Ever wondered what life as a tv extra must be like? Interested in knowing whether you're treated like an 'artiste' or as a slave? Well rather conveniantly GCUK columnist Simon Bailey regularly wakes before dawn and spends many hours in the cold just to find out for you.
BBC Pebble Mill and Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham. Monday 15th January (report written Sunday 21st January 2001)
My fourth job as a TV extra saw me return to a previous show I had appeared in, that show being Doctors. And it also saw my earliest start yet, 6am! This meant I had to get up around 4:30 so I could leave at 5. I thought what the hell I had let myself in for.
I need not have worried. The early call time was due to the fact Heartlands Hospital is still very much an active hospital, and the film crew had to leave by a specific start. Arrived at Pebble Mill by five to six, was out of make up by half past six and on set just before seven, after getting lost in Birmingham!
In make up, I found out my role. I was to be an injured footballer. The make up girls applied a substantial amount of fake mud and blood to my legs. Scene one saw me being escorted down a hospital corridor by a nurse, just behind two of the main characters. My second scene had a porter push me the other way down the same corridor in a wheel chair. My injury had somehow got worse! That seemed to be it. However, this is one place BBC are very good. They had me doing a third scene, in the background in an exterior shot, chatting to a lovely looking nurse. Just a shame it was a freezing day!
That was it. Home by midday. Another fairly short and enjoyable day working as an extra. As an employer, the BBC seems very good. The extras on Doctors are looked after well, the crew ensures you are comfortable, don’t make you hang around unnecessarily. On the contrary in fact, they actually do their best to find you more scenes to be in if you happen to have to wait around for your next one. If they want you later, they don’t have you there early, and if they want you early, they let you go home early. Compare this to the nightmare day in Liverpool, and you can see just how different some people can be.
Also, the crew were far friendlier than my previous job. Obviously, they are under considerable pressure, especially with five shows a week going out. But they are chatty when time allows, and very down to earth, as actor Seamus Gubbins proved to me when I had a short chat with him.
So that leaves one question, one I am unable to answer. Why can’t other TV production companies be the same?
Doctors is a daytime soap shown every weekday on BBC1.
In His Life – The John Lennon Story
Liverpool - 29th September, 2000.
There is no denying the fact that John Lennon is one of the greatest musicians to have graced the earth. Even if he did have a decidedly dodgy taste in women (he married Yoko Ono for gods sakes!). ‘In His Life’ is the story of the life of John Lennon, and today I travelled up to Liverpool for my third extra job since joining the Janet Howe Casting and Modelling Agency in late April.
At an agonising 5am, off went the alarm clock, signalling the beginning of what turned out to be a very monotonous day. 5:30 saw me driving up the M6 in thick fog, luckily with the time of day the route was clear virtually the entire way. Arrive at 6:45 for my call time of 7am. Everything seemed fine so far.
And it still did when I went into costume and was out of make-up shortly after 9am. Sure, I had lost the moustache part of the goatee I had started growing on holiday and some fake facial hair was added, but I didn’t mind that. My hair was slicked back, and I looked just the part yet bloody stupid in a burgundy coat, black woolly turtle neck sweater, brown pointy shoes and very oversized black sunglasses [Shame I took no camera with me!]. Then things got pear shaped…
The whole morning passed by. All the other extras shot scenes, except me. I was even left alone in the bus for a whole two hours. More time past, and finally my one and only scene came at around 4pm, after the others had already shot three. Now, if I had other scenes like the others, I wouldn’t have minded spending the whole day there. However, the production crew KNEW I would only have the one scene, yet STILL had me there for 7am. Needless to say, and excuse my French, that pissed me off no end. On top of this virtually all of the crew seemed grumpy gits, especially Sue in make up and one of the directors. Out of the whole crew, only Jo, whom I had met before on the set of ‘My Fragile Heart’ (my first TV extra job), was chirpy, cheerful and chatty with me. Us extras may only be the smallest peas in the pod, but without us, you would have no film. Consider that.
Onto the actual scene, it was similar to my previous experiences in front of camera. Get told what to do. Rehearse through it. Film it. This time, it was a massive twelve takes, not really due to anyone actually doing anything wrong, more due to the director being far too fussy.
Life as an extra… it’s good most of the time. Yes, there is a lot of sitting and waiting around, and generally everyone is friendly. The adrenaline rush you get when you actually film your scene(s) is something to behold (rather like being on a mad roller coaster, only safer!), and the feeling of seeing yourself on TV is also a great one. However, this 14 HOUR (including travelling) experience was in stark contrast to my previous two, and actual filming and short time with Jo aside, one I would rather forget. I suppose this shows the two sides of being a TV extra.
Doctors
BBC Pebble Mill, Birmingham - August 2nd, 2000.
August 2nd 2000 saw me in my second job since joining the Janet Howe Casting and Modelling Agency in late April. ‘Doctors’ is currently filming it’s second series (apparently, I hadn’t even heard of it before). I was called upon to play the role of a jogger in a scene.
The night before, my agent rang me up with my call time. 7:45am. Great, up at the crack of dawn to beat the Spaghetti Junction and M6-M5 interchange traffic. Arrived at 7:15, meaning I had time for breakfast in the BBC canteen. Those jokes that comedians always used to make years back about the standard of the BBC canteen are true – the food is pretty minging.
Anyway, come 8:15, my call came. My part involved running something like thirty yards up a hill, behind two of the main characters in the show, with a lady jogger following shortly after, which made her look like a stalker if you ask me! The pair of us running up a hill took SEVEN takes, all of which was because a stupid bint of an actress forgetting her line. And notice line is NOT plural.
After that, that was it. Quick and easy. However, they told us to get changed quick, we’re needed for another scene. I thought fair enough, more TV exposure, can’t be a bad thing. This time, I was to walk up the steps of The Riverside Medical Centre (ironic in itself as there was no river remotely in sight and it was really the front of BBC Pebble Mill’s main building) arm in arm with the other jogger. Again it took seven takes, again not our fault.
The whole day lasted just under five hours, and being paid £70 for it, it’s pretty damn good work. We met a lot of cast members, although I do admit to not knowing of nor recognising a single one of them. The amount of work the production team put in is unbelievable, a production assistant I was talking to said that she regularly puts in fourteen hour days, which makes me not want to become a production assistant. On the other side of the coin, if you have a bit of spare time, TV extra work is fun, enjoyable, easy and profitable. Plus you get on television. It’s just that unless you manage to get very regular work, you can’t make a living out of it.
Doctors is on BBC 1 every weekday at 12:30.
My Fragile Heart
Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent - Tuesday May 23rd, 2000.
Just two weeks ago, I joined the Janet Howe Casting Agency, based in Stone, Staffordshire. Already I have had two job offers, both for ‘My Fragile Heart’. The first of which I could not make due to work commitments. However, last night saw me make my acting debut of sorts, when I appeared as an extra, playing the role of an undercover policeman on a stake-out.
The meeting place was the production crew base, a church in Burslum, sorry, Burslem in Stoke-on-Trent. After a quick read through of the scripts (or rather more of what we had to do) and a short wait for the other extras to arrive, we were all carted off to Shelton, where the set is and also the set base.
Hours and hours of waiting around. Fortunately there were enough of us extras to not get overly bored. Free food that tasted like it had come from Romania or somewhere was on hand. It was during this wait that I found out that the ‘young female police officer’ is actually older than the ‘male police officer’ played by myself. I didn’t know whether to take it as an insult or a compliment! Also during this mammoth waiting period we caught ourselves a brief glimpse of Sarah Lancashire, Raquel from Coronation Street for those who may not be familiar.
Come darkness, it was actually our turn to film. A street in the predominantly student and Asian district of Shelton in Stoke-on-Trent was our setting. Scene one of two was Leslie, who played the female officer and myself in an undercover cop car being filmed from across the street watching a paedophile’s house who is accused of murder whilst two lovers walked past and catch our attention. Except it didn’t go as planned. Action was called, and we could see Claire, one of the lovers straight in front of us near the camera, then suddenly Chris, the other lover just walked straight across the front of our car, completely taking us by surprise. We hadn’t been told of this sudden change of plan, so needless to say a re-take was needed.
Scene two had the camera literally inches away from me, looking across the two of us in the car, watching the house again, this time three drunken louts walking in front of the house. I was told not to look directly into the camera, to which I thought ‘There’s a camera right next to me, how can I not look at it?!’ I managed to control myself. Simple scene, but again we needed two takes because the cameraman fucked up this time.
All in all, despite the long wait, it was an interesting day and a nice change from the normal routine. All of the other extras were decent people, except for Ollie who abused Claire all day. Chris and Leslie are cool, and Claire is a nice girl (good luck fellow ex Notts Trent student, and I hope you get the result you want in your degree and a successful career in TV and film design… Remember me if there’s any free spots in the next Bond film! *wink wink*). Shame you didn’t end up doing anything this time Claire. Back to the matter in hand, it was great to see how TV production operate, and the amount of work and detail they go into to get things right is phenomenal. As for the show as a whole, this was only a very short part of it. I don’t have any idea what it will be like, and knowing my luck, my scenes will probably be cut out!
‘My Fragile Heart’ was a two part ITV murder mystery shown in Autumn 2000.
Janet Howe Casting and Modelling Agency can be contacted on 01785 816888 and are always on the lookout for new talent. Ring for details.
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