Has anyone ever been an extra in a movie or television episode?

[terrya]

If so, what was your experience like?

Just curious.

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. I have

not. Sorry! Been a member of the studio audience once though.

[Heddi]

2. I was an audience member for Maury & Montel Williams

and featured prominently in every single fucking shot of the audience. And it was the same clip of me scratching my nose again and again and again in a vicious loop (for Montel). On Maury, we were in the front row and we were shown often there as well.

does that count?

[SeattleGirl]

3. I have.

Was visiting Vancouver, BC once, and the SciFi channel was filming a movie. In the scene I was in, the "President" rode up to the front of a building and got out with his "wife". I was in the crowd across the street; I watched the movie, and there I was!

It was kind of fun.

[Richardo]

4. Came *that* close to being a high-schooler in the big gym-burning scene in 'Carrie'

Goddam DePalma - it's SO political :eyes:

Note: I was a freshman in college at the time. Perks of going to school in L.A.

On edit: I was in the studio audience of 'The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson' twice.

[qb]

5. My ex was in the First Ave. crowd in Purple Rain.

She said it was a blast.

[DarkTirade]

6. Just for a TV commercial.

One of the years when I was in high school, I don't remember which, my school chorus was one of the ones chosen by Disney to perform for their dress rehearsal/commercial filming for their yearly holiday 'Candlelight Processional' they do at EPCOT. So that year whenever you saw a commercial for their holiday stuff, I was in the background somewhere in the shots of Candlelight. In a huge chorus. Who were all wearing big baggy choir robes that obscured everything. :)

As far as my experience... it was the same as any regular performance except that they were doing sound checks and there was no audience. And it was after the park closed, so it was a lot later at night than we usually performed.

[Greyskye]

7. I had a speaking role in an independent movie once

It was a bizarre tale of two Mormon hit men, filmed around Auburn and Cool California. I actually had two different characters, but one was edited down to sneaking through the woods, breaking into a camper, and scaring the crap out of the guy 'sleeping'. I was supposed to yell loudly and menacingly at the 'sleeping' guy. Too bad the cameras weren't rolling for the 1st run-through. No one expected me to project as loudly as I did - and I really did scare the crap out of the guy - he practically levitated out of the bed. :rofl: Unfortunately, I also blew out my voice in one big wad, and the following takes weren't as dramatic. :(

I had another scene a couple weeks later - they had re-written part of the script and needed a new character to make things work. It had much more dialog then the first part did. It was filmed in a little valley near Cool, and we had a lot of ambient noise to deal with. Somebody on the other side of the little valley kept revving up a chainsaw right in the middle of the takes. And when the chainsaw wasn't going, the horse in the corral behind me kept blowing bubbles in her water trough. It was a long day.


(edited as I did not have a bakery product in a movie once. :eyes: )

[MrCoffee]

8. I was an extra in Dazed and Confused

It was a blast. There was a shitload of standing around acting like we were at a party, so we had a party.

[flvegan]

9. Does porn count?

[MrCoffee]

11. you were an extra in a porno?

LAME

[Mike03]

36. Arrgg. You've had all the fun. NT

[underpants]

10. I was "middle aged white guy" in a Tim Kaine for Governor ad

You didn't think he just won that on his own did you?

[Mz Pip]

12. I have

I did a bunch of extra work a number of years ago.

The days are long and boring. Lots of hurry up and wait. The food is good though.

[ashling]

13. I was filmed in crowd scenes in

Brewster McCloud in 1968(9?)
and in the stadium scenes in Varsity Blues

[Mojambo]

14. I was on Twin Peaks.

In one of the scenes at the high school.

It was more a hassle than anything else.

[Spacemom]

15. My husband and I

were in the football stadium scenes for Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty.

It was fun. Staying up all night, pretending to be cheering the teams on. Free food and a commemorative t-shirt. :D

[suninvited]

16. I was an on-set massage therapist

during the filming of a short movie called Lamia. It was a LOT of fun. Filmed by FSU students as a graduate thesis film in 2004.

I have seen it at a couple of film festivals, it is exciting to see my name in the credits !

[Xithras]

17. Two TV commercials and one movie.

The movie, called Dead Man on Campus, was an eminently forgettable late 90's college movie about a couple of college kids who try to find a suicidal roomate after learning that their college awards automatic A's to any students whos roomate dies during the semester (presumably because they'd be grieving too much to study). The scene on the bridge was shot in Modesto, and since the camera crew was in town anyway they decided to shoot a couple of other quick scenes here, and I was a crowd extra in one of them. As it turned out, the bridge scene was the only one that made it into the movie.

I was also a crowd extra in a Coke commercial and in an Ocar Meyer hotdog commercial. A couple of my brothers and I were also on the reserve list for background extras in Back To The Future III.

Mostly it's boring. You stand around until someone comes by to check out your clothing to make sure it works (we were provided with a clothing do's and don't list ahead of time...no logos or distinctive attire mostly). Once they approve you, you're herded into a group where someone explains what you're doing and some basics about what is happening and what kind of facial expressions everyone should have. Then you stand around for a while (sometimes hours) while they get everything ready. Then "Action", 30 seconds of doing something, and "Cut". If the director didn't like it, you'll go back to your starting position and do it again, and again, and again if needed. The Oscar Meyer commercial was shot seven times because the kid the camera was focused on kept botching her lines. Oh, and if you screw up even ONCE...if you make a face, or forget where to walk, or do ANYTHING that screws up the shot, they'll eject you. They generally have zero tolerance for extras who can't do what they need to do.

And for all of that, you receive little or nothing in return other than bragging rights. I was in .5 seconds of the Coke commercial, and only half of me was visible in the Oscar Mayer commercial. My movie debut ended on the cutting room floor.

If you have nothing else to do that day, it can be an interesting experience. If you haven't done it and have the opportunity, just go for it. I did it when I was younger just to see if I could get my face on TV...and you'll find that 95% of extras are there for that very reason.

By the way, this mostly only applies to crowd extras. If you're a costumed extra in a movie, you actually do get paid a small amount of money for doing it. Quite a few of the parade marchers in that Coke commercial, who had to wear costumes and have makeup work done, went home with $100 checks in their pockets. The rest of us "cheering onlookers" in the crowd went home with their hearty thanks and $20 Coca Cola gift certificates for Coke merchandise.

[KansDem]

18. I have a friend who was an extra in "The Day After"

...and there was someone on my high-school track team who had a walk-on role in an episode of "My Three Sons."

Do those count?

[dropkickpa]

19. I was a crowd extra in that film classic

Sudden Death. Me and a bunch of friends went down and got crappy arena food (just like at a real hockey game!) and had a blast hooting and holering.

My brother was an extra in Bob Roberts and a couple of films when he lived in NYC.

I'd do it again.

[quip]

20. I *could* have been an extra in "Major League" and "Little Big League" but

it would have been too much of a hassle in both cases.

[FloridaJudy]

21. I was an extra in "The Candidate"

For several of the political speeches. They shot us in an beautiful old movie theater - now torn down - in Oakland. They moved the more conservative looking members of the crowd toward the front when we were "Republicans" and the hipper/scruffier ones to the fore when we were "Democrats". You couldn't really make any of us out in the final cut - just a sea of faces or the backs of our heads.

Lost any interest I'd ever had in being a movie star that day. Most boring work imaginable: 95% of the time spent waiting around for the cameras, lights and props to be arranged, then repeating the same scene over and over again until the lines felt like nonsense. Fortunately, I'd brought a book (either Pynchon or Heinlein IIRC) and my knitting. How people who don't have absorbing hobbies stand it I don't know.

We got paid $20 and a hot boxed lunch - not shabby for unskilled work in the early seventies. And I got to see Robert Redford IRL.

Oh, and I'm the second scantily-glad goddess on the right doing suggestive things to a twelve-foot statue of a phallus is some soft-corn porn epic from around the same time (Pagan Babes Run Wild?). I probably could have made more money if I'd taken off all my clothes.

(edited because I'm a dreadful proof-reader as well as a terrible actress)

[GoneOffShore]

22. It's a mushroom experience

Kept in the dark and fed bullshit.

But more boring than watching paint dry.

[Rosemary2205]

23. the movie Rainman

I was in the funeral scene at the beginning. It was a lot of stand around a wait.

[Karenina]

24. "Hurry up and wait"

"Props that EAT." Silly people thinking it was their entry to stardom. Fat cats arriving in limos being offered more food than they could or needed to consume, while homeless people hanging around the edges of the location hoping for a crumb were driven away with broom handles... "Quote Neger" Leben lang, hab' ich viel gesehen, mitgemacht und verstanden. Smoke and mirrors.

[KatyaR]

25. I was in a long-forgotten movie called "Fast Charlie...The Moonbeam Rider."

http://imdb.com/title/tt0079137/

Some of it was shot in my hometown because we have a lot of American Victorian-era buildings and such. A day and a half of work in a big crowd scene, standing on cobblestone streets in 100+ degree heat (in shoes a half-size too small for me, I had bruised big toenails for months afterwards). I did it with some theater friends from college, and a friend of mine who was working at the local newspaper on a summer internship had some articles and a bunch of photos published. I think we got paid $25 a day and had a free lunch on the full day. A distant cousin of mine was a stand-in for Brenda Vaccaro.

It was fun, but it was truly a lot of "stand around and wait." I can't imagine doing that for a living--I'd lose my mind. It made me both admire actors more for their patience and also wonder what the hell they see in making movies.

Live theater--that's for me.

On edit--the same town was used for some scences in "Rainman"--the scene where Dustin Hoffman's character gets stuck trying to cross the street? That's my hometown!

[spooky3]

26. Was once on the cover of a university recruiting brochure

probably because I was the only student on campus wearing a dress that day. Was also a bystander in "Breaking Away."

[Starbucks Anarchist]

27. I was an extra on Any Given Sunday.

I saw Jamie Foxx, Lawrence Taylor and Al Pacino -- from up in the stands, though, so they looked like ants.

[Lautremont]

28. I was an extra in a movie starring Ed Asner.

I was standing on the far side of the camera from him. He was a nice guy, but if he was a slimmer man I'd have made it into the movie.

And when I say "nice guy," I mean he was nice enough to spot an extra (me) eating the crappy brown bag lunch they gave me and telling me to go ahead and get in the proper lunch line ahead of him, and he'd make sure I didn't get yelled at. Good progressive guy, union man.

[HawkerHurricane]

29. My ship was...

USS New Orleans played the part of USS Iwo Jima for the movie "Apollo 13".

But it was after I left.

[Critters2]

30. Yes! When I was in seminary, PBS filmed a show on our campus.

It was for their "American Playhouse" series, a film called "Concealed Enemies" (I think), about the Alger Hiss affair. I was an extra in a congressional hearing and a couple of crowd scenes. It was most awesome!! I was more nervous than I would've thought, not wanting to step in the wrong place or anything, but it was really fun! It was especially cool having all these actors wandering around our campus. Edward Herrmann petted my cat!!

[Paladin]

31. Crowd Scene In "Semi-Tough," Cotton Bowl, Dallas

Back in the 70's. No close-ups of us, just distant shots. If I remember correctly, actor Richard Masur kept us entertained during the shooting; the rest of the actors were far away.

They made us take our coats off and spread them on the seats next to us, to make it look like there were more people in the stands......

[Mike03]

34. Semi Tough was a movie that had a huge influence on me when I finally saw it.

I would guess that was in about the late seventies or around nineteen eighty. It was a great movie to me at that time.

[Mike03]

32. It's a great experience.

In my case, I was on the set the entire shoot for other reasons,and they needed bodies for some crowd scenes. I will remember that entire shoot for the rest of my life.

[Mike03]

33. The saddest thing is the end of those ties and those bonds, which seem so close during the shoot,

and which vanish in the months or years afterwards.

[TommyO]

35. Close, I was an extra in a commercial shoot for an amusement park

Many years ago, I was one of 20 extras used in a Dorney Park (Allentown, PA) shoot. The model "perfect family" consisting of Mom, Dad, older daughter and younger son got the front four seats of the coasters, the rest of us occupied the rest of the coaster train. Since I'm an amusement park and coaster fan it was a great day. The rules were simple, during the actual filming we had to keep our hands on the lapbar or grips, other than that it was just smile and have fun. There was a lot of downtime between each shoot, but since I was surrounded by other coaster geeks it was a good day.

[Roon]

37. I was sort of an extra for Mork and Mindy.

The episode where Mork becomes a Denver Broncos cheerleader...I was at the game that they filmed a scene of Mork running on the field with his cheerleader outfit.

[SoxFan]

38. I was Joe Lieberman's stunt double

and no, I am not completely kidding...

[Initech]

39. I've been in the audience for a couple of sitcoms - Drew Carey and Just Shoot Me

The guest on the Just Shoot Me was none other than the seemingly immortal Tyra Banks.

[begin_within]

40. I was in "My Blue Heaven" and my Mom was in several TV episodes

of shows like "Renegade" with Lorenzo Lamas, "Silk Stalkings" and a sci-fi show which we never go to see because we don't have cable. Being an extra is extremely boring, you spend most of your time waiting around, and you definitely need to bring a book or an iPod. On the plus side, the food is usually good and you can make new friends among the other extras.

[dancing kali]

41. Lots

Dawn of the Dead (the original), Natty Gann, 21 Jumpstreet, Highlander, Wiseguy, X-Files and almost everything else filmed in Vancouver until about 2001. Great money for doing nothing but smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee all day (and a couple of minutes per hour of work). I get better money as a tech and it's not as boring. Being an extra isn't acting... it's being scenery.