Some things have to be experienced to be understood. Giving birth, hiding from enemy aircrafts and planning an event. You don’t know miserable the experience is until you’re there at 08.00 and realize you don’t have a power outlet, that the midwife has terrible breath or that someone’s taken a crap in the shelter and that there isn’t any toilet paper.
Watching films and making films are two entirely different things. By being included as an extra in a movie you will give you a small glimpse of what a hell it can be.
It all took place one dark November night in Malmö, where I was as an extra in a friend's short film. The film would be a few minutes long and he had already put several months of preparation into it. The scene we were shooting took place outside a hotel and I was to walk past one of the main actors who, in the film, was waiting for his girlfriend.
The whole thing took eight hours. Not only because it was cold and raining and blowing so hard you had to wipe the lens of the camera every two minutes. For some strange cosmic reason people kept exiting the hotel all the time so we had to shoot the scene over and over again.
Since then I look at movies in a completely different way. My respect for film directors and the entire ensembles behind films like Lord of the Rings and Titanic is almost religious. I will never ever again say that a movie is bad. Perhaps that story was lousy. But the production is admirable.
Text: Navid Modiri
Required time:
1 day or less
Cost:
Free, you actually make money.
Cons:
You will almost certainly have to wait, freeze and become bored. Someone will probably scream at you, you can get your face sprayed with fake blood and there’s a risk that you could get hurt so be sure to have valid insurance.
Pros:
You can say: Look! There I am! for two seconds.
