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Today was the big reveal day at the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build over at OSD. My friend Rachel and I decided to head on over and check it out. It was a long day, that’s for sure. I got lots of sun on one side of my face. We were there a total of six hours. But it was totally worth it. I’m really looking forward to seeing the episode air on halloween night.

I kept updating my facebook status in a play-by-play, twitter style fashion. I figured I’d just post here what I posted there. It gives a pretty good idea of the way things progressed and were generally confusing all day. We never knew what was going on or when…

Arrived approx 11:15 a.m.

12:09 p.m. – Waiting at OSD for the Extreme Makeover reveal.

1:03 p.m. – Some people in front of us just got interviewed for channel 2… Wondering if I was in any of the shots… [Turns out I was in one shot... a pan shot of the crowd. Saw it on the 6:00 news. Hooray, I'm famous. -LC]

1:49 p.m. – Person in the crowd: “when will the reveal happen?” … Security guard: “it’s Hollywood.”

2:53 p.m. – Just learned “move that bus” in sign language. Still waiting for the kids to arrive.

3:36 p.m. — Still waiting… They’ve been doing multiple takes for crowd reaction scenes. Just did a practice “move that bus” take… I think we’re close.

4:05 p.m. — Everyone’s having issues staying in sync while chanting “move that bus”… Pretty funny.

4:15 p.m. — Apparently the bus is close… The next bus we see is the real deal with the kids. No more fake cheering!

4:21 p.m. — Bus is here!

4:26 p.m. — Kids getting off the bus. Hugs all around. Kinda weird seeing this without the music in the background…

4:35 p.m. — Two busloads of students and staff now here… Waiting for the famous moment…

4:43 p.m. — Waiting for the bus to move.

4:52 p.m. — Move that bus!

5:05 p.m. — Bus has been moved. Pretty cool to watch the reactions. Looks like they’re waiting to go inside the dorm. I think the spectator action is just about finished.

5:23 p.m. — Well, that’s all she wrote… Long day, but a cool chance to see a slice of hollywood! Looking forward to seeing the episode halloween night.

Bottom line, the one hour glitz and glamour that you think Extreme Makeover might be… well, it’s not. At least in the sense that it doesn’t all flow together smoothly and all in one take. Far from it.

You see, they do prep takes (technically called “insert takes”) with various angles so they have an arsenal of options to choose from for the final production. They had a “fake” bus (with no students) pull up two or three times to get crowd reaction shots. It felt weird to fake cheer. Oh well. The finished product is always pretty cool, so whatever they’ve got to do to get it, by all means do it. They’re in their eighth season, so they’re obviously doing something right.

It was cool to be a small part of this project as a volunteer and in getting to see the reveal. Pretty cool. Halloween night will be fun… looking forward to seeing Salem and OSD represented on ABC.

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