Lately, I’ve been getting the itch to get in front of a camera for a movie. I don’t want something too exciting; a couple of lines would be enough. I live near Toronto (I go there three times a week) so I don’t live too far away from movie shoots.
How would I go about doing this? I’ve seen ads in the paper that looked for extras. Is that the best way to go?
Being an extra in a movie is easy. I was an extra a couple of times when I lived in San Diego. However being able to speak a couple of lines is an entirely different story. You’ll be hard pressed to make that happen. And thats even if you look like you walked off the cover of Playboy magazine.
Funny story though the first time I got to be an extra was when I was living in Ocean Beach. I was walking from my apartment to a local pub. One of the streets I had to cross was barracaded off. The only way to cross this street was to walk about three blocks down towards the beach, cross over, then come back up again. So I told myself “F that” I looked both ways on the street didn’t see nothing going on except for some people standing on the sides of the street (this particular street was lined with various stores and what not)so I went ahead and bypassed the barriers and crossed the street. At the time I was thinking they must be get’n ready for a parade or something.
Well, as I got halfway across the street; this guy with a clipboard starts yelling at me “Hey what the hell do you think you’re doing? didn’t you see those barracades?” I was like “Uh, yeah, but I…” He then interupts me and says “Hey want to be on that TV show Renegade?” I agreed, he then told me to go stand by some dude that was a bit down the street and pretend like I’m talking to him." I did this for about an hour while they took their takes. It was VERY BORING! But I put up with it becuase I thought it would be neat to see myself on the TV.
After that I whatched this god awfull show (complete with VCR) week after week just to catch a stupid glimpes of myself on the TV. Guess what? I never did.
Some places post ads in the paper to announce casting calls for movie extras. Last year my brother was one of hundreds of people who showed up to be extras for the refugee scenes in The Day After Tomorrow. He sat around bored for most of the day, sweating heavily due to the winter clothes he was instructed to wear (in the desert. In the summer), and got himself a lovely sunburn. But he had fun anyway.
“These pretzels are making me thirsty.”
Moving this from IMHO to Cafe Society.