A Day In the Life of Being an Extra

Tuesday morning started out like any other (other than peeking out my window in fear of another giant snowfall) but it was going to progress very differently than days in the past. Mike and I were going to be extras on Vero’s tv show!

Let’s recap: Vero has been working with a TV production company for the past while and they are currently filming a new TV series for TFO (the Francophone equivalent to TVOntario). Seeing that it is publicly funded, there is no worry of ratings so they are filming two seasons at once and after it airs (in February 2008), TFO determines if they wish to have another season or not. I don’t even know if I can get into many details as I signed a confidentiality agreement but I think I left the aspects of the show pretty well non-existent.

After going into twenty different wrong directions in the mall it’s being filmed in, we finally found the studio and Vero was there waiting for us as we were late. Well, not really late, but enough for her to start to wonder. We sat down, signed some papers and had the costume person pick out what clothes we would wear (we were instructed to bring a bunch of clothes with us). It was interesting to see that a lot of clothes don’t work too well on television, such as those with stripes or crazy patterns. So it was a lot of solid colours for us.

We were then brought over to the actual studio set which was pretty cool. I’ve seen documentaries and behind-the-scenes things on TV/Movies so I suppose it looked pretty similar. The actual set was of a diner and we were to be the patrons inside the diner. The first scene we were in had me sitting alone at a table and Mike sitting with another extra (Karine). The process of the filming generally follows this pattern:

– They do a run-through of the scene with no cameras.
– Then they start rolling the cameras for the scene.
– They usually do a few takes and (hopefully) everything goes well. Sometimes there are missed lines or a microphone seen in the frame or something like that.
– They have two cameras running and one films a contemporary style and the other gets to do ‘stylistic’ filming where they can do whatever they want…panning left to right on a face, moving it all over the place. It’s good to have something to play with in the editing room. Then they usually switch off and film the scene again
– In the end, even if the scene goes well, there are usually 5 times where the scene is filmed. This allows for more material for the editor to play with.

Mike said it was difficult to ‘pretend-talk’ with Karine as you can’t really say anything so you just go through the motions. It was interesting to think about this and now I notice myself looking at what the extras do in the Central Perk coffee shop on Friends thinking that they aren’t actually talking!

They then switched the scene and Mike and I ended up sitting together which was fun and utterly impossible not to crack into a smile or laugh. But considering we were pretending to just talk and be normal, this was perfectly fine on set.

In between scenes, we would go back to the other room and sit and wait to be called out. They had snacks for us to munch on and I caught up on some exam studying. The people were very nice and they seemed to have fun on the set. Like when the guy with the marker would snap the marker, the camera guys would shout out random comments before the Director said ACTION!

The Director and others are stationed outside the set watching a live feed on some monitors. Vero says that they are looking for a lot of things – are there any mics in the shot, is an extra messing up in the background, does the Director like what the actor is doing. It’s all a lot to process so they have a lot of people watching the monitors. I was hoping to get a chance to see them in action but alas, I was too busy earning my pay for the day! That was another great part about being an extra. I made a cool $108 on set that day. Mike and I were saying it was a decent wage even though you spent 11 hours on set. If you could be an extra every day of the week, that could be a great job!

The lunch they provided was great. Everything is catered to the set. Vero, Karine, Mike and I toured the mall during our lunch hour and then returned to continue filming. Later in the afternoon, I am glad I had the time to have a little nap as I was getting tired. Being an extra is a little tiring as there are sometimes where you are just sitting there for a long time waiting for the scene to be set up. One time I was sitting at a computer pretending to surf the Internet and was dozing off in between takes.

Mike has a great scene where one of the main actors asks him if he wants more juice (or something to that effect) and he gets to nod yes. So he will have a great head shot in the show! I also had some good scenes like getting served some juice or walking into the scene to drop off something. We were laughing at the fact that we takes this all very seriously and in the end we may find out that we are just a blur in the background or you will see my elbow. Such is the life of an extra!

After a long day of shooting, we started descending into madness and were having a great time ‘pretend-talking’ in the background and eating stale croissants. We got to leave the set early (well, 30 minutes early) and waited for Vero.

Mike and I thoroughly enjoyed being extras on a TV show. They had great food, the crew and actors were fun times and we would definitely do it again! I thought it was interesting to see what happened behind the scenes to make a show. It was crazy how many crew members they had on set and their jobs. Mike was noticing one guy’s sole job was to move the camera stand that some guy was sitting on. That’s it! I suppose it makes for a more efficient operation if everyone has their one task to keep focussed on.

Vero took some pictures and interviewed us (although my French was pretty bad at that time of day) so hopefully we can see those up on the site sometime soon!

I will make sure to let you all know when we are scheduled to appear! It will definitely be in the late spring 2008.

iplaying: The Ghost of Jerry Lee – The Bible All-Stars (The Bible All-Stars)