A Brief New Career in Movies

Marvel's The Avengers

I received a check in the mail on Thursday for $64 for work I had done a couple of weeks ago.  It was one of those opportunities that arose because I was retired. I was an extra in a movie being filmed in the area. 

It all came about several weeks earlier.  I was coming out of the gym, and a young woman asked me if I would be interested in being an extra in a film.  I said sure and she sent me upstairs to sign up with the casting agency.  They took photos, measurements, and signed me up. About two months passed by and I got a call.  Could I come to a shoot on Monday?  I couldn’t do that do, but I got another call about Wednesday and I said yes.

The filming was taking place outdoors on a former estate in the hills west of Pittsburgh.  It was still dark when I arrived, and I was bussed from the parking lot up to the production office where I filled out forms, and then bussed up to the basecamp with some of the other extras for the day who had the same start time.  At the basecamp we were directed to costume.  Costume liked the hat I brought, but had me swap out the clothes I wore for more weather-beaten pants, shirt and jacket.  A very thin jacket.  Next was a brief stop at makeup and then I went to the tent where the extras were gathering.

As I talked with the extras, it turned out I was one of the few people there who was doing this for the first time.  Many of them were regulars in the movies and TV shows that get filmed in the Pittsburgh area. Some of them had done this 100 times or more over the years.  They obviously enjoyed the work and talked about shows and movies they had done before. Several people had worked on Mindhunter, the Netflix show about the development of behavioral profiling to catch serial murderers.  I also learned that sometimes the extras get cut out of the final film.  One woman who did regular work as an extra had been in an episode of The Outsiders, which was about a family living in Appalachia.  Her role was as a nurse in a scene in a hospital, and she had to assist a patient with a wound.  All that showed up on screen was her shoulder and a little piece of the patient.  Yet like all the other people I met, she was proud of her role and looked back fondly on all the shows she had done.

Some of the people I met were retired and did it because it was interesting and provided a little extra money.  Some were unemployed or had part-time work.  One young woman had taken the day off from work.  The money was important (about $100 for a full day), but everyone came because of the excitement of being a part of a movie or TV show.  And they were proud of the work they had done. 

I was put into a group with about 15 other people, and we worked on one scene.  The scene was outdoors, the temperature was in the upper 20s and there were snow flurries.  I had the thin jacket provided by costume, but my winter coat was back at the basecamp.  The scene was set in an outdoor market somewhere in Eastern Europe about 80-90 years or so ago. We actually got very little information about the details and also signed a disclosure agreement not to reveal any details.  What I can say is that my task was to have a conversation with one merchant – no actual words, but acting like we were having a discussion – and then, after the star of the movie walked from one side of the market to the other, I was to also walk across the market following a path that crossed his.  Other people were doing similar things, talking at the stalls, walking and so on.  The shoot took about 3 hours.  There were walkthroughs, changes in the walkthroughs, minor changes in the set. There were multiple takes using about 3 different camera positions to film the scene. We were all pretty cold, but got a couple of breaks to go into a heated tent to warm up and some warm food and drinks showed up.

Finally, around 1, the scene was done.  The extras were packed up in a bus, taken to the tent that functioned as an office where we signed off on our hours, and then we were bussed to the basecamp, and finally to the parking lot.  

In the end, it was fun. The other extras were great to talk with, and I really enjoyed seeing the process of filming a movie, even if it was a single scene.  I probably would have done it for free.

The movie does not yet have a title, but when it comes out, I’ll let you all know, even if my walk across the market has been cut out.  Will I do it again?  I’m not sure. It’s tedious, but at the same time interesting.  If I get called for Mindhunter, I’ll think about it.  After all, I’m retired.  I can do what I want.

The photo is from Marvel’s The Avengers, one of the many movies filmed in Pittsburgh.