The Few and the Proud

So I recently had the great honor to play a Marine
for a movie called "Brothers". I was only a background
extra, but the experience was very memorable.
When they called about casting me, they said they only
needed me for one day of shooting. I hesitated at first...
should I cut my hair for a one day film shoot? It had
been about 6 months since my last movie gig, so I
decided to go for it. I asked my friends what I should
do and everyone gave me their full support. Besides,
playing a Marine sounded pretty cool...
even if only for a day.


The day of the shoot: The call time was really early...
5:00am and it was in Glorieta, which was over an
hour away from Albuquerque. Once I got there,
it took a while for all of us to get into costume. There
were about 50 other extras and many were actually
military or were in the military at one time. I was
one of the few that wasn't... but nobody really knew
that since we all looked like Marines :) Then it was time
to wait. Being an extra really isn't very glamorous, 95%
of the time is just spent waiting and the ones that have
done a lot of movies are the ones that come prepared
with books, video games, mp3 players... whatever will
keep boredom at bay. Needless to say, talking is a
good way to pass the time too... but nobody wants to
talk 8 hours non-stop either. Around 8:00pm
everyone was "camera ready" and in costume.
They didn't call us to the set to shoot until around
2:00pm. The scene they were shooting was a military
base so they had the extras walking in the background
with army vehicles driving around. It was cool to see
the Army Humvees... which were authentic of course.
They always use the real thing when they can. Even
our uniforms were real military issue. They even had
names of soldiers on them... probably the ones that
didn't quite cut it as a Marine. They shot the scenes
until the sun went down... and that was it. I did
get to see Toby Mcguire on set while he was doing
his scene in the parking lot. He was short and skinny,
and I heard he lost like 20 pounds for the role.
I'm not the kind that gets "star struck", but I guess
it was pretty cool to see "Spiderman" up close :) I
didn't get to see Jake Gyllenhaal or Natalie Portman,
the other stars of the film.


So that was the end of my career as a Marine... or so
I thought. One week later, I was called back to do
more scenes as a Marine. It was a wonderful
surprise, because "call backs" can be pretty rare.

The day of the shoot #2: I was called back to do
scenes as a Marine for the same movie, but the
location was different. This time, it was in Santa Fe...
uh outskirts of Santa Fe. Also, this time the scene only
called for 8 Marines, so I really was lucky to be one of
the 8. The call time was 8:30am... so this time I
actually got a bit of sleep the night before. Base camp
was at a creepy abandoned prison... yeah, it was even
creepy during the day. Going through the long, dark
corridors to the extras holding area gave me the chills.
Knowing the history of the place, that over 30
prisoners had been murdered here didn't help. It
was very much like being in a haunted house. Once in
the extras holding area, it didn't take long to get into
costume since there was only 8 of us. However, we
waited, took naps, played video games, and talked
until about 4:00pm until we were called to set. This
time, it was well worth the wait. Before driving to
the set, we got upgraded additions to our
uniforms including flak jacket, a rifle, hand gun,
camelbak, helmet, grenades, and googles. But
since we geared up right before driving to the
shoot, I didn't have time to take a photo of myself
with all the new gear. Cameras and photos are
not allowed on set. Once on set, we found out
what the scene entailed. We were to be part of
a convoy driving through the desert. So me and
the other 7 marines got to ride through the desert
in military vehicles. I got to ride shotgun in a real
Humvee! It was awesome! We did a few takes
driving back and forth with the windows down.
I don't know if I will even be on camera because
the passenger side window was pretty heavily
covered with dirt and dust, but I really don't care.
The fun ride through the desert in an Army
Humvee was worth it. They filmed a few takes
until the sun went down. A van took us back to
base camp and we got ready to turn in our gear.
My career as a Marine was complete... or so I
thought.

I was in for a few more surprises. They
needed 4 marines to stay late for another shoot...
so of course I volunteered. I cut my hair to do this,
what was a couple more hours pretending to be a
Marine. So the lucky 4 of us stuck around to await
our fate. We heard our scene was a helicopter
scene... hell yeah! I envisioned a cool fake cockpit
with green screen behind it. And when we entered
the studio, there it was... just as I imagined it.
They were shooting a different scene with Toby
in a helicopter... at least I think it was him. I was
too far away to see. But sometimes things don't
go as you envision them. Our scene wasn't to be
shot in the fake helicopter with green screen.
Nope, it was in a little corner of the studio with us
"pretending" to be in a helicopter. And when I say
"pretend" I mean in the same way we pretended
as kids :) Yup, we sat in regular fold-up chairs and
passed around a map while they shot over our
shoulder. I don't know if any of our faces were
in the shot but I'm pretty sure my hand and
knees were. So it wasn't as cool as I had
imagined but if the scene goes into the final cut,
I can at least say that those beautiful hands and
knees were mine :) Yup, life is good as an extra.