twenty-sixth try * "Closure" * 7pm to 11pm, 12/8/99 * Outside Denny's at Sherman Oaks * Sightings: DD, GA, Mitch, Kim Manners, Michelle, Steve, Brett, Arlene. * The Long and Short of It: Finally they were filming OUTSIDE! Finally we could see something! Woohoo! Those who do not want spoilers stop reading now. When we got there they were in between scenes; David, Mitch, and Arlene were standing right on the pavement talking and we got a nice view :) They all seemed to be in good moods. Later, Arlene went through Gillian's scene and left early, walking off hand in hand with Mitch. We all went "awwww." I don't even think Mitch had any scenes, he was there just for her :) Or maybe he was already done with his scenes. Then GA came on to this set with this huge poofy coat on. The scene was Mulder standing outside, looking up at something, and Scully coming out from inside Denny's, walking to Mulder. She stands next to Mulder, looking up with him, and talks to him; as a comforting gesture she places her arm on his back/arm and walks off screen. Mulder stays. Looks like an ep-ender moment eh? Scully was wearing this chic leather jacket (I want one!) and for once, a shirt that wasn't white. Mulder was more casual, I think he was wearing a shirt and a leather jacket too, but I forget. During one take one of them must have screwed up, 'cause next thing I know DD was leaning in and it looked like he was going to kiss GA, and they ended up in a playful embrace, and we were all jumping up and down with excitement because we thought it was a shipper moment; but it was just DD and GA messin' around. We were too far to hear what the dialogue was like, though. The backdrop was a motel and you can bet what our smutty minds invented with THAT scenario. A lot of fans were there, including some first-time set visiters from San Diego. Woohoo! We left after DD and GA left and they were doing second unit stuff.

twenty-fifth try * "Untitled" * 6pm to 7pm, 11/30/99 * Near CSULA * Sightings: None. * The Long and Short of It: Got there at around 7 after much traffic...they told us the filming had ended. Was at a women's jail or something.

twenty-fourth try * "Untitled" * 4pm to 6pm, 11/22/99 * Somewhere in the Topanga Canyon * Sightings: None. * The Long and Short of It: Okay ... something y'all gotta realize about Topanga Canyon Blvd ... once you get on it THERE'S NO ESCAPE! That's right, it's an endless two lane road twisting and turning its way into the Canyon from the coast. The farther inside you get, the harder it gets to make a u-turn because on one side is forest and on the other side is cliffs. And if you slow down to try and look, the cars honk at you because it's not like they can pass you or anything. Sometimes, there's a shack or two. When I finally found my way to the location, which was REALLY deep into the canyon and I thought I'd die from the monotony of the road. Hmmm ... I saw this rickety store front that sold paintings or something, but it was closed. Behind it was the woods and the hill dipped into a valley. I saw trucks around, but it looked like they were filming in the valley behind the store because I saw this bright white light. There's no route down behind the store, so I had to walk a couple of feet on the dirt shoulder while freezing my butt off. I thought, okay, this isn't bad. I inched my way to the edge of the road and peered down. I saw some trucks and a catering truck. Didn't see any people though. I saw this narrow steep lane leading downwards, and a sign that said "Kelly Ranch" or something. I guess that was the way down. And then, the cars stopped driving by and it became PITCH BLACK. I didn't think I could DRIVE down there 'cause the lane looked so narrow, and no way in hell was I walking down there without a flashlight. It was eery, I couldn't hear a sound. So I left. So much for that!

twenty-third try * First Unit * "The Amazing Maleeni" * 6pm to 11pm, 11/4/99 * Next to the Staples Center, at the bank where they filmed "Monday" * Sightings: DD, GA, Steve. * The Long and Short of It: When I got to the location they had the huge floodlight thing going so I knew at once I was at the right spot. Boy was that a bright light! So they were filming inside again, but we met some exciting people there: fans from Japan, France, and Germany! Whew! The Japanese fans were particularly excited, because they stumbled upon this shooting accidentally. They asked to take photos with a lot of crew members (who were delighted and surprised!) And I tried desperately to remember what I learned in high school Japanese classes, but to no avail. Since they were going back to Japan the next day, the crew arranged to let them go on the set! Woah. Words cannot describe their facial expressions when they were told they were being let on set. When they got back, all they could say was: "Mulder. Handsome." ;) Whenever DD or GA got driven by, they'd take out their camcorder and camera and shoot away ... David seemed to be in great distress so he avoided looking at us, but Gillian waved at us every time. The French family had a ten year old little boy with them, he was so cute. At the end of the evening we exchanged e-mails with the Japanese fans, and they gave us cute parting gifts (I got a pair of chopsticks :)

twenty-second try * A success! * First Unit * "Untitled" * 4pm to 1am, 10/29/99 * W. Adams Blvd (South LA) and Culver City * Sightings: DD, GA, Steve. * The Long and Short of It: My friend called me just before I was going to the shoot and told me she didn't see anyone filming there. Well, I decided to go anyway because I was all revved up and hey, it beats studying for midterms. So I go, and sure enough, nobody was there; just as I was about to leave my friends whom I were supposed to meet there called me on my phone and said "Hi Fontaine! We're at the shoot! Where are YOU?" After much misunderstanding and haggling on the phone, I finally arrived at the shoot. Turns out they were filming quite a few blocks away from the address they posted. Sheesh. So we hung around the corner where they were shooting at a strip bar apparently and watched, enrapt, whenever they stopped traffic to let David and Gillian cross the street (an interesting anecdote one security guard told us later: once he attempted to stop traffic to let David cross, David stops him and says, "I'm from New York, I can handle this!" Well he said David wasn't very successful as he almost got hit by several cars. Woops!) We saw a lot of familiar faces on the set. My friend did stuff with her skateboard and was the center of attention :) Yes everyone loved her skateboard. The security guard was impressed. Then they moved the shoot to another location (a last-minute change hence not listed on the shoot sheet), and since we all assumed they were moving it back up the block, we decided to get some food and then join them. Wrong. When we got to that location not a soul was there. Just as we were trying to figure out how to get there, a trailer pulls out of base camp and we decided to follow it there. Lucky us, it took us to the right place. For the most part of the night we watched David and Gillian go in (into the warehouse where they were shooting) and come out, etc. etc. Around 9pm a couple of us decided to go back to basecamp and see if we can't get some autographs from David or Gillian. We were standing outside the fence, and as David walked past us to go back to set we all said "Hi David!" and he turned to us and said hi. My poor friends with curfews had to leave by 11, but I decided to stick around with the others back near the set. We hung out, talked to the crew, even met the new location manager. The best part is, around 1 am when they were wrapping up and Gillian was being driven off, she had the driver stop in front of us, ROLLED DOWN HER WINDOW (you can pretty much guess we were gaping like idiots at this point), she's sucking on a lollipop and talking on the phone, but asks us (rather enthusiastically for that hour, we were all drooping dead): "Hey guys! Did you have anything you wanted me to sign?" Caught off guard, we realized no we did NOT have anything for me to sign (dammit! dammit! dammit!) and we stammered stuff like: "No, errrr..." "Hi..." "We just wanted to meet you." She smiled, exclaimed happily, "Oh, okay then! Well you guys have a good night okay? Bye!" I don't know what was with her but I'm glad she was in a good mood. Once again, proof that Gillian is the sweetest person ever (the crew members confirmed this). We talked a while with the crew then dragged our tired bodies home.

twenty-first try * First Unit * "The Amazing Maleeni" * 6pm to 8pm, 10/27/99 * North Hollywood (close to Starbucks) * Sightings: DD and GA. * The Long and Short of It: All we know is they were shooting in the pool hall (images of Mulder and Scully playing pool in a, ah, interesting position come to mind) and a building next to it earlier . They're also doing second unit work there tomorrow. I arrived late so I only caught one glimpse of DD and GA as they left after the wrap (in separate cars); but the others who were there earlier saw them I think three times.

twentieth try * "Rush" * 8pm to 10pm, 10/7/99 * Rose City High School, Pasadena * Sightings: None. * The Long and Short of It: When I finally got there (cursed traffic!) my friends told me that they were filming inside and nobody important was there so after chatting a while we all went home.

nineteenth try * First Unit * "Rush" * 3pm to 7pm, 10/6/99 * La Salle Ave., Los Angeles * Sightings: Brett. * The Long and Short of It: It wasn't a terrific neighborhood, but they had lots of old houses, which is why I think they filmed there because they needed that look. A lady from the neighborhood told me that lots of people film in her neighborhood, in fact she had a commercial filmed in her yard. Most of the action was going on indoors, so we couldn't see anything; and since it was the first day of shooting for "Rush," we figured they were shooting the teaser. The actors were two teenage boys and a policeman. There were also two parked cars with fake Virginia plates, which I believe they were going to use later for the shoot-out scene the security guard told us they were filming later in the night. I could tell it was a big production, they had twice as many trucks and they took up the entire block. I left early because I was told no major actors were going to be there tonight.

eighteenth try * First Unit * "Millennium" * 3pm to 9pm, 10/4/99 * Ledge Ave., Sun Valley * Sightings: DD, Steve, Arlene Pileggi. * The Long and Short of It: The location was kind of like the one on my 6th try (actually Christy says it's right over the hall; see last season's visits), very suburban, with dusty roads and overgrown weeds and horses and the smell of horse you-know-what. Anyhoo when I got there I had to walk uphill to this bend and the cop there made me stand behind the fence on the bend so I couldn't see what was going on *behind* the fence (later we found out that by walking up and around the bend we could see the property they were filming on). I sorta chatted with an LAPD officer, a cast security guard, and a friendly female P.A. They told me about some locations for tomorrow, and the policeman kept making jokes about us Internet people. He said that Gillian was there earlier but left for the day but David's still there, but they were to film inside for the rest of the day. D'oh! Later some high school girls from Anaheim and another fan joined us. We watched DD pass by us several times in his minivan. He was really sweet, because one time when he passed I was trying not to stare and be impolite but he waved at me voluntarily. Awwww. That alone made the trip worth it! As it grew darker lots of people from the neighbor congregated on the lawn to watch (they were allowed to do that 'cause they lived around there), and eventually we were also allowed to go up the bend. They had the entire area engulfed in smoke (think last scene in "Trevor," which coincidentally was the episode they filmed on my 6th try). The way they did it is they had this huge, long plastic tube stretching around the premises, and they filled it with smoke with some machine (when they did this the originally flat tube started to slither and scared us all), then put holes in the tube so the smoke would drift out. They were shooting a scene where Scully (Arlene, in this case) drives up to the gates and tries to open them. From a distance, she looks so much like GA. She even walks like her. Some of my fans also joined us at this time. Later the location manager (whom I also met on the 6th try) came and gave us promo pics (the same ones he gave me last time!). That was really cool of him. We also got confirmation from him and the P.A. that the season premiere is indeed on the 7th instead of on the 31st as Access Hollywood said. He told us a bit about the episode and the fact that he thinks Spender won't be coming back... We left after the crew wrapped, which was around 8:30.

seventeenth try * First Unit * "Millennium" * 9pm to 1pm, 9/27/99 * Wilshire Ebell Theatre, S. Lucerne Blvd., Los Angeles * Sightings: None. * The Long and Short of It: This location is pretty close to UCLA, so I just drove there in the morning and figured I would drive back and forth as much as needed. I got lost, so I had to ask the folks at "Double Tree Hotel" on Wilshire for information. I'm going to put in a big recommendation for them here because they were so helpful and so nice. Anyways I got to the location which is the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, and they told me they were going to film inside the entire time. I knew DD and GA were there because I saw their trailers, but around 1pm it got too hot and I decided to leave. One of the nice security guards offered me water, though ;)

sixteenth try * A success! * "Amor Fati" * 7 x 03 * 2pm to 7pm, 9/15/99 * Corsica Dr., Pacific Palisades. * Sightings: DD, Mimi Rogers, Bill Davis, Megan Leitch, Steve, Brett. * The Long and Short of It: I arrived on the set at around 1:30 pm, which was apparently during their lunch break, because not many people were around and all the guys on the set were amusing themselves by throwing a football back and forth. Later I found out that my friends and some Italian fans were also there so I joined them. After a while someone drove David on to the set, and he stopped to talk to the Italian fans (apparently they'd met the day before and gotten their picture taken together, lucky sonuva ... ;) David was wearing casual clothes for this scene, a blue shirt and jeans and flip-flops (LOL). They filmed in the house for a while, and while someone went to get Mimi the crew had us moved to a distance away because they needed to film on the driveway. Now we think that we weren't actually in the way of the shot, they just didn't want us to see what was going on. According to what my friend told me, this is the fantasy sequence where Mulder, still sick from the events in "Biogenesis," fantasizes about what his life would have been like if he hadn't started his quest. A cross between "It's a Wonderful a Life" and "The Last Temptation of Christ," she says. There were three blond girls, but we're not sure whose children they're supposed to be playing. A fan who had left earlier, told us that Deep Throat was there the day before. So for the rest of the day we were kept at a distance, we never saw what was going on, we just saw the actors walking back and forth. DD and Mimi both talked on their cell phones. Mimi was also wearing casual clothing, but Bill Davis was wearing a suit. Megan was wearing a pretty sun dress. Surprisingly they wrapped up on time, at 7 p.m., and I left the same time that did. I think David drove behind me in his black BMW, but I'm not sure. I might have been seeing things, it could be Steve or Brett.

fifteenth try * First Unit * "The Goldberg Variation" * 3pm to 7pm, 8/25/99 * Bixel St. in Los Angeles * Sightings: DD, Steve. * The Long and Short of It: I was told the location was the building they blew up in the movie. Well, I didn't notice the similarities. Basically the scene was somebody getting hit by a truck (with a Leprechaun logo on it) and Mulder running out to check the guy's pulse and talking to the truck driver. DD looked pretty happy as he kept chatting with the crew. There were a lot of people wearing doctors' clothing standing around, and I thought there were doctors working in the building who were just there to see what was going on, but turns out they were "background." I didn't get to stay till the end because I had to get back to UCLA for orientation; but DD did walk past me as he went to his trailor. I mean *real* closeby.

Hungry for more adventures of the Fanatic? Check out what happened *last season* on the X-Files set.

That's all I have now, folks, but check back for more fanatical adventures! Hey, since I live here, I gotta take full advantage, right? :) Oh, and don't forget to check out the websites of my fanatic companions: Emile, Jody, and Erica.

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