He expresses it in an unrealistic way? You mean like a dreamy teenager?
It’s not unrealistic to expect you can become a filmmaker. A good friend of mine is in his early twenties and working on a documentary.
the novelty factor is good once or twice. If you’re with friends it’s a lot better because the movie business seems to be largely waiting around.
I was in the movie Taipan, which was so awful even I couldn’t watch the entire thing. Did spend some time with Bryan Brown on the set, and he was quite a cool guy. Didn’t get to meet Joan Chen though.
Movies are more fun than filming commercials IMHO. Or at least filming commercials in China - I’ve been the token white guy in a few of those.
I was a movie extra. It was a movie made in Seoul, South Korea when I was stationed there. They filmed a lot of scenes in the part of town where most of the clubs are. I would do it again though.
I would do it. I just don’t ever have the time when some movie is filming here.
My MIL does extra work in movies and has for the last 12 years. She has worked just about every major movie to come through town as well as a handful of television shows (CSI, The Net etc) and commercials for local stuff (casinos, shows, magicians etc).
Some stuff she has done (not all the movies are good, but it’s work and since she is SAG she gets paid pretty well for it):
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (my husband was in this movies as an extra as well as his 1960 Buick Lasabre)
Mars Attacks
Con Air
The Mexican
Miss Congeniality 2
Lethal Weapon 4
Play It To The Bone
Oceans 11 (remake)
National Lampoons Vegas Vacation
Casino
Austin Powers
…there is more than that, but I am tired and can’t think of any more right now
During a period of unemployment, my SO and I both registered as extras through an agency in LA.
I found a job shortly afterwards, but he didn’t, so he wound up doing LOTS of television and films for about six months.
Some great stories, lots of good food, lots of hanging around doing nothing, meet some celebrities, hear the real dirt, decent pay…all in all, it was pretty fun work.
The best part was calling in every day and listening to the voicemail:
“We need people with bald heads and lots of tattoos…”
“Looking for people who can juggle and sing in Italian…”
“If you own a tuxedo, we need ballroom dancers…”
“Asians who can play the violin…”
“Guys who speak German and can dance well…”
Once they used our car for a “winter scene” and got it all muddy and then detailed it afterwards…the car never looked better and they paid us $60 for the day.
Still fun to see reruns of shows he was on, and we never fail to watch a show on television with lots of people in the background and say, “extras!” as we watch.
BTW, as I have often mentioned on threads about this - America’s Funniest Videos uses extras all the time (hence the guys with suits and ties in the background) as nobody ever wants to watch the show live - it takes forever to tape and you hear the same lame jokes over and over and have to laugh every time…you get paid about $50 to sit in that audience, but it is a really long day.
Had the opportunity more than a few times.
They filmed part of this movie at my coffee shop, and I could have walked upstairs and been in it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460843/
I provided coffee for this one, one of my employees got to play a cop…
Got a great photo of Eddie Furlong licking one of my coffee containers…He liked my coffee apparently. I probably could have made it into one of the scenes there…I actually wish I had gone down there…
A couple of the local directors use my shop for casting calls…so if anyone in Fort Worth ever wants to be an extra, shoot me an email.
spent 4 months as a Hollywood “background talent” about 9 years ago.
Boring as hell. ESPECIALLY the movie sets.
They aren’t going to get a chance to get anywhere close to the techies, and there will probably be some slack-jawed Director’s Assistant making sure they don’t horse around.
Let them have their vacation.
I was picked as an extra for McHale’s Navy (sucked big time) which was filmed during our annual vacation at the beach. I wanted to relax and spend time with the kids but they thought it would be so cool for their papi to be in a movie. I backed out when I found out they were paying the gringo extras twice what we would get paid.
A-ha! One of life’s great mysteries solved. I always wondered about that.