The Fault In Our Stars

When I used to think of movie sets, I thought of tall movie stars with a little too much blush and cloaked in sparkling designer clothes. I imagined bright mirrors and gourmet food. That is, until the third Monday of September, when I went to the Fault In Our Stars movie set in Pittsburgh. 

As I arrived at the filming location of TFIOS, I noticed nearly twenty large white trucks and many police cars. My mom parked the car and we started towards the set. The whole time, I expected one of the police men to come up to us and tell us that we weren't aloud anywhere near the set, but we kept walking and no one came up to us. As we passed the trucks, the people outside of them waved, welcoming us to the set. 

We approached the set and I noticed that there were about ten other teenage girls sitting in the grass with their copy of The Fault In Our Stars, flipping through the book to find what exact scene they were filming (the picnic scene with Augustus and Hazel if you have read the book). I asked them if they were here to meet John Green, as I was, and they said yes. We started talking about the whereabouts of John Green and how excited we were to meet him (I was hopeful because two of my friends had already had the chance to meet him a week before).

The set was nothing like I had expected. It looked more like a construction sight than it did a movie set. There were white tents where food was kept and huge lights that shone on a very small area where they were filming. The members of the crew were dressed in Pittsburgh sports attire and waved at us when they walked by. 

One of the crew members walked up to us and asked whether or not Ansel, who plays Augustus Waters in the movie, had come over yet. 

Five minutes later, John and Ansel started walking towards us. Ansel was dressed in a basketball shirt and jeans, and John was wearing gray polo and jeans. They approached us casually and asked us if we wanted to take pictures or to have anything signed. I told Ansel that I was so excited for the movie, and he replied "I know, right? I am, too!" 

There was nothing glamorous about the actors or the set. They were normal people who just happened to be good at acting. Going to the TFIOS set made me respect people in the movie making industry much more than I had before. They are hardworking people who have a passion for telling a story through a movie screen. 

- Emily