Klaus Kinski??
I’d like to hear more about your work on The Right Stuff. I love that movie!
I’d love to be an extra, but I’m sure they want people who’ll blend together and not stand out. I’m a big mama, with grey hair to boot, so I doubt anyone would take me. Sounds like fun though, even with all the waiting (I’d always have a book with me).
These threads are great.
I´ll try to take a picture of Mr. Stahl for you if I get the oportunity; shooting here ends nextFriday (they´ll be doing more film work in NYC) and I´m not sure if I´ll be on the set either tomorrow or Friday.
Yep, most of the work is incredibly boring, but on the other hand…
I´ll have to think about that other hand. 
Heeeeeeeee. See my sig line.
Ahh, the long days. The lousy Craftie. The rain. The cold. The irritable Teamsters. 27 years as a working cameraman, 20 years as a Steadicam Operator and you know what? Every SINGLE day I love going to work. People who proclaim that they’re burned out need to get out.
Hmm. Longest day. I was on the clock for 26 hours once. Frequently on music videos, they bring you in very early ( 5 am, 6 am call ) and you get to share a second breakfast with the same crew before seeing your bed.
Hurry up and wait is always the watchword. I encourage my kids NOT to go to work with me. It’s either deadly boring or somewhat boring. Punctuated by moments of elation, of course. I brought daughter to work with me a few weeks ago for the very first time and she is 14 3/4. Her job was to be shot from behind by myself, and to watch the gear when I was shooting others. We were in the middle of Grand Central Terminal. She hated watching the gear, and wanted to read a magazine instead. Kids these days.
You said it, DMark. I once explained to my kids why I am an hour early to work. The motto is " half an hour early is on time", and I just push that a bit. Used to loooooooooove being there alone, but for Craftie and the genny operator. I’d set my gear up completely, get back into the car, snooze, wait for call, pop out, walk to the camera truck ( sometimes not yet unlocked ) and tell the 1st Assistant, " Hey, Steadicam’s ready, just hand me the body and first lens of the day and a loaded mag whenever you wish… " Used to make them crazy. Heh. The time spent on even a low-budget film, when calculated per minute, is unnerving. On a larger budget show, it becomes frightening.
Let’s only work round numbers. $ 100 million budget to shoot. ( forget post and promotion ). 5 day weeks. 12 hour days. ( We’re talking non-union, or union with O.T. presumed). Let’s say a 10 week show, which is average unless you’re talking Terminator II or some such EFX laden picture.
That’s 600 hours. That comes to 166,000 dollars per hour. That's 2, 777.00 per minute of Production time. I don’t have spare batteries on hand and we wait 7 minutes for my assistsant to run to the charger on the truck? That is, in real dollars, $ 19, 444.00 I just pissed away. This is why people work so very hard, and fast, on set. You piss away enough money, they don’t have you back.
This is all I ever wanted to do, and so am fortunate to have a career in it. God it is boring so much of the time. But… those short bursts of elation? Ooooh baby. 
Makin’ movies.
Cartooniverse
Heh. I have that film. Though I’d been using the ‘My best fiend’ since long before I knew it existed.
I was working at Edwards Air Force Base when the film was made. My friend and I were making super-8 films, so I jumped at the chance to work on TRS. They cast several people in my department. They only paid minimum wage (which was only about 15¢ less per hour than I was making at the time), but I was collecting vacation pay too. And the nice meals.
At first they had me dressed as an Air Force sergeant and I and another guy were going to drive a jeep in the background behind Royal Dano as he approached the house at the beginning of the film. But they didn’t film it. Later I was dressed in a lab coat as part of the scene where ‘Scott Crossfield’ is getting out of his aircraft. That one wound up as a ‘newsreel’, and they didn’t use the shot I and the other people were in. As it happens, only one person I knew made it onscreen – a blonde woman who is seen briefly from behind dancing at Pancho’s.
Not necessarily. All types of people are extras (AKA ‘atmosphere’ – or ‘props that eat’). You might not make it into the dance scene of a teen beach movie, but there are plenty of scenes that require ‘real people’.
There are casting agencies, and there are casting agencies. Beware of scams. Some will try to sell you expensive acting lessons, or expensive head shots. It’s been a while since I was signed up, but back in the mid-'80s/early-'90s the reputable places didn’t charge fees to the actors. They made their money by supplying x-number of extras for a shoot. Maybe it’s changed by now.
The reason I never seriously worked as an extra is because I had a nice-paying job with benefits, and most shooting is done on weekdays. I went for the money.
Thanks for the extra information. I enjoyed reading it.
I guess my point is that extras are called “background” for a reason, they’re supposed to blend in and not call attention to themselves. Wouldn’t someone who’s overweight stick out? I don’t know. I’ve often thought about doing whatever you need to do to be an extra, because it would be right up my alley, seriously (I’m easy-going, don’t get bored easily, and easy to please), but that’s what’s stopped me. I’m not the mom in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or anything, but I don’t know how well I’d blend in to disappear.
In any case, I love watching extras in movies. I think it came from when I was watching extras filming a scene in downtown Chicago once, late at night. I think it was Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson. They were filming something going on in Brooks Brothers. I didn’t see Mel, but I wasn’t paying attention to his part of the shot anyway, I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stuff. I thought it was interesting how they had made everything (streetlamps, cars, extras, building windows) look very bland and colorless using off-whites, off-blacks and greys, just so the lead actor and the action would stand out more. I found it fascinating. I went to see the movie just to see that scene and watch the extras. I have no ambitions for acting, but that part of it, strangely enough, actually seemed like fun.
Sorry you didn’t make it into TRS. It was still interesting reading about what you did.
Sorry to hijack. Ale, I’m looking forward to more reports. I was wondering what Nick Stahl was up to.
Can you tell me what the movie is about? IMDB doesn’t have a description.
I have to run to the studio now, but I´ll answer when I come back.
Beig a extra can be fun, but you really have to be fully unemployed and have lots and lots of time on your hands. It is also the only type of agency where you have to pay money to make money - initially. Most extra agencies, at least in LA, charge you when you first go there - only fair as they have to take photos and put you in a database and if you are a flake, sign up and then go take a full time job and become unavailable the next day, they have useless photos on hand and
and useless phone number. It used to cost about $35 to register, but don’t know what it costs now. They are not scams, just covering their ass.
At any rate, once you are listed sometimes they call you (especially in your case!) as they might be looking for a “type”…Director: “Get me a ‘big mama’ type to smash the cake in Brad Pitt’s face’…”
However, most of the time you call in every afternoon to see what is available the next day - sometimes those lists were quite funny to hear - “we need 35 Asians who can play violin and will agree to having their hair dyed blonde”…“we need biker types with tatoos on legally exposed body parts”…“looking for people who speak Italian and can juggle…”…sometimes people got lucky - some extra roles turn into bit speaking parts (WAY more money and a SAG card!!!)…some sitcoms (and a few dramas) have a stable of extras who get a regular gig the entire season, so you have a season’s worth of work guaranteed. Once, I got paid an extra $40 for them to park my car on a fake NY street on the lot and put mud on it (they later washed my car for free). You meet a lot of interesting people - but as mentioned, for the most part it is hurry up and wait and really, really long hours - forget any personal life during your gig. Oh, and usually you are required to bring three sets of your own clothes with you for shows set in the present, depending on the show (obviously not when it is a period piece).
However, I strongly urge anyone who is retired, who might have some kind of handicap or look different than most people to sign up! They like to have interesting characters on file. But even if they don’t specifically ask for you, you will be amazed how often they just need bodies to be in the background and if you ain’t got nothin’ else to do, this could be a nice steady source of income - especially once you get a reputation at one of those agencies as being reliable. You won’t get rich, but who knows, you might get a speaking part and then anything could happen.
OK, back home…
I don´t want to give any spoilers so it´s going to be just a little description of the movie´s premise.
The main character is a person known as a “scoper”, he can get inside people´s minds and see what´s going in there; he´s working for the US goverment on a branch of the NSA under the watch of Sandy (Wallace Shawn). The “condition” of a scoper seems to cause irreversible damage with time so no scoper has ever lived (or been sane) past 27 or so (I´d have to check the script). Joshua gets an assignment on Uruguay keeping an eye on a Venezuelan guy and then the plot starts; I think it can be described as a suspence psychological thriller… :dubious:
I´ll be working on the visual FXs for the next three or four months; mainly all the internal sceneries, what this people have in their heads; so for example in one scene one scoper goes into another´s head to talk about something and the environment looks like a Mondrian painting, then with a wave of a hand it changes into a Kandisnky. That sort of things.
I´ll have to be in the set at 8:30 tomorrow, I think it´s going to be a very long day because they´ll want to wrap everything up to finish the work here and fly to the NYC locations.
I was thinking just that the other day when the actors got on the set and the continuity supervisor noted that the blue jeans the Ms. Maestro was wearing where a darker shade of blue than the ones it had used on the previous scene filmed a few days before; so they went a bit histerical looking up for the woman in charge of the costumes. While that was going on I was wondering how many 100s were being pulled from the budget per second.
Ooh, that sounds like cool fun to make! I do FX in a very low key way for my friends’ no-budget movies. These kind of effects you’re describing sort of remind me of What Dreams May Come.
Sorry for the hijack, but all this talk about extras made me curious: Are there any well known actors who started out as an extra? I’d be surprised if there were.
And thanks for the fascinating OP, Ale.
That sounds like a neat plot. Thanks for explaining it.
Kevin Costner is well known for being a corpse in The Big Chill, though he had a bigger role that was cut out, so maybe that doesn’t count.
DMark, thank you for that answer! Would you start a thread about extras, copying and pasting what you wrote? This is fascinating to me. So is what Ale’s doing, so I don’t want to hijack his thread anymore.
Ale, sounds like a cross between What Dreams May Come (visually) and Minority Report. I can smell the popcorn. I’ll be there day one. Who’s directing? Keep on posting. It’s really cool.
Gee, almost 14 hours this time; on the good side it wasn´t nearly as boring as the last one.
Tomrrow I´ll have to be on the set for the last day of green-screen filming; I take suggestions on how to peel myself off the bed at 6:30 AM on a Saturday morning. 
I came back and brought pictures, not pie; so to beging with the picture of Mr. Stahl I took for DeadlyAccurate
And another angle:
One with Nick Stahl and Wallace Shawn:
Nick Stahl and Mía Maestro:
Your´s truly on the set:
Ale & Nick, soon in a theater near you! 
He is actually quite a nice guy:
Picture 6
I don´t recall who was asking about the director, his name is Evan Oppenheimer; as a matter of fact he also wrote the script. He´s also a nice guy to work with.
Gotta go to bed early…
Ooh, thanks so much, Ale. That was very nice of you to do. Good to know he’s a nice person (and oh-so-pretty). (And if I may be so bold, you’re quite good-looking yourself.)
Drink lots of water before bedtime.
I just came back from the cast and crew party; it´s 5 AM I´ve been up for 24 hours (working and dancing) so I´ll write further details after some rest.
Musta been a hell of a party. When come back, bring story! (I’m not actually looking for gossipy dirt on anything; I’m just curious what the party was like.)
So what’s left for you to do? I assume you’ll be working on this movie long after the cast has gone on to other things?
Neat to see some pics from a movie set. thanks! (and thanks for keeping us informed)
MMMmmm, Mía Maestro…
Brian
