Has anyone here ever been in a movie in a part of as an extra?
I once appeared on TV, as part of the crowd, as a cycling competition went by. Ah, and last year I had a supporting role on a short film a friend of mine had to film for his college studies. It was lots of fun.
I was...um....in a home movie.
My mother was one of the many in the huge crowd that ran out of the water in the original Jaws.
My sister-in-law was in one of the classrooms in the movie the war.
Peter Johnson, who posts her often, is an actor
I appeared in a home movie with the title of "I beat Brandon at Being Naked" and know it's not what it sounds like.
odinn7:
That's so awesome! My mom hasn't been in any movies but I was in a home movie once where it was a "Lost World" rip off movie (it starred my toys)
My wife's hands were on the evening news once. She was a bank teller and the night deposit bandits hit their branch one night (they went around with a truck and would hook a chain to the night deposit drawer and pull it out of the wall).
Anyway she came home and said I 'm going to be on the news. Evidently the news crew was around shooting video for most of the morning, but while we anxiously watched for her on the news the only thing they showed was her hands counting money .
I did graduate from high school with someone who is famous. I'll just give you a clue who it is, we both grew up in Malvern , Arkansas. I now live right between there and the town he filmed his indie picture in that made him a big deal.
trek_geezer wrote:
> I did graduate from high school with someone who is famous.
> I'll just give you a clue who it is, we both grew up in Malvern
> , Arkansas. I now live right between there and the town he
> filmed his indie picture in that made him a big deal.
Lemme guess....Billy Bob Thornton
ASH gets the prize. I was never friends with the guy , but we had some friends in common. I always thought he was a big dork back then , actually I still think he is. We had our 30th reunion last year and he was in another part of the state making a film, but he didn't show.
I doubt he would know who I am and I really don't care, but it is a conversation starter knowing someone famous.
No, but my mom's uncle was Gary Cooper (from all the old western flicks) and my ex boyfriend had a cameo in "Copycats" (nuff said).
Been on TV a number of times. I've been a panelist on a local debate show, The Final Round, four times. It's a fun show that mainly fills the half hour after the shorter 6 o'clock news on Saturdays. It's usually a seat-of-the-pants affair. The host usually calls up the same week, and emails the topics no more than a couple of days in advance. The guests show up Thursday afternoon to tape Saturday's show, and the half-hour show does not take much more than a half hour to shoot, after makeup, sound checks, etc. Then they boot everybody out the back door, makeup and all. On two occasions, I've had to take my car to the garage afterward, plastered in pancake and powder.
The show, itself is fun. Four panelists, from the media, business, or whatever, sit in the corners of a miniature boxing ring while the host (local news anchor) acts as referee. Each topic, taken from the week's news, is given as a short video clip, then everybody argues about it until a bell ends the round. The only rule is there are no rules (within reason). After five topics, the best comment is chosen, and $100 goes to a charity picked by the winner.
The amazing thing is just how many people watch this show. I get lots of comments from people after I do one (usually about once a year). It kind of throws me when the show is in reruns, because I get it all over again from different people. When I was engaged to my wife, I would be meeting relatives of hers who live at least an hour away, and they'd recognize me. I guess it's the local network affiliate, and covers a huge chunk of southern Ontario, but it's still weird for a little local show in a crappy time slot to get so much attention.
I've also been seen occasionally on the news itself, if I happen to be at the same accident, fire or photo op. Just a glimpse, of course.
Most widespread TV appearance was when my former boss was featured on the national news. The crew arrived at an odd hour, when there were only two employees in the building, and I ended up doing a bunch of staged shots, meant to accompany the narration between the interview segments. So, people across Canada got to see me doing somebody else's job, while Bob, who was seldom even in the office in those days, worked closely with me. It lasted all of five seconds.
I was really annoyed a few months ago, because a few friends of mine were going off to be extras in a film [i forget the name] with one of my favourite australian celebrities/comedians: Shaun Micallef. I couldn't go because I had work. Damn work...
They said it was a great experience, and was alot of fun. The really funny thing however was the fact that one of the extras they were with had something to do with Star Wars episode 3, and would walk around set wearing his official Episode 3 jacket. It's almost like he thought he was better than the rest of the extras.
As Fearless Freep notes, I've been in a bit of this & that & still try to get in as much as I can.
The most star-studded thing I was ever part of, though, was an adaptation of Wizard of Oz for radio.
Films that I've been in that would interest readers of this website: In Through The Out Door, ROBOC.H.I.C., Kill Line, The Glassbreaker, E.S.S.
I hope that this thing I did called "Punk World", filmed by a guy named Boris, who's in charge of George "Funkadelic" Clinton's in-concert videos, etc., gets any kind of release: Cable, Direct to Video, I don't care. I've got 5(!) parts in it. It's a zero-budget thing set 1000 years in the future, post-atomic holocaust, etc. etc. The guy keeps recutting it and redoing the music. ENOUGH, ALREADY!!!
Anyway, I've done about 3 dozen films as principle and extra.
On TV, my favorite Extra roles are 2 Diagnosis Murder shows with Dick Van Dyke -- one of the single nicest people I've ever met -- and a Father Dowling Murder Mystery.
"FIlm Threat" magazine featured me as a Famous Extra in issue #15 for my cop part in Kill Line.
I really identify with Andy C's story, though, as the single thing I get most props for is the 4 years I spent on a very local PBS show called HOMEMOVIES. I was doing a staged reading of a new screenplay in a Denver club along with many other actors & when it was mentioned that I worked on HOMEMOVIES, a huge cheer went up! The damn thing's been off the air for 12 years!! Select reruns are shown on Boulder Cable channel 54, but that plays to maybe 20 people, so these had to have been ones who remembered.
That was nice.
peter johnson
I send some mail to The Abrams Report and he read it. He is also made a little joke at end! Hopefully I actually start making films when I grow up.
My cousin was one of the extras in the Washington DC sequence of Forrest Gump.
Neon - wasn't half of washington? lol
I always know someone who knows someone who is in movies or has met celebrities. I'd rather be in a movie than meet a star anyways, it's more lasting. No matter how bad the movie i could always pull it out and say "there's me!" - sort of immortalized. I wouldn't even want to be paid for it, we should all start an organization for "people who just wanna be in movies and not paid for it", surely the way hollywood is always trying to find a way to make more money they would be interested.
Dear Susan --
Chances are there are indie films being made right near you & you don't know. What's your nearest large city? Do you have daily/weekly paper(s)? What about "hippie"/arts weeklies? They have an "auditions" section, I'll bet you anything, which should list things being cast.
If you know where to look, it ain't that hard to get involved.
Write again & I'll make more suggestions --
peter johnson
I live in dallas, i just never see anything in th paper that looks legit and not the "looking for models" kind of deal. Now Austin on the other hand is sort of a meca for artsy stuff and chances would be better there. So many films are being made out of the country, it just seems like opportunities are never around these parts.
I havent been in any movies but a friend of mine was a corpse in Queen of the damned. Also a friend of mines father was in some sort of remake of journey to the center of the earth with patrick stewart , at least I think it was journey to the center of the earth.
Nope I was wrong, It was Moby Dick, I knew it was based on some sort of classic literature
Post Edited (07-07-04 00:21)
>I'd rather be in a movie than meet a star anyways,
I know some web sites you could apply to... :)
There's got to be some stuff happening in Dallas. Try getting involved with a community theatre group, or look in the Yellow Pages under "talent agencies". This could at least get you started meeting people in the business. Much of the low-budget stuff gets known by word-of-mouth in groups like this. Above all, be patient. It very rarely happens that you get wind of something you'd want to do right away. I really don't know anything at all about Dallas, but I've never been in an urban US environment yet that didn't have at least several storefront theatres:
Washington DC, Richmond, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, Williamsburg, etc. etc. Hell, Longmont Colorado, where I live, has a population of around 20,000 & has 3 big and numerous small theatre groups, with many of their hangers-on casting for short films. Does Dallas have a community-access cable TV station? A PBS affiliate? Go there & talk up some folk! SOMEBODY'S always making something out there, I guarantee it!
Write again re. your experiences --
peter johnson
no community cable station..that's something i remember seeing in austin which is why i mentioned it. My brother lives there and everytime i go it never fails, i see some of the most bizarre things on public acess tv from a guy in his living room reading poetry and acting it out physically to some horrible singing. This is a hubbub city, i'm not going to a talent agency - i sure don't wanna be an actor. I'd just like to have an appearance somewhere in a movie without all the drama of having to seek it out. maybe i'm sloth that way ;-)