1990’s Orange, CA being transformed to 1960’s Erie, PA It was less than 50 miles from our place in Mar Vista to the filming location for That Thing You Do in Orange but with morning traffic, fifty miles could take all day. Our call was at some absurd hour like 6:30 am, my husband ’ s crew call was even earlier, so we decided to go down the night before, stay in a budget motel, be there bright and early without fighting the Los Angeles freeways. When you work around film and tv sets all the time, like I did when I was working as a production coordinator, the initial thrill is replaced by low humming tedium, the daily grind of hurry up and wait. But I ’ d left the industry when I got pregnant, now, three years later, visiting the sets of movies my husband was working on, was back to being nerve-bitingly thrilling. Actually being in the movie, albeit as an extra, even more so. The fact that it was Tom Hank ’ s directorial debut made it an even headier...
