Anyone Been An Extra/Background Actor in Anything?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Scotian, Nov 17, 2021.

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  1. CraigBic

    CraigBic Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    I've been doing it here and there since I think 2008 now, though I haven't done much of it in the past few years. It sort of varies from job to job and I found you never really knew if you were on the job until the last minute which meant it was quite stressful leading up to the day you had signed up for.
    I also found that I rarely was in a position to hang around and watch the crew work, often you are moved over to some room or tent away from the set until you are needed. I think a lot of crews don't think very highly of the extras either, to be honest sort of like you are unwanted guests that they have to deal with. I did enjoy being on the first episode of Ash vs the Evil dead though, they didn't seem to mind me wandering around, and at one point they had me quite close to Sam Rami where I got to see him in action for a moment and I finally saw a director who directed a bit more the way that I directed. I had been used to more energetic and excited directors up until then as a friend of mine is such a director.
    I remember them showing him some B-roll or 2nd unit footage and he pointed to something on the screen and said "What is that?", I think one of the objects on the set was more something that would be found in an NZ home than an American one.
    That said, the wardrobe team complained to my agents that I didn't bring any wardrobe options to the wardrobe fitting even though I did bring wardrobe options and was asked to leave a few items with them for the shoot. I was also in the last episode of Season 2 I think though I haven't watched that episode.
    It is kind of fun though having people mention that they saw you in this or that, when I first started I always wanted to see the stuff that I was in but I found that was easier said than done. I had a "featured" role in Spartacus season one which I was barely in and I think after a while I stopped trying to find myself, especially if I'm in Shortland Street which is a soap opera that I'm not that fond of watching.
    Sometimes it's still quite fun though, but I've gotten to this point where I'd rather focus on my career behind the camera which has stalled to an embarrassing level.
    I did meet people who made a living out of being an extra though.
     
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  2. tonyballz

    tonyballz Roogalator

    Location:
    arizona
    A few years ago a friend of my roommate's from back East came to Flagstaff to shoot some scenes for a student film. One of them took place in a jail and I got to be an extra.

    About a year previous, Flagstaff had moved their jail into a brand new facility. The old downtown jail was just sitting abandoned and the guy got permission from the city to shoot there so it looked pretty authentic. I had actually been arrested and spent four days in the old jail and it was a blast running around the place as a free man. Good times.
     
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  3. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed Thread Starter

    I know in Nova Scotia, people will travel all over the province to be extras. If there's a shooting within 20 or 30 miles, I'll sign up for it, but some of these people travel 2 or 3 hours, which I don't really understand. If it was a director I really liked, like David Fincher or Ari Astor, I might travel farther.
     
  4. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I went to the audition to be in the wedding scene for Godfather II as did every other kid in town. It was a cattle call type of thing, not very memorable. I guess I didn't look ethnic enough, alas.
     
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  5. twicks

    twicks Forum Resident

    Location:
    Detroit
    You mean the big party for Anthony's first communion, on the lakefront?
     
  6. montyburns

    montyburns Forum Resident

    Location:
    MA, USA
    My dad was an extra in Olive Kitteridge with Frances McDormand.

    He's in the airport scene where she is making a big stink about taking her shoes off (?) and he gives her a weird glance which he apparently wasn't supposed to do, but the director liked it, so they kept it.

    It's easily the oddest thing...seeing my dad on tv. Ha!
     
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  7. Holerbot6000

    Holerbot6000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    Oh was that what they were celebrating? Duh! It's a big compound on the east side of Lake Tahoe and they put out a city wide search for locals to be extras.
     
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  8. Bill Hart

    Bill Hart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin
    I happened to walk into one of the entrances to the building I worked in at the same time Michael Moore was filming his diatribe against big banks some years ago-- the scene with me-- which as I recall including me saying "Duuuude"-- was left on the cutting room floor but someone had it up on the Net at some point because I know I saw it at the time.
    When I was in college in Pittsburgh, there was a call for extras to film the George Romero sequel to Night of the Living Dead- the one filmed at Monroeville Mall. I did not participate, but there was a pretty good drama school at the university and as I recall, more than a few people did sign up.
     
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  9. Adam9

    Adam9 Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй.

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Not me, but my father-in-law was an extra in Cinderella Man. He lived in a city about an hour away. Normally he drove in every day but once he stayed over with us in Toronto where the movie was being shot. I remember going downtown and picking him up around midnight one night after shooting was done for the day.

    One day he didn't realize that he was supposed to be on the set. He got a telephone call and shooting was halted until he got there.

    He was in the crowd scenes in the arena during the boxing matches. However, try as I might, I could never see him, even slowing down the film.

    He got to meet Renée Zellweger too. The extras were not supposed to approach the stars but she approached him and they had a brief chat.
     
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  10. carrick doone

    carrick doone Whhhuuuutttt????

    Location:
    Vancouver, Canada
    I was an extra on a vampire / detective series about 15 years ago. My ex-girlfriend was an AD on the set and she thought I would enjoy being an extra in a particular scene set in a bar where the vampire beats up someone. I am an introverted person who, although I have presented to hundreds of people in business at times, I freeze in any acting scenario. I knew this about myself but my ex totally sold me. I should have been cast as a zombie I was so stiff. And the director, who thought it was funny, kept scanning the camera over to me and the other extra who was an actual actor. Worst 80 dollars I ever earned. I never watched it and possibly I was the reason the show wasn't picked up for a second season.
     
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  11. EddieMann

    EddieMann I used to be a king...

    Location:
    Geneva, IL. USA.
    I was an extra in a Chicago Med episode. Made 80 bucks and ended up on the cutting room floor.
     
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  12. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed Thread Starter

    I was talking to a lady that said she’s been an extra in over 40 tv shows & movies & has never seen herself in the finished product.
     
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  13. thegage

    thegage Forum Currency Nerd

    Not exactly a movie, but I was at polo match in England back in 1979, at which Prince Charles was playing. At the half they have the spectators walk across the pitch to ramp down the divots from the horses’ hooves. The BBC was there filming and I was in the crowd as we walked. I found the video on YouTube a year or so ago but now can’t. I still have a polo ball that Charles knocked into the crowd, but he didn’t fall off his horse that day.

    JohnK
     
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  14. Carl Swanson

    Carl Swanson Senior Member

    That alone would make it memorable.
     
  15. keefer1970

    keefer1970 Metal, Movies, Beer!

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I was present at the filming of two movies during my high school/college years but to the best of my knowledge I didn't make it onscreen in either one.

    The first was the Troma film Class of Nuke'Em High, which was shot in and around my home town of Paramus, NJ. They filmed the scene where the mutant bikers crash the school bake sale in front of a local Catholic high school. My friends and I (who'd found out about the shoot from a "BE A MOVIE EXTRA!" flyer hanging on the wall of our local comic book store) milled around in the crowd all afternoon, running away in mock terror when the director told us to run away, as they filmed the same scene a bunch of times. I've seen the movie at least a half dozen times since then, but I've never been able to pick myself out in the crowd of extras.

    A few years later, a college friend and I were walking in Manhattan and literally wandered into a location shoot for Ghostbusters 2 in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Once again, we stayed for several hours, watching the shoot, eventually working our way to the front of the huge crowd of onlookers so we could see Murray, Aykroyd, and the gang up close. It was very cool.
    Months later when the movie came, out I was so excited to see it because I was sure I'd be on screen this time -- it was the scene where the 'busters arrive at the museum to find it covered in slime, and Murray says "C'mon guys, there's always always room for Jell-O." However, on screen the crowd looked even MORE massive than I remembered, and for most of the scene the Ghostbusters are in tight close up so the crowd is just a huge blur in the background. My brother leaned over to me and asked "So where are you?" and I said, "Ehhh, I'm in that mess someplace."

    I am in a low-budget indie documentary about KISS fandom called "KISS Loves You," parts of which were shot at the 1995 KISS Expo in Hackensack NJ. At one point, the camera pans down the line of people waiting for the doors of the convention center to open, and I wave and open my jacket to show my KISS tee shirt. That same clip was used in the recent A&E documentary KISStory, which was a nice surprise.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2021
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  16. sharedon

    sharedon Forum Zonophone

    Location:
    Boomer OK
    I was an extra in Marathon Man. Blink and you miss me, heh!
     
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  17. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    I was Spartacus!
     
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  18. tman53

    tman53 Vinyl is an Addiction

    Location:
    FLA
    Not an extra but I did walk through the set of the the TV show Hack:eek:. They were filming right outside the building where I worked at 18th and Market St. in Philly. I was totally oblivious until someone from the crew yelled at me.
     
  19. badfinger54

    badfinger54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Victoria, TX USA
    Our souvenir photo...I'm back row second from left. Seems like a long time ago now.

    [​IMG]
     
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  20. Rachael Bee

    Rachael Bee Miembra muy loca

    I was an extra for two days at the World Trade Center shooting of King Kong (1976). It paid $37.50 a day and included lunch. I caught a few glimpses of the stars. I never got picked for a special shot where I might find myself if the scene survived the cuts.
     
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  21. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed Thread Starter

    I've been in a few things.

    The first one was in season 5 of Haven. I was a businessman in a suit with a briefcase sitting in a waiting area while two of the characters were having a scene behind me. That made the final cut.

    They filmed a true crime series called Did He Do It? for Lifetime Discovery. I was the main character in one episode except I was the main character 30 years later in prison. I was in the last 10 mins or so of the episode, sitting around in a jail cell, laying on the bunk & being escorted into the courtroom where I was declared innocent. It was very cool. Low budget couldn't begin to describe this & 2nd takes were rare. I had some lines for that one but they got cut.

    Then they filmed The Good House where I walked across a crosswalk a few times. That one hasn't been released yet. The best part of that was getting to watch Sigourney Weaver & Kevin Kline do a scene together a few times.

    Then the last thing was season 4 of The Sinner. I was in a couple shots in the first episode where I was recognizable & a few shots of different body parts that pretty much I was the only one that would know it was me.

    The population in Nova Scotia isn't real high & there's only a couple of casting companies so when these things come along, it seems to be pretty easy to get involved in them. They did season 2 of Locke & Key in Lunenburg after The Sinner but it's such a pain with Covid protocols, I wasn't interested in doing anymore for awhile.
     
  22. FACE OF BOE

    FACE OF BOE Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    A friend of mine, James, was an extra in the Reece Witherspoon 2002 movie, ‘The Importance Of Being Earnest’. They were filming a scene around the dining table and there was a long break as they set up a camera shot. James was sitting almost opposite Reece. Looking down at his plate he noticed rice on it and next it to one of his spoons. Looking over at Reece he suddenly proclaimed very loudly “Oh look! Rice with a spoon!” An awkward silence for a few seconds and looking confused Reece responded “Oh right…er….ok”.
     
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