Rotation, location and expectation

Day 2 for me, and the crew has had a day off, most of them heading back to London for some capital air. The shoot is scheduled to start at 1.00 lunchtime, so my call is for 12.30 to have some lunch and get costumed, and a couple of the other extras from my day 1 are here too. There's a new guy too, but in total there is only four of us after the madness of the previous days shoot.

It's good to walk in from the car saying hello to everyone, a bit like the second day at your new job - you're more comfortable because you know what to expect, you've met all the people, and you know what they expect from you. We eat and get dressed before we are wisked off to the set. All the shots today are in one building, so a 'green room' - a room for the crew and cast to sit and drink coffee, tea or soft drinks and eat chocolate in between takes - has been set up in the same building. The days papers are delivered and scoured through, we chat and keep ourselves amused while discovering more about each other, mutual likes and experiences.

It's an ambitious schedule today, with the crew switching between days, the cast switching between costumes and one cast member swapping between hair styles! I get to be in a few scenes holding an AK47 rifle - a first for me - and again, the main actors and the crew are all incredibly professional and efficient. Each scene is shot from a number of different angles to give the director a good choice of cuts, and the continuity people are kept busy with the flitting time zones. Only by being involved in something like this can you realise how difficult it is for actors to do thier job when, if the scene calls for them to be alone and contemplative, for example, they are surrounded by 20 crew members, and every nook and crany just out of shoot contains lights, cameras or people.

By 7.00 in the evening it's time to break for tea, and we are all driven back to base for another excellent meal and a chance to check phone calls and grab all the stuff we'd left, like books. When we get back to the other green room, the crew have managed to rig up a TV to watch the football, and there is a steady stream of people coming in and checking the score over the next hour and a half. By 11.00, the schedule is behind, and one of the runners turns up with more food, a finger buffet as I believe it's known, and the four extras are being utilised in each scene using a rotation system similar to Chelsea's.

At 12.45 the director shouts 'cut' for the last time this evening, everyone piles into cars and vans and within ten minutes a convoy of cars is finding it's way through the mist of the airfield towards home for some of us, and hotels for the others. I get home at 1.15

I have a day off to try and find some proper, and paying, work in the real world and could be back on set tomorrow, depending on whether they need me. It's exhausting, all this sitting and waiting, then standing holding a gun. But also a great experience.