanics over to set first. Seems they were filming a scene in a mechanic garage. Then they took the press over. The set was about five blocks away near Lincoln Park. First they brought us onto one side of the street and then walked us around to the other side. They asked if I wanted to be a photographer. I said that I was part of the newsreel crew. They then gave ten people cool old-style cameras. Then they asked if I wanted to be a reporter. I said no. Then three of us were brought over to some old reel cameras from the 30s. After being shown how the equipment worked we were all told to go into extra holding. After a bit in there I snuck out onto the street to see what was going on. As I walked toward the mechanic garage I was surprised to see Johnny Depp's bodygaurd walk out. Then Depp himself walked right past me into the street. I stopped and just watched him for a few seconds. He stopped in the middle of the road and then got into his black SUV. That's all I saw of Johnny Depp that day.

I returned to extra holding and was there for a few hours. It was a very long boring three hours. They were filming right in front of the extra holding building so we couldn't leave or we would ruin the shot. The building right next to us was being used as the dry cleaners that Al Karpis was at right before he was arrested.

Finally, we were sent to lunch around 5. Upon returning I watched them film the scene where Karpis is arrested. They filmed it over and over again. Eventually Billy Krudup was out to film the scene where he addresses the press. In the scene, Hoover and a gaggle of agents lead Karpis into a garage. Then Hoover's PR guy comes out and tells the press that Hoover will address them. The press runs up and Hoover exits the garage to speak. Then he walks down the street followed by some of his agents.

At the last minute they decided that they didn't want to use the newsreel crew. The director, Michael Mann is a stickler for detail, and he decided that there weren't any newsreel crews there that day. In hindsight, I should have asked to be a photographer. I ended up being "background" in that scene. To sum it up, I'll be a blur. An experience non the less.

After a 15 hour day I changed back into my clothes and walked around Chicago checking out some of the other filming. They were shooting a short scene where some cars screach up in front of an apartment and agents rush into the apartment. It was strange being behind the yellow tape this time.

The building used as the dry cleaners

This is the garage Hoover addresses the press at. They also used the inside to film some scenes with Johnny Depp.

June 22, 2008

The winner. Enjoy the $4!

July 21, 2008

These pictures are all out of order. Went to a Brewers game today. Highlights include Joel having the bus driver detour our way home so that he could attempt to buy more beer. Good times....good times.

Prince Fielder at bat
The game started with the roof closed....then they opened it....then rain moved in so they closed it again.
Me, Dad, and Tom
Brian and Beth
Joel got his usual nachoes

Beth, Brian and Joel

The scene at Miller Park

Tom and Dad exchange a laugh before entering the stadium. Joel can be scene slamming his beer in the background.

Tom and Dad

Before leaving for Joel's, we ate some lunch with Grandma Mac.

Grandma and Tom
Dad Grandma and Tom
We stopped by to say hello to Kelly and Troy....but they wern't home.
We rode a big yellow school bus to the game.

Pics from the Last Couple Days

One Year Ago

June 12 - 15, 2008

Mansfield, Cleveland, Farmont, Crown Point, Chicago Vacation!

We arrived to our first hotel at 7am and slept until 10am before heading off to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Museum and Library

President Hayes used this bible to be sworn into office

Tony and Clarissa in front of Rutherford's grave

Here is Rutherford Hayes' house

The chair he used for his inauguration

Tony

Tony checking out Rutherford's White House wheels.

Rutherford Hayes was a big Lincoln fan. He took these broken pieces of china from the White House. They used to belong to the Lincoln's.

Some Lincoln artifacts. Lincoln wore these slippers the morning of his assasination. There is also a jar with a piece of the jacket he was wearing when shot.

Original gates from the White House during the time of Hayes.

Sending some money to Saudi Arabia

The house from the Christmas Story movie

This is the mailbox from the movie. Kelly didn't get a decoder ring.

Tony and Clarissa in front of the house from the Christmas Story movie. The museum and house closed at 5. We got there at 4:50 and they already had everything shut down. It's not in a very nice part of Cleveland.

Around 7:30 that night we arrived to Mansfield Prison for our ghost hunt. We were given a tour with the lights on and then everything was turned off and we were free to roam the whole prison.

Clarissa

Me, Tony, and Kelly doing a little ghost hunting

We found the fake tunnel they used for the movie Shawshank Redemption. There were two pieces. You might remember Andy in the tunnel as he escaped or the warden looking into the hole after he discovered the tunnel behind a poster in Andy's cell. The above picture is of Tony and Clarissa. Troy and Kelly are below.

In the warden's office

It's important to keep in mind that it was pretty dark when a lot of these pictures were taken. The flash obviously makes it look like it was daylight.

Kelly gives

Around 11 pizza arrived for an overnight snack. It was some of the best pizza I had in a while.

Walking down the cell block

Looks like someone named Mark was here

This was in the chapel. There has been sightings of an old lady in here. We spent a little time looking for her.

Not quite sure what happened here. I'm not saying that this picture means anything. However, I remember taking this picture because my flash went off and when I looked at my view finder, there wasn't an image on it. I kept it so that I could inspect it later. I took another shot right after and that one turned out. I noticed that white splash towards the left when I downloaded them onto my computer. Could be anything. I thought it was interesting though. It's really the only thing I have that shows anything out of the ordinary at Mansfield Prison.

Tony inspects some old toilets. Notice his super powered flashlight hanging from his left hand. That thing could really light up a room.

Kelly was pretty brave. Not sure where she is headed here.

I really like this picture. Once again, keep in mind that it's pitch black in there. Everyone is looking at a partial painted picture of Jesus on the wall. Because of that, people refer to this as the "Jesus Room". Clarissa had some camera problems in here.

Kelly and the painting

Tony and Clarissa

Kelly, Troy and Tony

You might recognize this room from Shawshank Redemption. This was used as the room where Crooks hung himself. Lots of stuff has been seen on this floor.

Sat in one of Joel Ziegler's favorite chairs

Getting ready to call it a night

Goodbye Mansfield Prison. I thought that the Ghost Hunt was a fun and unique experience. I look forward to possibly going back next year. Each Ghost Hunt starts out with 100 people. That dwindles down quickly as the night moves on. Although we didn't see any hard evidence of a ghost, it was great getting the adrenaline running.

Tony catches up on some sleep after a very late driving shift.

Not sure what Kelly just did in there.

Crown Point was holding a farmers market. This trio was excellent.

Troy and Kelly

The living room of the sheriff quarters at the Crown Point Jail

Kelly and Troy in front of the Crown Point Jail waiting for tours to start.

You aren't supposed to take pictures in the jail or house. The people that run everything instead want you to buy pictures that they took for $1 each. They don't sell pictures of most of the building. Only parts that the movie Public Enemies fixed up. I snuck a few pictures for the curious. The parts of the jail that don't appear in the movie are far from restored. This room is part of the old kitchen. John Dillinger walked out of that door in the background to get out of the prison. The door used to lead to the garage. He ended up embarrassing Crown Point by driving away in the sheriff's car. The people that run the jail try to avoid information on John Dillinger himself. They said that they are going to focus on the police force instead. Either way, it's nice that the building is slowly being restored.

This picture was taken from the second floor, looking down to where the picture of Dillinger leaning on the prosecutor was taken.

Clarissa points to the peep hole that looks into the jail. Guards had a pretty good view of the jail cells by looking through this hole.

It's upside down, but anyways, here is a picture of the jail cells. This isn't the section where Dillinger was housed. However, they used it for that in the movie.

Tony in the spot where the picture below was taken. Universal fixed up the steps to recreate this moment for the movie. They did their best to make it look like it did back in the day. Obviously, a lot of it has changed over the last 70 years.

This is an outside view of the door that Dillinger walked out of after locking up the guards. The garage is no longer there.

A side view of the jail. The doors awning is visible over the new portion of the wall.

A view from back to front

This is the gate Dillinger drove out of in the sheriff's car.

The Crown Point Court House. Ronald Reagan and Valentino got married here. Besides it's age, there really wasn't much to look at.

Troy and Kelly at the Nut Hut outside the courthouse.

Troy and Kelly catch up on sleep in Chicago

Troy woke up at about 8:30 Saturday night. We told him it was Sunday morning and roped him along for a good 15 minutes.

Kelly, Troy and I checked out Wrigley Field. The Cubs were out of town.

The Biograph Theater where John Dillinger was killed by FBI agents. They are still cleaning up from the movie. There were no light bulbs in the Biograph sign. It looks like they have decided to keep the old style ticket box.

Kelly and Troy

Made a quick stop to Ikea. I bought a clock, Troy and Kelly bought a coffee table

We drove 1200 miles in a few days. Not bad.

Here's are rental car. My car is behind it and Tony's is behind mine. We had to do a little shuffling of belongings. That concludes my vacation for the Summer.