My Fiero will be in the movie
"The Change-up" (staring Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds). Here's the story of how that came to be.
About three weeks ago, my wife got a call from someone who said he wanted to rent a red Fiero for use in a movie. He got our number from the restaurant where we hold our Fiero club meetings.
So I called the guy, and he said he needed a Fiero for interior shots, and would pay $300 a day to use it. He said that they would have to take out the windshield, but would give me a new one if it was damaged in any way. Well, I thought to myself that because my existing windshield has a small rock chip in it, that this might not be too bad. After all, when I had the windshield changed in my other Fiero, the old one was kind of messed up during taking it out, so I figured the new one was guaranteed.
So I said OK, and he gave me an address of where to be at 7:00 AM on the following Saturday. And he e-mailed me a W9 form to fill out (everything had to be "by the book").
I got up real early that Saturday, because MapQuest said it would take a little over an hour to get to their address. When I got there, I saw this big old place called "Rhodes Distribution Company" or something like that, and thought, "this can't be the place", so I pulled over and called the guy up. He said that's it, because they had taken over the place and made it their movie studios. So I went in to the gate, and saw a sign, "Stage 2", over an entrance, and a guy was waving me in that direction.
I drove in and parked my car where they told me to. There was another Fiero there, a red Formula with a nice exterior and nice after-market wheels, but the interior was kind-of crappy. So it was easy to guess why they wanted my car for interior shots. I guess it didn't matter that mine is an 86 SE.
The guy who had arranged this all, and to whom I was supposed to give the W9 to, wasn't there yet, so I just hung around and had a nice free breakfast with the production people. The production people were nice, but I noticed that all of them were 20-something or at most, early 30-something. Don't these people hire old people like me?
Finally the guy in charge got there, and I gave him the W9, and talked to him about the window removal, and how I was going to get around while they had my car. He said that their window guy was a real expert, and would be very careful. And they would give me a rental car to use. I decided to wait for the window guy and see for myself. While I was waiting, I went over to "Stage 1", where they were shooting a scene. They had a travel trailer set up inside this big warehouse-turned-studio, with gravel on the ground, and it made to look like it was outdoors. In this scene, a guy would walk up to the trailer, knock on the door, and say something. The door would open, and the guy inside would say something. They kept shooting the scene over and over. I later asked someone why, and he said it was "for options".
I also saw some movie set houses in the place. Imagine building a frame house, and then finishing the inside, complete with furniture, but leaving the outside unfinished -- the framework still visible, and no roof.
When the window guy got there, I watched him very carefully, and he put a slight nick in the plastic on the right outside A pillar, so I griped to the head guy about that. As it turned out, the rubber edging around the windshield covers the nick, so it wasn't a big deal. But the guy must have felt bad, because the car they gave me to drive while they had my Fiero was a BMW 325i hardtop convertible. It was a cool car, but frankly, I like a Fiero better. It had two things I didn't like. The brakes were too touchy for my taste, and there was a noticeable lag between when you pressed your foot on the accelerator and the car reacted. It must be that "drive by wire" stuff.
Well, I left my car behind, and took my wife out to dinner in the Beamer, confident that they would take care of my Fiero.
On Monday, they still had my car, so I drove the Beamer to work. In the afternoon, they called me up and said that they were finished with my car, and that it was at their downtown office. So I drove the Beamer into downtown Atlanta and found my car with a new windshield, and nicely detailed inside and out. They also put gas in it, but they obviously didn't know the trick for filling a Fiero, because it wasn't full. But at least it had more than when I left it.
So I drove home, and that was the end of my movie adventure. I'm going to have to see that movie to see where the inside of my Fiero winds up in it. I hope it doesn't fall on the cutting room floor.
