Walk hard.

A couple days ago, I signed onto Facebook to find an interesting post on my newsfeed:

I hadn't "liked" Central Casting, but someone had probably posted it on their Facebook or something.

And I was actually really interested. First off, period piece=fuck yes. But also, I've never done any background work. So I felt the need to kinda pay my dues and do it, but also it'd be pretty sweet to be on a real TV set and kinda see how it all works on a high budget project. I decided to focus on the positive and ignore any of the shitty things I had heard about being an extra.

So I sent the woman my headshot, and me with my hair pinned up in a 20's-like outfit.

And the next day, I got an e-mail back, saying the she wanted to cast me, but wanted to know if I was registered with Central Casting.

Oh. Oops.

I went to the Central Casting website to hopefully just register really quick and be good to go...

Oh. You have to register in person. That's...complicated.

It was a Tuesday...the shoot was Thursday...and the "new registration" times coming up were Wednesday at 9:30 am and 2:30 pm.

I e-mailed her, saying that I didn't realize I had to be registered, but that I could go in the next day and do it before Thursday.

It's free. That's good.

So I fill out the four pages of legal papers out, got my I.D. and passport ready, and the next day headed to Central Casting in Burbank.

I get there at 9:20, and there's already a line out the door.

Fuck. I read that they only take a certain amount of people in each "registration" time, and I really didn't want to come back at 2:30 because I had rehearsal from 12-2:00 in Pasadena.

But the line starts to slowly chug forward, and I slowly make my way to the front of the line. VICTORY.

I get there, take out my I.D...take out my passport...

And it's my French passport.

Fuck you, double-nationality.

And they turn me away.

Fuck my life.

I drag myself back to my car and just go home. And now there's no way I can miss the 2:30 registration.

So I have rehearsal, and am, probably annoyingly, making sure I get out at exactly 2:00 to make it to the 2:30 slot.

I run out, jump into my car, and speed off. Or more like a safe 5 mph over the speed limit. 4 speeding tickets would be excessive. And I can't sit through another day of online traffic school.

Despite my speeding 70 mph, I make it to Central Casting...but now it's parking time. And the parking's, of course, stuffed. Yay for only street parking: a sign that yes, you're still in L.A.

And I see one! Yes!

I park into it, because it's not-red, and not-red means "go".

But I look to the right...and there's a bright orange fire hydrant.

I stared at it. Stared at the non-red pavement. Stared back at the fire hydrant. Stared at the non-red pavement again.

And decided it was fine. Non-red is good.

I jump in line, and the line's even longer than last time, and they've already started checking people in.

I kinda panic a little bit. If I don't get in, I can't do the shoot.

Some girl asks me if I want to be on a reality dating show that's like the bachelor, but only an hour long...

You had me at "like the bachelor". No.

I get to the front, and they're counting the number of seats left...oh shit.

But three people in front of me forget their passport! YES.

And I get in! Victory!

I slide into the third row and wait.

And wait.

And I'm still waiting.

And now it's past 3:00, and a girl comes out and welcomes everybody.

She warns us not to text during the presentation. Because the big security guy in the back will throw us out. Like for realz.

And if we talked to anyone during the presentation, we will also get thrown out by the Casting Central bouncer.

Wow. Alright.

So she starts talking about...I don't remember, clearly basic shit that I wasn't paying attention to.

But she did try to make us feel like signing up to do background work didn't mean we sucked at acting by reminding us that Brad Pitt, Eva Longoria, and Ronald Reagan all were part of Central Casting.

Lovely.

We go through the paper work. Like each slot we had to fill in was explained. I think people can figure out what to put in the "last name" box, but who knows.

And of course, there's always the group of people who take this shit way too seriously. Namely some British guy. And some other random older man. Too many dumb questions. Yes, there are dumb questions.

Then, the girl explains that we have to call into a number to hear what's casting and what they're looking for. Alright, seems a little old fashioned, but whatever.

And then she says we're going to listen to one now, that she picked out specially. She tells us it's from CSI: Miami, probably to reassure us that they do cast legit stuff.

Again, keep in mind, she picked this out. Especially for this orientation.

She plays it on a speaker phone...it's a little muffled, so you really can't understand everything.

And it plays...and it keeps playing...

This message played for at least 9 minutes, I'm not kidding.

Think of listening to something you can't even really make out for 9 minutes. And you can't do anything else, because a large security guard will kick you out and you'll have to come back and go through everything ALL OVER AGAIN.

So finally the message ends, and she asks what we heard. Which most of us just kinda passed out with our eyes open, so she didn't get any responses.

So she says, "Did you guys not listen?"

Which, I think everyone took as: "SHOULD WE LISTEN TO THIS AGAAAAIN?!"

NOOOOOOO.

So everyone starts answering her all at once.

Now, it's been at least 2 hours of orientation. It's been a while, y'all. And it hasn't exactly been engaging. And the chairs weren't exactly comfortable.

Finally, it's time to actually register. YES.

And she starts from the front row and brings them behind us to the registration table and photo booth.

And it's slow. Like, ridiculously slow. And they're only on the first row of twenty-something people. I'm in the third. Fuck.

So I wait. And wait. And waaaaaaait for what had to be another hour.

Finally, they take our row back and I wait some more.

And the table is in sight! Huzzah!

I give her my papers and...wait in the photo booth line.

Godammit.

And after waiting some more, it's photo time! And it's the only picture they cast you on. So I'm hoping mine turns out not shiny and tired looking, but 85% sure it will.

And I'm FREEEEE.

And it's like 6:30.

I was there for 4 hours.

Something tells me I could've done that in one, pretty easily.

I walk back to my car, eager to escape...and there's an envelope on my car.

No.

Yes.

It's a $96 parking ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant.

NON-RED MEANS GO.

Damn you, neon fire hydrant.

Well. The extra work will hopefully pay off some of it.

The woman I e-mailed about the extra job calls me, and makes sure that I've registered. After, she gives me all the information about call tomorrow.

It's at 6 am.

Okay, well, that's...alright. Whatever, I'll just hibernate later. That means I'll have more of the day left when we're done, right? Right...

She gives me a number to call after 7:00 for details and changes.

Lovely! Well, this could be fun. Early, but fun.

At around 7:00, I call in and the message is pretty fast, and of course, the location isn't annunciated. But I google what I thought she said, and find the place. But she gives me the address, and I figure I'd just put it into my GPS and be fine.

The message also says to bring everything 20's I can. That the goal would be to come fully done, head to toe, with a 20's look.

So, of course, hearing that, I scavenge through everything , trying to find something that would work. I put together something that could pass, and have horrible fears of getting sent home for not having enough 20's shit. Which would be really depressing. Both because then all my registering and effort would be for nothing, but also I would have woken up at 5 am for no reason.

The next morning, I get up, grab some coffee, and put on my costume and 20's-esque make up and drive to Universal with the address she gave me.

So I get there, about 7 minutes early...because apparently we were to call an "emergency line" if we were going to be late, which sounded like something you did if you FAILED. Or if someone died.

And there's not sign of anyone. Anywhere.

Fuck.

I'm a little freaking out. I can't be late. So I try to listen to the message again, which take like 4 minutes in to finally get the location. But it still doesn't really help. And now it's 6:00.

I DON'T WANT TO CALL THE EMERGENCY NUMBER.

So I'm speeding around, doing a few illegal u-turns...but it's 6 am, no one's around, its cool.

And finally, I remember a couple streets she mentions in the message, so I go down them...and I remember hearing "Gate 3" smushed in there. And I see a gate! It's gate 1...but it means I'm close.

And then...out of the gloomy mist...

GATE 3.

YES.

I sang a congratulatory victory song and turned into the line of cars checking in.

It's 6:10 though.

And I didn't call the emergency number.

I risk it. I park in the garage, head down to the shuttles...

And apparently our call time was changed to 6:30.

So I just went from late, to on-time and responsible. YES.

We get into the shuttle...and drive through the studios. And it's kind of freakin' awesome. I mean, I'm passing all these huge sets, these city backgrounds...it's pretty magical, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't really excited.

We get to the set, and trailers are set up...and it's like, wow. This is real stuff.

They send me to hair and make-up, which as a girl, is lovely. You sit in a chair and someone makes you pretty. Yes.

A lot of people are in 20's style costumes, since all of us got the "come in 20's stuff" memo. And every single one of us got a new costume.

There was no point in any of us getting into costume because they had shit for us.

Thanks, message of LIES.

My costume's actually pretty cool, comapred to my last 20's costume fiasco in highschool, where they put me in a giant long white bag-dress, where all you saw was my little ankles and wrists. It wasn't cute.

But this was!

Also, I've never seen Back to the Future...but I know this is part of it. Don't hate me.

So I get all dressed up, and it's about 8:30, so I grab some breakfast and then it's off to set.

Which is incredible. It's one of their city-recreation sets, and it looks like a Chicago or New York city. And it looks awesome. And it's huge. And I'm stoked.

We do a few walking scenes/city pans, nothing super exciting, but just to be on a Universal Studios set is awesome. And everyone's in 20's gear...it just feels like you stepped back in time. It was honestly really whimsical.

For a while, at least.

Because we weren't really watching anything super exciting the whole time. And of course, doing work like this you kinda hope to spot an actor doing his thang and just learning if you can. But that wasn't really part of this shoot.

So it was a lot of walking. Up and down. Forever.

Finally it's lunch time, and part of the extra group with me in it gets out early along with part of the crew.

And this is when you realize background is on a totally different plane than anyone else working on set. Including the police officers that just come and grab the kid or some "little girl" (who is clearly 20 years old) who gets featured for 4 seconds.

As the crew and not-background people go to the food line, all the background actors get pushed to the last two tables and just told to wait. And we have our own hot food trays, but we're all sharing the salad bar.

So we wait. And wait. And fifteen minutes later, one of the guys in charge of us tells us that we can get lunch from our three trays, but we can't go to the salad bar because the crew hasn't been there yet.

Cool, all good.

And then, he tells us the girls wont have the full lunch break.

Lovely.

So we get in line, and finally someone realizes that maybe the girls should go in front since we get half as much time.

And the best part about lunch was the studios tour trams that would come through. Suddenly all the extras were part of the tour, and we'd all wave to the tourists and get our picture taken.

And of course, there's "that girl".

This one girl, the ENTIRE TIME, reminded us and everyone around her that she was union, so she should somehow get special treatment. Um. We're ALL background. Get over it.

And she insisted that she ate at the buffet line of the crew/actors. Because she wants fish.

The guy in charge clearly is just trying to avoid conflict and just lets her do it.

The same girl also was in front of me at some point, turned around, and the only words she said to me was, "Your lipstick is really bright. Did YOU do that?"


And so the girls are waiting for the crew to go to the salad bar...but by the time everyone had gone through and there was clearly enough salad for everyone, the girls had to go back to set. Yay bad timing.


So it's post-lunch. We get cattled back to set. And this is where things get fucking loooooooong.

I like to compare extra work to shopping. You're not necessarily "doing" a whole lot...but at the end, you're like, "FUCK THIS SHIT. I want to go home."

Now, non-union gets paid 64/8, which means if you do 2 hrs or 8 hrs of work, you're getting paid $64. Which is awesome if you're there for only 2 hours, and kind of sucks if you're there for 8.

And I'm thinking we'd be done at 8 hours, seeing as we've been going for a while now.

8 hours come and go...

And now it's 10 hours.

And then it's 11 hours...12 hours...

And this shit is ridiculous. Yeah, we're getting paid overtime ($12 an hour). But at this point, it's not really about the 4 extra bucks.

I'm fucking exhausted, my feet in these tight high-heeled character shoes are aching, and I have the biggest headache I've ever had in my life.

And we're still walking. And standing. And walking. And standing.

And it's mostly the back of my head getting featured every shot, let's be honest.

EXCEPT for one shot. Where I was right in front of the camera at some point, and I was like YES! You could recognize me! High-five.

And it's during this scene where the cops come and take this little boy away. And I'm glancing towards the scene, but I'm walking away from it. And the actress who has a line in the scene has to cross behind us, so we can't really stall. So we do the scene, I turn slightly to look at the police but I don't want to do anything to distract from the scene.

So we cut and go back to out first spots.

And I hear the director go, "No, I need another take. They're just walking past the cop car that goes past them with the sirens blaring. They'd stop, they wouldn't just fucking walk like it happens everyday."

It kind of sounded like he was blaming the 5 of us walking down the street for not hearing the non-existant police siren and not stopping. Which, as an extra, you're kind of just told what to do and there's no room to really "make it your own".

So we do it again and stop, notice the police, and walk, and all is lovely.

It's now 8:00. I'm dead with a pounding head ache. All I want to do is go hoooooome. 14 hours of this shit and I'm done.

The guy comes to us and asks if anyone wants to go home who got here at 6:30.

YES. I DO.

I wasn't even going to pretend that I could "stay if  they needed me, no problem".

I shuffle out of there, change, get my voucher (which NO ONE would tell me how to fill out), and got into the shuttle back to the parking lot.

I didn't even look around at the sets on our way back because I was closing my eyes to filter out the throbbing headache I had. No more did I want to see the sets. Or the film crew. Or the costumes.

I got to the parking lot, went to where I thought I parked my car, and took another 10-15 minutes to try and find it.

Finally, I flopped into the driver's seat and dove home, where I took a bath and 4 advils.


So in the end, I'm glad I did it.

For one, I got paid more than I have for most of the film projects I've done. Which is kind of depressing. The more creative projects were more artistically fulfilling, but not as financially awesome.

I have more respect for extras. I mean, I kind of already did, though. Except when they get really snarky and Diva-tastic, like "that" girl. But when they're just nice and doing their thing, they should be treated with the same respect as someone who has a line or two, that really shouldn't be any different.

Will I ever do it again?

Fuck no.

Okay, probably "fuck no", unless it's for a show I really really love.

So in the end, I paid off my parking ticket...so the money kind of cancelled itself out.

Which leaves me with "an experience".

A14 hour experience.

Awesome.