He looks more like him than he does himself...

It wasn't a call this time. The email came in at about 3.00pm on Monday, and it said to be on set, at Waterloo Station in London, for 8.30am on Tuesday morning. I had to go and pick up my wife at the train station, so figured I'd get my tickets then. The man at the counter asked if he could help me, and I wish I'd said (you know, in that jocular fashion) "Well, we'll find out soon, won't we!" because it would have been fun trying to make him laugh, Or smile. Or breathe. Anything, really. Having explained where I needed to be the next morning, at what time, and what time I expected to come back, he told me I needed an open ticket, costing £51. I asked him if there was a cheaper alternative, as that seemed a little steep. After another five minutes of too-ing and fro-ing, then, and only then, did he offer two single tickets, one at £18, and one at £11. The answer to his first question was becoming painfully clear. Why didn't he tell me that in the first place? I assume a number of people just buy the first thing proffered without asking for other options. My advice? Haggle. Shamelessly. And then apologise for having to use a cheque because you messed up your new pin number for your new card for your new bank account.

The drawback of this haggling was that the cheaper single ticket for the morning left the station at 5.53. In the morning. (Why do trains, and buses come to that, leave at such odd times? why not 5.50, or 5.55?) which meant that I had to get up at 5.00. It also meant that I got to Waterloo at 7.20, an hour and ten minutes before the call. Which at least gave me some time to buy a coffee before heading to the bar which was doubling as an office for the production crew.

At this point I hadn't really planned on being available for the second day. The cost of tickets, the fact that I had some proper work to do and the lack of somewhere to stay for the night all pointed to this conclusion, but I decided to keep that to myself for a while when I turned the corner and saw the number of people gathering outside the bar. The first person I saw was Chris. Chris had been on my first ever shoot nearly a year ago, where we had chatted amiably, I'd sent him some pictures we had taken of us in our victorian costumes, and we hadn't been in touch since.

Having signed in, we started catching up. One of the things you need to be good at when doing this type of work is chatting. Either that or bring a couple of books with you, because you'll be sitting around a lot. This shoot in particular turned into a marathon sitting around session. There were about 350 extras on the first day, and half of us were moved to a 'holding area' - one of the bars on the main concourse at Waterloo. Unfortunately the bar itself was closed, but Waterloo has a wide selection of beverages available, so everybody arrived with coffees, teas, smoothies and water, took a seat and waited. Chris and I were one of the first into the bar (natch!) and secured a comfy sofa. books were fetched from bags, drinks were drunk, and we waited. And waited. And waited. We arrived at the 'holding area' at about 9.30am, and at 2.00pm, having read a few hundred pages and chatted ourselves nearly to death, an Assistant Director (AD - normally there are three or four ADs on a shoot - thier job is to interpret what the Director wants from the extras and get them/us o do it) came in and started weeding people out.

Apparently, a film crew cannot close down a major international railway station, even in the middle of the week, and so as we were positioned around the concourse and given our direction (mostly "just look up at the screens"), we mingled with the general public. Every so often one of the crew would shout out for us to raise our hands. That must have looked odd. When I'd arrived that morning, one of the ADs had recognized me from a previous shoot, and said hello. He came over to where I was standing and asked me and John, the guy standing next to me, to go further up the station and, on his signal, start walking up the concourse. Then he said "Matt will run out of that door, snake through the crowd, and push in between you guys. Just react like it's someone who is running for a train. OK?"

We waited another half an hour before the crew were ready to shoot, getting quite hot in our winter gear (the scenes are set in winter) and finally the familiar cry of "camera's rolling!" rang across Waterloo. Sure enough, Matt Damon ran out of the door, snaked through the crowd, and pushed past by colleague and I. We did this six or seven times, with Matt asking if we were ok each time we walked back to re-set, before the Director came over and spoke to the AD. The AD came over and tells us that they are going to re-set again, but with some different people. Shorter people. We didn't look right. Damn!

The rest of the afternoon is taken up with lots of standing, lot's of looking at screens, and some walking from A to B, and then back to A. The crew have to clear the concourse by 4.00pm, to allow for rush hour, so all the extras are told that's a wrap. During the walk back to the crew's HQ, I catch up with Chris, who has been standing elsewhere on the station all day, and he asks if I'm going to be back the next day. I explain that the train tickets are expensive, and that I have proper work to do so will probably head home that night. "I said you could stay at mine if you ever needed to - don't you remember?" I'd assumed it was one of those polite things that us english people say to each other, but he'd clearly meant it. As I was deciding what to do, the AD walks over and asks if we'll stay late for a shoot at a different location. I decide to stay after all, and we say yes.

The holding area for the second location is also a pub. This time, the bar is open. After waiting for half an hour, Chris suggests a drink. I suggest a half, and so we do. after another hour, we have another one. Then another. Thankfully, an AD comes over to tell us they won't be needing us, and we can go. So we have another, and head for the bus stop. I reckon we've done two hours of actual being on set work today, and it's about 8.00pm.

Chris lives in Stoke Newington, and we call at the off-licence on the way to his house. His wife and thier lodger are both in, watching football, so we join them and enjoy a pleasant evening. Knowing that I like my music, Chris shows me a selection of vinyl LPs a friend of thiers gave him. I'm astounded. There are white label Elton John LPs, American Mono Beatle LPs, The Stones Satanic Majesties with the gatefold 3D sleeve amongst many others. Before retiring to sleep we listen to a Todd Rundgren LP, chosen at random, and we agree to be up and out to the local caff for breakfast by 8 the next morning, as our call is for 9.30am.

The second day of shooting starts, following scrambled eggs at the caff of course, with an hour and ten minutes bus journey from Stoke Newington to Waterloo. Exactly the same time it takes on the train from Ipswich to London. Hmmmm. But the bus is a lot cheaper...

Today we're hard at work on the set (or Waterloo Station Concourse) by 12.30, which means we only had three hours to read and chat. I'm again stood next to John, but this time the crew are shooting close ups, so we are employed to walk across the background of the shot, creating that bleary look we all know and love. Today there is a stand in for Matt Damon, and I overhear a lady behind me exclaim "He looks more like him than he does himself..." This keeps us amused for ages.

We break for lunch - a cream cheese bagel - and back on set we are doing the final scenes which are lots of general hub bub shots of the station. I'm paired off with Micky, a girl from Taiwan whose English is a little ropey, and we have a faltering, but entertaining conversation while strolling around the station with the other 300 or so extras. As we approach my friendly AD, he tells us to go and stand right infront of the camera, look up at the screen, count to ten and then walk off to the left towards our chosen platform. As we walk past the camera, the director calls "Cut. It's a wrap!" and all of a sudden the station looks empty as 300 people all head off to get forms signed and head home. As I'm queueing, the agency calls and asks if I'm free to do some filming on Friday, in another period drama. I, of course, say yes.

Having thanked Chris for his hospitality, I head off across the river to met an old friend who's visiting from Australia, via LA, and eventually home. As I change my ticket at the booth in Liverpool Street, the guy behind the counter points out that my cheque book has '19__' in the date (yes, it's an old cheque book!) and my new card isn't a cheque guarantee card. I plead a little bit, explaining that I haven't got my pin number yet, so I can't use the card, I can't get any cash because, well, I don't have my pin number, and I do have my driving licence, and he says OK.

As the train pulls into Ipswich, It feels like two days has stretched into a week, and I'm glad to get home. Where I get a message telling me that the shoot on Friday is cancelled.

we'll have no zombies here...

I didn't do the zombie shoot. I had proper work to do, two gigs with my covers band, and as I generally don't get to bed before 3am after a gig, getting on set by 6.30am two mornings on the trot seemed unlikely. That's the trouble with being old. You come over all sensible and swap running around as a zombie in a field near Woodbridge for finishing off a bunch of visuals for a crisp company's website and visiting your family.

I'm sure they didn't mind too much, and had engaged plenty of extras to cover such a thing and I'm sure a few others did the same too. I emailed the guy to tell him, so it's not like I was rude.

I assumed that I had lost the bug. Having thought about this sensibly, I was considering letting the agency know that they should take me off the books. And then they rang. Right there and then.

Agent; "Hi Stephen, how are you set for Tuesday and Wednesday next week? We need you for a shoot in London."

Me; "Oh, yeah, I can do that! Thanks!"

Agent; "OK, you're booked on that. call me late Monday to get call times."

So now I have to get to London - but I don't know what time the Tuesday call is for until late on Monday, whether I need to stay in London on Monday night as well as Tuesday, I can't book train tickets, and yet I'm really looking forward to doing it. The two things I do know are that it's for a major movie (my first movie job) and where the shoot will take place.

But that's how it works. No-one knows what time the call will be until Monday night, because that's when the production crew decide - based on all sorts of factors. Plus, this one involves some big foreign stars. Up to now, I've been lucky enough to be on BBC and Channel 4 dramas which starred proper actors, but not 'stars', and the productions have involved a fairly laid back, although professional, air about them.

I've rearranged my working week to accommodate these two days as best I can. Clearly I haven't lost the bug just yet. I must have just mislaid it, under that pile of paperwork on my desk...

The disappointment of it all!

I’m beginning to think that I’m not cut out for this extras-ing lark. Having missed out on a part in Daniel Craig’s new movie (see previous post), I have now missed out on the part of ‘gamekeeper’ in the TV adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility’.

I’m also beginning to suspect that it’s not my ability to take direction at the drop of a hat, my reliability or the fact that I know my left from my right (you’d be surprised how many extras don’t) that gets me the phone call. I might be paranoid about this, but when the agency calls you and the first thing they say is “have you had a haircut? Is it still long?”, you begin to suspect that your dashing good looks might be a secondary consideration (or even lower down the list!).

I got the call on Thursday, got told to pencil in the following Monday and that I would get a call the next day. It sounded great – only a couple of actors, a scene out in a field – in theory I might actually get on screen.

The agencies don’t like you to chase them, so I waited until about three on the Friday afternoon, and having just been offered some proper work for the same day, called in. It was then I was told that the person who’d called me wasn’t in, and to assume that I wasn’t needed. Despite the fact that I had something else to do, the shoot would have started at 7 in the morning meaning a 4.30am start from my house, and would have involved a long day in a field, I was still really disappointed.

Still, the zombie movie starts on Friday. I’d better get some practise in…