TMI Set Day 14: Michelle’s report from the CITY OF BONES set

Filming on the highly-anticipated adaptation of THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES continued on Friday in Toronto at Garroway Books and Curios. I, Michelle (@MichelleMags), your Toronto Correspondent, made the trip out to the set location for the fourth time. Check out my full report:

Hello Shadowhunters! I initially did not intent to head out to set today and thought of taking this day off. Sat all afternoon alone at home and thinking that I could be on set instead. Believe me, I tried convincing myself to just rest. "Marry my bed" and sleep all night but stubborn me, like usual, eventually won and I head out to set around 6:15 p.m. and arrived 7 p.m. Thank you for everyone who urged me to go to set today because if I missed eating ice cream given by a TMI producer, missed hearing Lily yell "don't touch me!", missed witnessing a TMI leak, missed saying hello to Martin and so much more... I would've probably spent the night sobbing.

When I arrive on set: I call Nicole (@nics_herondale) and ask her where to find her and she says to find her on our usual spot. I walk there and find my old friends and made even more friends! I’m going to try to remember every single one of you: Nicole, Melanie (Nicole’s sister… ohmygod, she’s awesome. What happened to Nicole? *laughs*) Sam, Leah, Claire, Autymn (did I spell that right), Aathy (did I spell that right too? Goodness), Dany (little runner), then later on the night I meet (@_DanilaMN) Okay, it’s official I’m horrible. I didn’t even get her name.

Most of the crew would greet each other with a “good morning”. I think it’s safe to assume due to the long hours that they had the previous day that they just woke up recently. Then Andrew passes by us. Looks at me and says, “hey Michelle” and I grin and greeted him back and took in how he looks like such a zombie and if he could only sleep while walking, he would. “you look ‘happy‘. We’re you able to get enough sleep?” I said and he laughs and says “what sleep?” his walkie talkie blurted an order and he immediately walked away.

Karen walked to set and we greet her and she informs me that she read my set report for day 13 and I would’ve collapsed to the ground and dug all the way to Mars because I was so flattered/embarassed and scared all at once so I blurt out, “I did say a couple of good things about you! And I really mean them!” she laughs and says “yeah I know thank you” and everyone else agrees with me about her being such a sweetheart.

We hung out around the ‘usual’ spot and got to know each other more. It’s amazing how naturally you feel around these set of people. We would talk about anything and everything and it was a great time killer. Often, we would talk about our top favorite people/crew/staff guys (I’ll tell you their story)

• “Hippie Guy” whose name is ‘Moritz’, I believe? I don’t know that’s what Daniel said.
• “Muffin Guy” whose name I just mentioned, Daniel.
• “Andrew” whose name is… well… Andrew. Good Ol’ Pal Andrew, met him since the 1st day of filming at the Institute.
• “Hottie’ “Blondie” or “hot blonde” whose name is… we never found out. No one seems to know his name. (>;;;;;;.>;;;;;;)
• “Hartley” whose name is Hartley. Awesome man.
• “Sweetest Guy” whose name we never found out but he’s the actor’s driver (I believe)
• And most of all, who could forget our favorite Executive Producer: Martin Moszkowicz

Whenever “hottie” “blondie” or “hot blonde” passes by we’d stop and stare. Really, anyone who goes to set would think he’s a 17 y/o with his hair (imagine Zac Efron/ Justin Bieber (old one) hairstyle mix) So we hung out at the back and just spoke for the majority of the time until clock tick to 9 p.m. and we were wondering why the actors haven’t pulled in yet. We then decide to all go to the front and see the set until the crowd became too much that we were requested to move back all the way to the barricades. However, before having to leave I was able to snap a photo.

Then we stood by the barricades and decided that since nothing much is happening we head back to our usual spot. As we walk to our usual spot we see Lily coming out from the front doors of the set! They must’ve pulled in a few minutes after we left. *heavy sigh*. Half of us had to leave so there was only me, Nicole, her sister: Melanie, Aathy and this other girl, I’m sorry I missed your name! This is where we finally got to know our crew members.

Nicole’s sister, Melanie, really really liked “Hippie Guy” (I told them that he’s the director’s assistant). Moments later he passes by us and we all turn quiet. Awkward silence then became broken silence as Melanie yelled, “hey!” then immediately hid leaving me looking straight at Moritz (Hippie Guy) AND HE GLANCED BACK. So thank you, forever, Melanie. He’ll forever think it was me who said “hey!” the driver, super nice fella, passes by us in his car and says, “camp fire?” and we respond “come join us!” and he said, driving away “I’d love to but I gotta work!” then he pulled away and headed for, I’m guessing, the trailers.

Then one of the crew guy passes by us and says, “guys, you know people have been puking and pissing there”

And we shrug and said, “it was raining Tuesday and we’ve practically cleansed the area with our butts. Unless you want to give us chairs?” but he just laughed and hurriedly walked away.

That’s when we see this guy with awesome curly hair (he’d spoken to us earlier) walk towards us and he smiles at us and we speak for a while until I ask, “sorry, what’s your name?” then hurriedly added, “don’t worry, I won’t publicize it and I just feel weird talking to you and not knowing your name” because there’s this one crew guy from yesterday who begged us not to mention him on the blog. Hartley laughed and said, “that’s no problem. My name is Hartley” and I go “oh my, I LOVE your name!” Seriously. I do.

Then he goes “everyone knows me here” and because we were confused by his statement one of us asks “what, exactly, do you do?”

He smiles at us and says, “I’m a producer”

Our jaws dropped and Aathy blurted out “Are you kidding? Seriously?” and he laughs and says “I am, I told you everyone knows me”

Then he walked away and we were all literally dumb-strucked. Aathy immediately felt sorry for saying anything and we all just look at each other and think, WHAT. THE. HELL.

We jumped right back to our discussion with TID and TMI theories and after half an hour decided to see what’s going on now on set. Then I see Martin’s tweets and notice that he’s on set at the moment so I tweeted to him, in hopes that he reads it saying: “I’m here on set right now with a couple of friends. We’d like to meet you!“

By the third time a crew guy told us that everything is happening at the front, we decide to check it out. So we stood by the barricades and watched them film. It was SO exciting! The fog machines, the soft box (that light box up above), and the crew hosing down the road to make it look like a damp NYC street. At first they were filming this child, we overheard the reason for this child but we promised to keep it to ourselves and not reveal it here for privacy issues and just to not spoil it for you guys. Then moments later, we see Lily’s stunt double on the floor and Harald (the director) called cut and then Lily took in the place of the double and we hear her cry out “don’t touch me!” being completely confused as to what this scene was we go through our CoB copies and find the scene. A few moments after tearing through the book, Melanie finds it and we all go “OH THAT MAKES SENSE!” and I think our discovery also cleared out the confusion in other passer-bys as they try to figure out what the heck is going on.

All of a sudden I see Hartley running to the street with on going cars and he stops an ice cream truck and they speak to each other but I turned my attention back to the filming. An orange car pulled in and ran over one of the water hose.

They continue filming and they set up all these reflectors lined up the street. We watched as Lily’s stunt double walks in and out on set. We always try to get her attention and talk to her but we feel awkward and she walks too fast and masters the art of not glancing back at our stares. We’d always say how scary it is that she looks very much like Lily (well that is also the reason why they hired her) and that she’s SUPER gorgeous.

Then I see Martin walked out from under the tents with a bunch of other men on suits and he was looking directly my direction but due to my unreliable vision and darkness, I could barely confirm if it was Martin. All of a sudden he lifts his arm and gives us a big wave and I instinctively waved back among with my friends. I then tweeted to him telling him I might’ve waved at him but wasn’t sure if I really had. A minute or two later, our Alyssa from TMI Source brings my attention to the “@” that Martin tagged me in. Let’s just summarize this and say we practically could not stop grinning.

And then I see Hartley walking our way and he stopped right in front of me, pointing his index finger and said to me “you,” then to each one of my friends “you you you you and you. Come to the back and grab some ice cream when I tell you”

Yet again our jaw drops and I ask, “wait what?” and Hartley goes “yep, it’s our special treat. You are practically here every day!” (which I am but I’m surprised he knows this since this is the FIRST TIME/DAY I’ve ever seen him) then quickly walks back to the ice cream truck by the parking lot. A minute or two later, Hartley comes to us and says, “come get ice cream” and we’re like “wow he’s serious”

So we trail behind Hartley as he leads us to the truck. He turns to us and gestures to the ice cream man, “tell him anything you’d like” then he walked to the side and spoke to one of the TMI crew guy. We all say “thank you so much” repeatedly and we ask for Hartley’s autograph but he laughs and goes “come on guys” (I don’t think he knew how serious we were with his autograph) as we all decide and wait for our choice of ice cream I see the mom of the little girl and the little girl getting ice cream as well. Then the make up artist comes too and they ask what I got because every single one of my friends got cone ice cream while I got a Oreo cookie blizzard. What? It’s rare and might be my only time to ever be offered TMI ice cream, so I made the most of it. And I didn’t have dinner.

(HAHAHA. MEL’S FACE! Mel, I wonder if ‘hot blondie’ and ‘hippie guys’ that you are secretly married to them. If not, now they do)

We all eat our ice cream with ridiculous grins on our faces and watch the set take down the white reflectors and began from scratch where Lily lies on the ground.

One of the crew guys, we never got his name but we remember him as the dude that always tells us to head back to the barricades or maybe it was Daniel? Couldn’t really tell them apart most of the time. He tells us to go get ice cream truck and he sees my cup of blizzard and says, “guess you already got ice cream” and we nod, with the ridiculous grin still plastered to our faces and say “yeah it was Hartley who told us to go get” and his eyes went wide and goes “Hartley?!” and we ask why but he was being called back.

We keep watching until Andrew stops right in front of us and he turns to me and says “Michelle, who else are you waiting for?” and I name Lily, Lena, Jonathan, Aiden an Godfrey and he just stares at me. I practically memorize and have branded that look as the “WHO?” face which most of the crew wear when I talk about one of their actors.

Ignorance must be bliss.

Andrew disappears again as he heads for the back of the building. My hunches were right, he was looking to grab ice cream. Or should I say TWO ice cream comes? He devoured it as he walked back to us and little by little we see the crew coming out from the back with ice cream. Andrew asks about my ice cream cup and I say that Hartley offered it to us and he had the same reaction as the guy earlier. Which as if right on cue, guy-from-earlier comes next to Andrew and says “yeah, Hartley” (referring to the ice cream) and I couldn’t contain myself and asked “what’s wrong about him?” and they say “nothing at all, it’s just that he regularly says ‘no'” and I counter by saying “we didn’t ask for ice cream” and he just nods and smiles. I didn’t even notice “guy-from-earlier” disappearing until Andrew was pulled away from us and he headed towards the inside of set. Hartley, if you’re reading this: please don’t get mad at Andrew or Daniel– they really didn’t say anything wrong! (don’t want to get them in trouble). We also find out that Hartley is the “line producer” basically he decides for the expenses or whatever a line producer does!

Daniel then walked towards us and just kept us company. To make conversation I told him, “memorize our faces now because when you guys film the second film, you better recognize us” and his eyes spark and he goes “second film? How many parts are there?” and were like “6” and he says with a huge grin “YES! More money” and I just roll my eyes and thought If they find out how much you’ve bankrupt their supply of muffins, you might not last. Then i tell Daniel to memorize our faces again and he said “I remember you already” and I added “well make sure you remember us all the way till the end of the 6th movie!” and he laughs and goes “you guys are our favorite fans.” then he added “you guys are my favorite fannies” and we all, including Daniel, laughed hysterically to the point that there were tears in our eyes.

And I say as Daniel walks away, “no wonder he loves those muffins so much” (If you don’t understand– then GOOD) and my friends go into a fit of laughter. Again. Whoops.

Then we hear them clap and see Lily walk to the parking lot. Looking cold and soaked from the fake rain that showered down where they filmed. Then we see Aiden walk down too and we decide whether or not we approach him but we always make up excuses to not go ask for his autograph. Although we even “faked laugh” which MADE US LAUGH, thanks Nicole “little girl” for that very useless idea. I swear we all laughed so much that we probably scared Aiden more and more. When Aiden got on the car, we decide to head home before the bus and trains shut down. We actually considered staying until 6 am but Nicole was hesitant about the idea and thought her mom would “kill her”

Then the guy who pushes us back to the barricades approached us and said, “Hartley sent me. He said you guys could go to the back entrance and help yourselves to ice cream” (2nd round?! Would’ve gotten more ice cream but there was a line up and we didn’t really feel like abusing their kindness to us but thank you very much for the offer)

Sorry Hartley, Andrew and Daniel– we just left and forgot to say goodbye to you guys! Thank you once again so much Hartley and the entire TMI staff and crew for being so kind to us, like always. Especially for speaking to us and not just setting us aside. Moritz (Hippie Guy) don’t find me creepy– it is all Melanie. This also applies to that “hot blonde” who can give one hell of a stare. Thank you to my newfound friends who I’ll forever cherish, seriously don’t think I would’ve enjoyed it SO much without you guys.

Last but definitely never the least, WOW I should give you a golden star for having gotten this far in my report! I apologize for the length but that’s the best way I could share you guys my experience. Too lengthy? Maybe not enough? Tell me what you think of my report/day on the comments below!

TMI filming resumes on Monday. Stay tuned! Have a wonderful weekend, loves!

Stay sexy in black, Shadowhunters!

Michelle Mags (@MichelleMags / his-fairassassin.tumblr.com)

UPDATE (9 Sept 2012 10:53 AM): (@nics_herondale) reminded me about this. Just a little funny moment. All of us were requested to the right side of the barricades, where the tents were because they used the entire street stretch for this one shot and this Grandpa walks by to cross the road but stops right at the area where no one is supposed to be. The police just look at him while he stares at the ongoing filming. It was hilarious. If we see him in the movie, we’ll know how he got there. Eventually we tell him “sir… sir…sir…SIR!” and he’s like “what… what?” and we whispered loudly “come here they’re filming!” and he goes “OH OH” and hurriedly walked to us.