Hurry Up and Wait
Like so many soldiers, movie extras
spend a lot of time testing their patience,
yearning for those brief moments of
exhilarating action and a shot at fleeting fame
by David Loftus
[This story appeared in the Roseburg, Ore.,
News-Review on June 3, 1990.]
A film crew on location is often likened to an army. If that's the case, then the extras are the infantry.
Soldiers. Doughboys. Dogfaces.
Everyone is enamored of the glamour of appearing in a feature film. Ilene Richmond, publicist for "The Grand Tour," says a friend of hers who travels the world as a flight attendant is flying up to Oakland, Oregon later on to be an extra and says it's the most exciting opportunity of her life.
She'd better bring a good book or a collection of crossword puzzles. The job is mostly sitting around wiating to be called for a scene, then briefly walking down a sidewalk or across a street.
Les Simon of Roseburg passes time with other movie
extras until needed for the next set
photo by Mike Anderson
courtesy of the News-Review
The lucky ones get to do a little more. Sandy LeRoy's 8-year-old son Kevin as called to be an extra Tuesday.
"They said, why don't you come along, too?" the Roseburg resident said. She brought her 5-year-old son Brian along. Sandy and Brian ended up getting used in a tight shot where two adults and three children ooh and ah over a baby carriage that turns out to contain kittens.
Associate producer Tom Irvine had to admonish the younger LeRoy after one take of the kitten scene: "Brian, what did I say? Don't look at the camera."
During a long pause in the shooting of another scene, Irvine came over and said, "How ya doing?" and Brian replied, "I'm hungry and I wanna get paid!"
David Merrifield, whose card says catering chef for Original Joe's restaurant in Eugene, is a veteran extra among a crowd of 18 amateurs that will follow filming around the state for continuity. He said he had been in six previous movies, including "Rooster Cogburn" with John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn.
"I was a cook in 'How the West Was Won,' doing a forequarter of beef on a spit," he said. "By the third day (of shooting), it was rank and maggoty, which made it real hard for me to smile and look like I was enjoying myself."
We never heard "Lights, camera, action." The process is a little more complicated. For one thing, the lights and camera are ready to go only after 30 to 60 minutes of adjustments.
For each take, the first assistant director cues three second assistant directors and six production assistants by walkie-talkie. The assistant directors tell extras when to move, as well as prevent curious strollers from wandering into camera range.
The production assistants detain motor traffic that could disrupt the visual background and add unnecessary noise to the soundtrack.
Each instruction in the sequence buzzes over intercoms like NASA telemetry, and is echoed around the set: "Picture's up!", "Very quiet please," Rolling," (clack of the clapboard), "Background action" (to cue the extras), and finally, "Action" for the professional actors.
It's usually a matter of chance when you get used. A production assistant says "I need five" or "I need 12," asks if you have been used today already, and quickly hand picks a group. You jockey to get within his or her sight and pose casually. If you're off visiting or watching the shooting, you miss out.
In the first two days of filming, during a total of 17 hours on location, I was used in a total of three sequences with an average of six to eight takes per scene.
In one I walked down the street and around a corner, perhaps reflected in the windows on the far side of the street for the camera's benefit. In the second I pretended to have just gotten out of a car and I walked into a bakery. In the third I strolled past a building just after Jeff Daniels had entered it.
In the second sequence, I'm paired with Scott Flora, a 13-year-old from Myrtle Creek. Because he has dark hair and complexion, Richmond asks if he's "mine," but Scott turns out to be French Canadian-Indian mix, which doesn't match my Japanese and Norwegian.
Several times the extras have to be warned not to talk while on camera but only move their mouths: the sensitive microphones have picked up conversation a block away.
If you added up all those takes, there is perhaps 90 seconds of me on film, usually far in the background, beyond a window or reflected across a street. There is no guarantee even one second of that will end up in the finished movie.
Ninety seconds out of 17 hours. Probably no more than two hours of standing between takes, rehearsing, and waiting for the cameras and lights to be re-adjusted.
When "The Grand Tour" hits the theaters, there's a greater chance of recognizing my car, a dusty maroon '76 Chevy Nov that was parked on Locust Street for several scenes, than me.
This doesn't mean there's nothing to do during those other 15 hours. Tuesday night some of us put together a snowy black-and-white television and a loud radio to catch the end of the fifth Trailblazers-Suns game.
A floating poker game with chips someone brought from home drifts from hour to hour. Teenagers labor over homework. Folks visit with one another and develop an easy camaraderie.
By day two, many have brought cameras to take photos of one another. [Above, that's Paul Rubin killing time by playing his harmonica.] By day three, people bring guitars and sing. They play checkers with animal crackers. We learn each other's life stories.
Some of us talk with film electricians, cameramen, carpenters and wardrobe people when they aren't rushing about.
"Lunch" occurs around 6 p.m. The stars go first, then the crew and finally the extras. We never eat with the first, but we mix freely with the techies.
Catered from a long truck that says "Cinema Edibles," the meal consists of a leaf salad, pasta salad, bread, boiled vegetables (corn one night, peas and broccoli the next), a pasta casserole and a special dish at the end of the line: stuffed shrimp Tuesday and Flank Steak Florentine Wednesday. I hardly have room for the pies and ice cream.
At least we aren't production assistants. Those brave souls stand out in the cold and rain with their headsets, directing and halting traffic.
Rhonda Saracco, a licensed massage therapist from Sutherlin, tootles on a tiny toy harmonica when action stops.
"They told me to bring something to do, so I'll have this thing mastered," she said "I got it out of a McDonald's Happy Meal."
Mike Miller of Roseburg is a production assistant I recognize from recent community productions of "Annie Get Your Gun" and "God Bless Our Home." He said long after we extras have gone home, they have to clean up the streets by hand, "including cigarette butts."
Now there's some people who earn their money.
My third day I am not used for anything. I watch filming, the visits of camera people from KOBI-TV and the University of Oregon broadcasting class, and feel like an insider because I know who everyone is and have pieced together most of the plot of "The Grand Tour."
I visit with Pam Phillips, one of the Eugene extras who has taken a month off from the preschool she runs with two friends, and we quickly polish off a crossword puzzle. Nine hours pass and the Blazers win the series with the Suns.
Finally, at ten p.m., the extras assistant sends everyone home but five of us. We linger over hot chocolate in the Lamplighter Restaurant, trying to keep warm while the crew sets up the complicated night lighting.
Strategically placed spots and floodlights atop 50- or 60-foot cranes bathe the storefronts and sidewalks with gentle light. We are going to respond to the mysterious ringing of the church bell, which has been busted for 15 years and is hammered by the Daniels character to warn the town of the approaching meteor.
I am to pop out of the barber shop after several gongs, gaze up Locust Street at the non-existent church in the distance, and join the others in hastening toward the enigma.
We'll have this frame to ourselves. There are no professional actors, moving vehicles or other extras in the shot. The dramatically lit street brims with tension. At 1:10 a.m. they are ready for us.
We polish it off in three takes. I don't know if we are that good, or the film crew is just exhausted. But I drive home sleepy and exultant.
Was it worth it? You bet.
I bought a copy of "The Grand Tour" on VHS and watched it once. I can't remember now for certain, but I don't think any of the early scenes with me or my car made the final cut; in the night scene I describe at the end, my shadowy figure may cross the screen for a fraction of a second.
Go to interview with the star, Jeff Daniels
Go to article about the various members of a film crew