My highly-secretive brush with undisclosed fame

Here it is! Much to the excitement of my friends and family, the account of "that really cool thing I did involving a hit television show that shares a name with the city I'm living in". Apologies for the euphemism - we are technically not allowed to blog about the experience. So I am not. At least not in a way it can be found on Google ;)

Thanks to my guilty love of celebrity-stalking and fame whoredom (see my 15 seconds of fame from Regis and Kelly, June 2010), being an extra was something I wanted to do since I got to this city. I therefore quickly figured out how to sign up, which is actually pretty easy. There's a Facebook group that posts every day who and what they will need for when. You create an online profile, upload a picture, and say you're available for a specific request. Most of them have been during the workday, and I wasn't sure it was worth a vacation day, but conveniently this was a Saturday request. The posting:

"PEDESTRIANS: male and female, all ethnicities, age range 18-65". Which means, obviously, I was perfect!

So, I showed up as requested on Saturday at 11:30, with a full suitcase of hopefully-suitable outfits (we were told to bring 3-4 total changes each of casual and uptown clothing. Some people still messed it up. Amazing). We met in a parking lot field, where we were then transferred to white vans and brought to our "holding room" on the 10th floor of a downtown office building.

View from the holding room

After we filled out our vouchers to get paid, the wardrobe department reviewed everything we brought and allocated outfits 1-3. I passed! Yay! Then the waiting began. Here is how the day progressed.12:30 - Lunch, in the form of bacon, eggs, fruit and coffee from craft services, which was a food truck in the parkade. 
1:00 - back to holding room
1:30 - Ushered down to the street in front of the office, where we are told we are now in Atlanta, and must look convincingly like pedestrians as we walk down the street and past the 2 actors filming their scene on the corner (if you watch the show, it was a scene between Avery and Marilyn). Did this about 12 or 15 timees
3:15 - back up to the holding room. Outfit change
4:00 - scene #2, this time in Nashville. Campaign event for Coleman, who is fictionally running for mayor.  I managed to sneak a couple pictures here, which we weren't supposed to, but I made a character decision saying that if the mayor really was speaking on a street corner during an election, I would take pictures on my iPhone! 

Illicit photo #1

Illicit photo #2

5:00 - back up to holding. Outfit change
6:00 - scene #3, very similar to scene #1, except it took forever (at least 20-25 takes) due to natural obstacles - sirens, drunk guys yelling, tourists getting in the way, car in the shoot not starting, traffic light not the right color, etc. And it was chilly out by now, so I was having slightly less fun. This scene involves a singer whose name sounds like "Hyclef Dean". We ran into him while warming up in Panera Bread.

"Hyclef Dean"'s butt and me.

7:30 - dinner (which they call lunch). Crew eats first, then background. Actually a pretty impressive catered spread in our holding room - roast beef, veggies, salads, desserts, sweet tea. 
8:00 - dinner break over. Strict instructions to write this on our payment vouchers. Pack everything up, transported to a new holding room in the century-old masonic lodge, where the last scene will be shot. 
9:30 - shoot last scene, indoor campaign event for Coleman. Much easier with no natural obstacles, done in 7-8 takes.
10:30 - "That's a wrap!" Hand in our vouchers, pack up our things and transported back to our vehicles.

One of the funniest/most interesting elements of shooting outside was that they didn't close off and barricade the entire street, so all kinds of random people and tourists would walk through the shot and through the set. Including the drunk homeless guy on his bike. Some of the tourists even figured out what was going on and full-on entered the scene for multiple takes, and no one stopped them or seemed to care at all. I may just choose to do that next time! The other piece of this was the traffic - may break some reality when the "Music City" bus drives past a scene that is fictionally being shot in Atlanta. Haha hopefully the final editors are skilled at editing that out.

Overall, it was a fun and interesting experience, and a good story, but I don't need to do it again. We were treated very well by the crew, and some of the other extras were interesting to talk to. But, there is a lot of "hurry up and wait", which wears off pretty quickly. I also confirmed that I do NOT have a future in film - so many takes and re-dos and the discontinuity seems wearing and repetitive...how can you have true emotion and chemistry the 22nd time you film a scene in a row? Well, what do I know...just saying, I really appreciate live theater, so shout out to all my theater peeps! 

In any case, you better bet that my DVR will be set for episode 10, which should air late December or early January...and I will be screen-shotting and highlighting the blur in the background which could vaguely resemble me. Oh - and when/if my paycheck shows up in the mail, I am $100 (pre-tax) richer! Don't worry Mom and Dad - I'm not quitting my day job yet.

That's a wrap!