Be background cast member in a movie

“I was actually very surprised by just how demanding it turned out to be. In my mind, I figured that I would be sitting in a holding room, would periodically be called out to do a scene a few times, and then head back to the holding area after that. Strangely enough, it was almost the exact opposite. We’d start in holding for just a brief time if at all and then we were called out to work. And the scenes would be done over and over and over and over… with a lot more overs that you could throw in there. It was relatively rare that we’d get a chance to sit or even get back to the holding area throughout the day. Oh, and you might figure the day would be 8 hours or so maybe? Not so much. On almost all of my days, my roll call was at 6 or 7 am and we’d get done around 8 pm or so. I put in over 72 hours in my 6 days there! I averaged just under 12.5 hours of work each of those days. Throw in the 45 minutes I needed to drive each way and it didn’t leave much room for much else, including sleep.”

“As extras, we didn’t have any lines and were instructed to pantomime talk and pretend to drink beer while the crew filmed a few scenes. Some of the extras got to dance to a great band brought in for the scene. It was a great experience to see what goes on behind the scenes. Many people made up the crew including camera operators, directors, producers and people running around in black clothes with serious looks on their faces. Since we were unpaid, the crew was extremely nice to the extras, providing us with lunch, water and a dry place to run to when the thunderstorms hit.”