So, yesterday I got to be an extra, or “background artist” in an indie film called Elsewhere. It was both fun and not fun — very much like the military with the hurry up and wait and all.
Ah… the glamorous life of an actor!
Read on to find out all about it.
The film, as I said, is called Elsewhere and is an Actual, Honest-to-God, L.A. Indie Film. For example, one of the leads is played by Tania Raymonde. This particular actress you may know as Malcolm’s girlfriend from Malcolm In the Middle. She also, apparently, is in several episodes of Lost season 2. I haven’t gotten to those episodes yet… apparently she plays Alex.
Anyway, my roommate and I were cast as extras for a library scene. We were told to show up at 7:30, wear casual clothing but nothing that was black, red, white, or striped. Also, no logos. That pretty much killed most of both our wardrobe, but we were able to make do. Got there at 7:30, were approved by costuming, and led into the basement of the library.
Where we waited.
For hours.
Fortunately, a couple other friends, Missy and Elise, were also extras so there was opportunity to talk, but the chilliness of the room and the lack of really anything to do lent a grim pall to everything.
Actually, I’ll amend that: 10 minutes after we arrived they put makeup on us, so that was exciting. But then we got to sit there with Palmade on our hair, foundation on our cheeks, and lip gloss on our lips from til around 1, when everyone broke for lunch.
The only one with any excitement in the morning was Missy, who was called up about 10 to sit at a computer and look busy. The rest of us were resigned to desultory conversation and origami (thanks to Elise (she made an assload of cranes, balls, and flowers that morning.))
Carla, who I think was a production assistant, was basically in charge of us — prior to lunch she came down and said something like, “We’ll finally be ready for you in about 45 minutes, it looks like.” She also said we would need to be there til 7:30 pm 
Lunch was good. I felt a little guilty scarfing down all the food when I hadn’t really done anything at all; but that feeling was ameliorated by the thought that I’d be giving them 12 hours of my day for nothing. The assortment of food was pretty wide, surprisingly. Chicken, new potatoes, green beans, salad, pasta. Very tasty.
Everyone else goes back to work and we sat for another hour, when finally we were called upstairs to actually do something. This is where it got fun.
It seems that most of the time spent in actually shooting a movie revolves around lighting. there was a lot of blocking and setting up angles and stuff, but mostly it was lighting people taking readings. Maybe this was because the day was cloudy and it was indoors ina poorly lit library. Dunno. All I know is that for each 2 minute take there was about 15 minutes of setup with the lights.
All of us extras sat around watching the spectacle for about another 45 minutes until the 2nd Assistant Director, Carlos, came and got us. He positioned us at various points and told us things like, “When so and so walks by, count x beats, then walk over here”, or, “You’re doing research on xyz. So and so will come over and you softly say, ‘I found that information’”, etc. It was pretty cool and seemed about what I’d expected.
We did three or four scenes like this, then they wanted to do an exit scene. I’m standing over by a bunch of monitors waiting for direction when they say they want to have one of the actors back into someone. Someone frail. Carlos points at one of the other extras, looks around, then says, “No, you.” Pointing at me.
Now, I need to point out here that I’m not really an actor. I just play one at work. I knew I could handle being natural and backgroundy, but as I recall reading somewhere, actually doing a collision as an extra is sort of hard. It took four takes, I think. First time it looked scripted, second time I totally missed him. Third time was okay, I think, but the fourth time (from what I’m told) was good. I don’t know. I felt really out of my element for it. Fortunately, the actor, Chuck, was cool about it — even though he clocked me on the chin with his shoulder.
I guess that means I’m a “featured” extra, if that scene isn’t cut.
Whatever, it’s kinda cool I guess. Even though they picked me cause I was the frailest looking dude, there.
After that excitement, it was basically more waiting around until a final scene where we all just needed to do some crossing stuff as background for the two actresses. Carlos said it was awesome, so I guess we did well.
Then we went home, it was around 6:30 in the evening.
So, overall the experience was good. I think the part that made the morning so bad was we didn’t know what the schedule was nor where we were in the scheme of things. It lent a feeling of helplessness, and actually reminded me a lot of jury selection. It was sort of mind-numbing.
I do need to point out, however, that everyone working there was really cool. People came downstairs frequently and thanked us for being patient or to check on how we were doing. Carlos frequently thanked us for our efforts. I also heard from the casting director that they really appreciated us and how good we were. So, I guess we didn’t suck.
I may be called back for another shoot of the library scene(s) in three weeks, is what I heard. Sort of looking forward to that. But even if it doesn’t happen, I’ll be content. And who knows, maybe I’ll actually end up in the film.
So, that was my day.
