Extra!

As the inquisitive sort I am, and having the affinity for the arts that I have, I decided to wander into the arts building one afternoon. I followed the trail of photos on the wall, went past a developing room and the dark room to the end of the hall. Well not quite. In a junction with a little kitchen-net I took some stairs up to a second floor. But someone noticed me and accosted me before I could explore that realm above. I got a glimpse of an unused - expansive - room; lit from above by multiple skylights.

"You cant be here. Who are you looking for? what are you doing?"

"Oh, no one. 'm just exploring, see whats around."

"Well you have to leave"

I try and see farther, but slowly - meanderingly - go back down the stairs as per his orders.

"if your not here for someone you have to leave, you cant just walk in to here with out talking to us."

Before my "didnt know you were here" remark could come out another chimes in: "Either help carry some things or leave."

So I bent down and to his surprise grabbed some things to carry. surprised but grateful for the hand we took the things out to his car and he asked a bit more about myself. Turns out I was in FIlm as in motion pictures and had passed all of photography. He then invited me to be an extra in the feature length film he had almost completed and showed me some clips of the film. Mostly uninspiring but I thought hey what the hell send me a text with the details.

Tuesday rolled along and with it the invitation to be an extra and bring others! I sent out a few texts to my Austra learn connections and showed up at the appointed time. I dont know if its film, showbiz, or just them but everyone was running late except for the extras. I took the time to catch up with Kyle and Emily et all who had showed up. And to meet the other extras, one of which has come back from professional life to study theater at uni.

Slowly things got rolling but things were scheduled to run late so my austra-learners decided to split. I stayed on and ended up staying through the endless 6 hours. I had fun being an extra and then they decided i was too enthusiastic and was in too many shots so I acted as crew and held the bounce for many shots. In between shots we had fun making sounds into the mic or just generally being unhelpful even though we wanted to get through it and finish.

I also was brainwashed as to the inner drama: told that so and so is a horrible person and is making this film infinity more difficult to produce. oh and some of the witnesses to my Film department intrusion were there and greeted me "oh hey intruder what are you doing here?" that was a fun one to respond to. Since it was a party scene they had filled two massive jugs with L n P (a fizzy drink) which we finished surprisingly quickly and since it lasted 6 hrs we demolished the chips. Someone had the bright idea to bring penuts as a snack and within 3 hrs they had all been cracked and there were shells EVERYWHERE! the amount of shells on the table will increase exponentially with time during in the final cut of the film, te hee.

theres being an extra. brought back memories of theater....