My Day As an Extra

For those who don't remember, I mentioned that I was an extra one day on set. And since I got the pictures of my day as a movie star from the set photographer, I decided to let you all know about my time in the spotlight. It was a lot of work trying to be a PA and an extra, especially wearing those scrubs; they don't have near enough pockets for all the crap I had to carry around. But man, were they comfortable!

Peter, the 2nd AD, asked me the day before if I'd like to be a nurse extra for our hospital scenes the following day. I of course asked a very important question--Am I a slutty nurse or a regular nurse? It is a kid's movie, so of course I was just playing a regular nurse! And so I agreed to help out the production. Yep, I'm a sucker. And I was the only sucker on the crew--Peter went around asking almost everyone on the crew if they wanted to be an extra the next day and I was the only one who said yes. This was near the end of shooting and the budget was becoming quite the issue, so their way of saving on costs was to get crew to be extras, meaning they wouldn't have to expend money on actual extras.

I must say that it's harder than it looks being an extra. We're constantly telling them to not look at the camera or stare at the actors in the scene, but I must admit that all I wanted to do was look at the actors and the action going on while rolling and had to remind myself to not look at them as they passed me. We're also telling them to pantomime and fake talk so as to not mess up the recording of the actors talking, but I felt very foolish pretending to talk on the phone and pantomiming writing and typing, especially with the crew seeing me. We're always telling them it'll be just a moment and to wait patiently, we're almost ready to roll. But that's usually a lie, as being an extra means a lot of just waiting. And once I took my walkie off--because we were "close to rolling"--I had no idea what was going on. And when "rolling" was finally called, on instinct I still wanted to yell "Rolling!" and "cut!", but was told by Peter that it wasn't necessary!

And when the scene was done and we were moving on, instead of being able to relax, grab a few snacks, I was back into PA mode, talking on the walkie, grabbing batteries, escorting actors and working. Working double duty is kind of a hassle, as I felt rather useless while I was being used as an extra because I knew there were other things I could have been doing. But it was a fun experience, and perhaps I'll see myself on the big screen....if my scenes don't get cut!