Yesterday was another early morning for me, 5:00 am to be exact. It was the day of my return to the work force as well as my big screen or little screen debut. But don’t get too excited, its not like I’m launching an acting career or anything, I just booked a job as an Extra, or I guess for a more P/C term “Background Artists.” For those of you who don’t know what an Extra is, it’s basically the people behind the main actors in any given scene. They never speak, are rarely focused on, and are often heard saying to there friends, “No, I swear I’m in it…the guy hailing a cab, two blocks down, as the camera pans left. That’s totally me!!!” Truth be told, it’s not a bad gig for some people. If you’re union, you get paid decent, there are benefits if you book enough gigs, you get fed for free, and it’s not laborious. That being said, I don’t think its for me; it has very little to do with acting, there is a lot of sitting and waiting… which doesn’t work for me. I’m fidgety and may have been just slight touched with ADHD, and I don’t like people.
Well, let me clarify that last point, I don’t like new people at first, especially theatre people. They/we require way too much energy to be around. Always wanting to be in the spotlight. Always fighting other people for attention and “one-upping” each other. I just don’t have that skill in me so it’s hard to be around a group of these people. And Extras by trade, love to talk. I think its stems from having to not talk or fake-talk while the cameras rolling. As soon as the director calls cut, these guys open there mouths and start giving there life stories to everyone as if they didn’t just give their life story to everyone on-set yesterday. Number 7 (Yes, we are given numbers not character names), I don’t care to hear that your wife left you and your new girlfriend has a great rack you are still paying for!!!
Now not all Background Artists are bad, some (you know who you are) make a living in this profession, and treat it as such, a profession. They go to work, do their job, and understand their role in the big picture. They also have no time for asshole rookies who disrupt the process and potentially hold back million dollar projects. It’s a shame some bad Background Artists give Background Artist in general a bad rep because it just promotes the ill treatment and lack of respect for the good ones by everyone on-set.
Now onto the actual day of work…I woke up at 5 and suddenly got nervous about not having enough time to get to the transport van by 6:15. Oh yeah, if your project is filming outside of the city, they usually provide transportation to the set. Not wanting to be late, I got ready quicker than usual. I even cut out a Starbucks run, which is highly unusual; I would much rather be late to an important event than miss out on my Iced Venti Quad, Extra Ice, Splash of Skim, Espresso. But this was my first day so I decided to bite the bullet and forgo my happiness. Good thing too, because the trains were running behind and I arrived at the van in Union Square at 6:14.
I can’t tell you how happy I was to skip my happiness so I could get into a van at 6:15 and no, not leave as I had expected, but wait. Wait 32 min for other Extras who can’t take there job seriously. I could already feel the caffeine headache taking hold as my body slowly fought the unintended withdrawal. At 6:47 the asshole we were waiting for arrived, unapologetic, and even slightly pompous as if we should have thanked him for showing up. So self-important was he that he took shotgun (much to the drivers dismay), even though there were still many seats available in the back of the van. Going forth, we will refer to him as “The Actor,” for clearly this man was mis-booked by his agent and should have been the star of this shoot and not a mere Extra. As he sat his elite ass in the seat, he cleared the drivers cup holders of waters and walkie-talkies to make room for his coffee (no doubt, the coffee I should have been sipping on, and the coffee he got while we were all waiting for him).
Holding for this day’s filming locations was an hour outside of the city at a State Park Beach, and I spent that entire hour burning a hole through his head with my nasty little look. When we arrived at holding, we filled out our paper work, had our clothing approved, and were shipped off to one of the filming locations for that day. Usually, at holding or location there will be food and beverages; important because I could then get some caffeine in me to battle this now ragging headache. But as luck would have it, my particular location didn’t have a food or beverage truck. Shit, we didn’t even have an ice chest or water. Even shade would have been nice to slow the dehydration.
Actually, we didn’t even have a chair to sit in, which is funny because I remembered thinking the night before, “I really don’t want to be sitting in a chair all day.” Well after 3 hours of lying on concrete and sitting on curbs, I would have loved to have a nice comfy—metal foldout chair to park my butt. What were we doing for those 3 hours, you ask? Well…nothing, absolutely nothing. The crew hadn’t even set up the scene to be shot, so we just sat and watched them or tried to sleep on concrete. It wasn’t until 11 am that someone from crew came over with sip-size bottles of water. Remember I said Extras don’t get much respect on the set, well this is proof, for 3 hours we sat in the sun with no water, yet they were hiding some the entire time.
As I slowly dehydrated, on the ground, in the sun, with no caffeine I was given even more affirmation as to why Extra people just aren’t my people. In boredom, we all congregated and started to chat. The conversation started at the ex-wife and the tits, and slowly progressed into sports. Oh god, sports…I enjoy going to a game and having a beer or eight, but when it comes to spouting off stats or even watching them on TV, you can count me out. I just sat there and in a desperate, pathetic attempt to not look too out of place, I kept uttering the phases, “I Know,” “Right...,” “Unbelievable, isn’t it?.” At some points I didn’t even know what sports they were referring to. Clearly out of my element, I just wanted to be with people who knew that Cats was the longest running musical until it closed in 2000 and eventually gave way to The Phantom of the Opera.
At 12:15 the food truck arrived and we were on break until 1:15, having accomplished nothing to that point. But you have to remember, some Extras see this as a blessing by getting paid for nothing. I see it as a waste of creative energy. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind helping crew set up the scene, but that is a major no-no for crossing union lines.
After lunch, we were finally sent to makeup. For my scene, a group of us were to portray car accident victims, this means getting all bloodied up with various viscosities of red substances that stain the skin; oh, joy! I sat in the chair for a while, and apparently the makeup artist did a number on me. Of the 8 others that got torn up with makeup, mine was the best because everyone was commenting on how great mine looked. 10 minutes of this goggling at my face made me a little cocky. I started to take the compliments personally as if I had actually done something. I got so arrogant that I was sure, when we got to set the director would take one look a my face and say while pointing…”Him there…number 10, lets do a close-up feature on his face---I love it!” Hahahahaha , when I got to set the joke was definitely on me. The director looked at all of us, arbitrarily placed us on the street by the car, amongst the wreckage and said, “This one here, put a blanket over this one.” That person he was referring to was me.
I spent the next half hour lying on concrete, in the sun, under a blanket, in a dreadfully uncomfortable position, my un-needed makeup itching, with no coffee. And just to remind me how unimportant I was, every time the director called action (which is funny in itself because my action was DEAD), very large mosquitoes (big enough to bite through blankets and clothing) would bite me and steel my blood. But, ever the professional, I stayed still, fighting the urge of protecting myself from malaria to make sure we got the shot.
When we got the shot and the director yelled, “It’s a wrap,” I learned that what we had been working on all day was going to amount to a total of 20 seconds of viewing pleasure. I also learned this wasn’t been shot for the big screen, not even for the TV screen, we were just doing something that was going onto the computed screen. Yes folks, I did all that so I could make a grand appearance on a webisode. So if you happen to turn on your computer at the right time, to the right site, for 20 seconds you may recognize the sole of my size 11 Brooks, Adrenaline running shoe with the logo taped over.
On the subway ride home, people stared at my blood stained skin as if I had some sort of disease. It didn’t help that the 10 mosquito bites began to itch, thus solidifying the notion that I was infected with something. I couldn’t help but think that during my time in college, I was never offered a class to help me prepare for this. Thank god I spent thousands of dollars on my University of California, Irvine degree in Drama so I could have days like this.
