The Denton Twins, and their Mommy too!: Hollywood Kids!

So long story short, we sent out an email with the professional pictures our friend Val took of the girls (I am sure most of you got that email!) and next thing we know they were shown to a Hollywood director and we were asked to be a part of his new “tv” show! We started talking with a great casting agent and had 2 dates scheduled for filming! We knew that Anthony Zuiker, the creator or CSI, (yes the creator, the master mind behind the whole show!) was somehow involved but that is pretty much all we knew. On Monday March 30^th we show up at the beach in Malibu for our 1^st of 2 days of shooting.

Everyone was SO nice and kind to us! And we learned a LOT about the “business”. The girls both got paid, a GOOD amount, and can only be on set for 2 hours and work a total of 20 minutes. Of course working for them meant being held by an actor. When we arrived at the set and were taken to our trailer and met with our nurse for the day. When infants are on set its law that they have a nurse and social worker who are assigned to make sure they are safe and to time out how long they are on set and how much they work.

We went down to the beach where the scene was being filmed and got to meet Anthony Zuiker, the CSI guy, and the rest of the crew. Everyone was so polite and catered to our every need! When the staff was setting up for a new scene Anthony came over and talked to us and explained the show. It’s a whole new type of media! Basically he wrote a 100 page screen play that an author turned into a novel, the novel is a digital version that will be read using forms of media like an ipod/iphone, computer, etc. once every couple of chapters there will be a movie clip that goes along with the book. So its basically ½ book, ½ movie! They call it a “digi-novel”. Very new and unique!

Anthony was very excited about his new project and it was so great to sit and talk to him about his new great ideas! He recently retired from CSI and said he was thrilled for the change. In his words , this project “is NOT your Dad’s CSI.” He showed us a clip that was already finished, on his personal ipod EEEk!, and its definitely a DARK show, errr, digi-novel!. But it looks very good and I am still in awe over the concept of both the new form of media as well as the plot behind this novel.

The 1^st day the girls filmed what will be a dream scene of the hero of the film on the beach with his wife and child, the “child” is my 2 girls! The hero of the show is a hottie and had his shirt off the whole time! I didn’t mind and I don’t think the girls minded being held by him either! ;-) They ended up using one of the girls’ car seats for the scene and still needed it when it after the girls were finished “working”, so they sent a stagehand to Babies R Us and got us a new car seat to KEEP! (And gave us our car seat back the 2^nd day of filming) So we got a free $100 new car seat! Woo Hoo!

The day was GREAT! The only down side was the drive! Uggh, almost 3 hours each way. The good thing out of the drive was that we stopped in Claremont and had dinner at Heroes and Legends Bar and Grill, which was excellent! Claremont was a super cute little town and we had a good time even though we were all exhausted from the long day.

I'll give you one guess of whose car this is! :-)

David, the girls, me and Anthony Zuiker The "Hero" and Cambria

The fake mommy

The 2nd day we had to be in LA by 12:30, which was so nice! It was only 1 ½ hour drive with a later call time, Woo Hoo! My mom came with us and it was so nice to have the company and help. The filming site was a huge filming warehouse that had different rooms set up as different rooms like an office, kitchen, bedrooms, etc. Our nurse this day was AWESOME, very friendly and truly had the girls best interest at heart. We enjoyed having her help us. Our social worker was the same girl, Rachel, as the 1^st day, and she was excellent as well! Very sweet girl!

Upon arrival the nurse informed us that the scene was very dark and scary! One of the directing assistances and Anthony came up and explained what scenes the girls would be filming, and you should have seen the look on my moms face! I think she almost grabbed the girls and RAN!

Of course we were all a little stand-offish, but my main concern is safety! And of course the child worker and nurse were there to make sure everything was ok as well. When we went down to the set we discovered that yes, it was dark and scary but that also lighting and music make movies/shows SO much for “real” and “scary”. This just looked like a basement of a warehouse with a movie crew in it.

All in all, we had a GREAT time! Everyone was VERY accommodating, friendly and sweet! It was an experience of a lifetime and I am glad we did it! Side note—I would not let my toddler or older child be in anything that was scary or “dark”, I wouldn’t let them do anything in film that I wouldn’t let them do at home and our morals and values would have to be the same at “work” and “home”. So far the girls were just held and taken very good care of, that I will allow!

On set, Daddy and Cami