We're at a high school and there's only one place to sit: school-desks.  Those desks that hate the obese, trap you in, and where many a student spent many a class dozing while tuning out a dull teacher's droning lessons on a subject that would probably never be used or even remembered in a few years time.  But they're the only place to sit and so my fellow journalists and I rearrange them into a circle and wait for the interviews to begin.

There's filming happening tonight for Breck Eisner's remake of George Romero's 1973 horror film "The Crazies", but we're not quite sure what we'll see, how much we'll get to see, and how much we'll learn about this film.  We learn from Eisner that the story will focus solely on survivors in a small town as they try to evade both those infected with the "Trixie" virus which causes them to go insane and the military attempting to quarantine and perhaps kill everyone whether they're infected or not.  But beyond that, plot points are mostly hush-hush. 

Between waiting for interviews, waiting for food, and waiting to see some filming, my fellow journalists and I mostly act like teenagers.  We laugh in horror at the $25 fine these students have to pay for using their cell phones in class and I strongly considered tweeting that information as a middle finger to a school I don't attend or ever attended.  The math classroom we're in has an odd obsession with jets as there's a poster on the wall for an F-16 and the line "Anything else is absolutely rubbish."   There's another poster with a hawk transforming into a jet.  These posters are subject for mockery as are the students' names.   Mockery is what keeps the boredom away as we wait to grill the next actor or crew-person about the film while the publicist makes sure they don't slip up and accidentally give away a spoiler.  If we journalists knew spoilers about the film, we would have to report them and ruin the movie for you because deep down we hate movies and don't want you to enjoy them. 

However, we do learn that there's a quarantine scene being filmed that night and eventually, after what feels like an eternity not because we're necessarily bored or that the interviews are bad but because time seems to stop in a high school classroom, we taste fresh air as we're escorted outside to witness a highly impressive scene where they've constructed a massive cage holding hundreds of extras.  Next to the cages is a field that's about 5000 square feet and then there's the football stadium.  In that 5000 sq ft space two helicopters are going to have to land and they're almost on top of each other.

Even though the night is cold and windy, it's great just to be outside and witnessing all the excitement.  The helicopters keep buzzing closer to our heads as they make their landing into the field and I can almost hear the pilots grin as they know they've unnerved some members of the crowd.  Yes, the choppers are loud.  Yes, they're swirling flecks of dirt onto our faces.  Yes, they're so close we can smell the fuel exhaust.  None of that matters because it's all absolutely exhilarating.  It's true that a lot of filmmaking is about waiting for other people to do their jobs and to get all the set-ups exactly right for just a minute or less of shooting but when you witness a scene like this, none of that matters because you're only a few hundred feet away from helicopters landing next to a quarantine cage and hundreds of extras and crew people that are braving the cold just to make this movie.  It's a powerful reminder that no matter the quality of the final product, an indescribable amount of work, effort, and skill goes into crafting that product.

And then we're back inside.  We grab some food and then head back to our sad little classroom and wait to do more interviews.  More mockery.  More bullshitting.  More surfing the Internet as my phone quickly dies.  We do some more interviews before we finally get the chance to check out make-up artist Rob Hall's trailers and the horror goodies he has in store.  While The Trixie Virus goes through different stages in making its hosts insane, in a key difference from Romero's original, the virus also manifests itself physically.  I really have only one word to describe that manifestation: veins.  The closest thing you may have seen to this are the rage-zombies from "28 Days Later" but that's an unfair comparison since these infected will move differently, act differently, and be far vein-ier while still recognizable as people.  A better comparison would be to open up a book of horrific medical maladies and then start combining diseases. 

Of course, this is a horror film and like any good horror film, there will be gore.  In another trailer, Rob introduces us to an exploded fat gentleman and encourages us to feel the fat guy's tongue.  It feels gummy.  He also shows us the destroyed mayor of the town and he resembles Ron Howard.  I note that Rob must bear a deep hatred for Ron Howard and it is up to me to warn Ron Howard.  Then I remember "Cinderella Man" and say to hell with Ron Howard.

Back to the classroom.  Back to the waiting.  One more interview, this time with the lovely Danielle Panabaker who's good enough to show up even though she's not filming tonight, and then we visit the set one more time, this time in a quarantine tent.  It strikes me that every person from Perry, GA must be here tonight.  We spot the front desk clerk from our hotel standing in a quarantine line with other members of this fictional Iowa town (because Perry, GA in the spring can apparently double for Iowa).  I can't help but feel bad for these people since some were clearly not aware of how much of filming is just waiting around.  I see parents with their children and I see sleepy eyes and I just imagine some child telling their parent: "I'm tired!  I wanna go home!" and the parent responding, "Quiet, Junior!  Yer gonna be in a talkin' picture and yer gonna get discovered and be a big star and get us outta this po-dunk town!"  Actually, I'm sure the people of Perry love their town but I just find that exchange humorous because it plays into a stereotype of rural southerners and all stereotypes are hilarious.

One more meal with craft services, one more opportunity to destroy any sense of healthy eating (even after having two pieces of cake, I grab a brownie on my way out the door) and then it's back to the hotel.  In what is the night's most surreal moment, after we've said our thank yous and good-byes to the publicists and the film's producer, our driver starts to grouse, "Damn Hollywood types.  Buncha phonies.  'I love you, you're great, blah, blah, blah.'  Fuck them.  Let's listen to some reggae."  He pops in a reggae CD and we all do our best to stifle our laughter and at the same time, not fall asleep in the van.  It was a night filled with memorable moments but it's good to be out of school.