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Saturday, September 20, 2003
For movie extras, it's lights, camera, but little action
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||||||
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KENNEBUNKPORT — Nobody told me what to do. Robin Wright Penn, star of the scene being filmed for "Empire Falls," stood eight feet away. Someone yelled "quiet," then "rolling." I froze. I just sat there at the restaurant table with two other movie extras. I folded my hands, and tried not to look too goofy. I knew the scene was set in 1962, at an outdoor restaurant on Martha's Vineyard. But that was all I knew. I had been waiting for some seven hours, with 150 other extras, for the chance to get into a scene. Now here I was, clueless. The HBO film "Empire Falls" is based on Mainer Richard Russo's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about life in a depressed Maine mill town; Ed Harris and Paul Newman head the formidable cast. Filming started Sept. 8 around Waterville and Skowhegan, and will run through October. People from across New England eagerly auditioned for bit parts. I was among them. As one of the extras called to a movie set in Kennebunkport on Thursday, I quickly learned that being hired as an extra was no guarantee of actually getting into a scene. After being passed over for several street scenes - I guess I'm not believable as a pedestrian - I was eventually picked by a crew member who said, "You look fine for the chowder house scene, but lose that sweater." Then I was plunked down at a table, along with two others, and the cameras started rolling. The scene was brief. It called for Penn to get a call from a pay phone at the chowder house restaurant as folks such as myself dined nearby. Penn, as character Grace Roby, looked distressed as she reacted wordlessly to the call. Then she hung up the phone, and walked away. I couldn't see her all that well, as I had been told to remove my glasses for the scene. I guess people had excellent vision in 1962. After a few takes, the two extras sitting with me at the table decided we should do something while the camera was pointed at Penn, and us. Jennifer Knust, a professor of religion from Brookline, Mass., whispered between takes that she thought we should pretend to be discussing our menu choices. So, during the next few takes I mouthed to Knust, "What are you thinking of having?" and she mouthed, "The clam chowder, what about you?" Vanessa Gerry, a 16-year-old from Springvale who was our other companion, chimed in: "I think I'll have the clam chowder and a side salad." We then worried that the term side salad didn't exist in 1962, but no one could hear us, so it didn't much matter. There were probably 10 more takes like this, each requiring Penn to react with distress to the phone call. At some point I lost the ability to mouth actual sentences - "mouther's block," if you will. So, at Knust's suggestion, I borrowed an old church-choir trick and just mouthed the word "watermelon" over and over. "You guys looked great," a woman in the crew told us. I will remember those words forever. When my day on the set of "Empire Falls" ended after 11 hours, I realized I had spent nearly an entire hour in front of the camera. Maybe the camera was tight on Penn, and I wasn't even in focus. Or maybe that scene will be cut. It doesn't matter. I had done something just about anyone who loves movies would pay to do: I got to be in an actual Hollywood movie. Lots of other Mainers also wanted to see the inner workings of a film and got paid $6.75 an hour to act as living props. The clichÈs I had heard were all true. It was a lot of "hurry up and wait." It was chaotic. Unpredictable. A blast. Most of the extras I talked to Thursday had either gone to an open casting call in Waterville, as I did, or simply dropped off their photos and information at the casting office on Water Street. Then, based on our looks, ages and availablity, we got picked. Most of us had been called and told what days we'd be filming, but we didn't get the call telling us where to go and what time to show up until late Wednesday evening. Chris McLaughlin, a 20-year-old community college student from Norridgewock, said he got his call around midnight, couldn't sleep because of the excitement, then had to leave by 4 a.m. for the long drive to Kennebunkport. Lots of other extras with long drives got little sleep, as well. My day began around 7:30 a.m. at the Kennebunkport Community House, where "street scene" extras waited in the basement while crew members issued us our "extra vouchers," basically our time cards to get paid. After a couple hours of waiting, I was sent to costume - a room in the Community House - and put on the clothes I had been fitted for in Waterville a couple weeks earlier. I was told to bring my own khaki pants, and was given a striped green and purple button-down shirt, a green sweater to wear tied around my neck, and Docksider shoes to be worn with no socks. I was told to pull my pants up high above my waist, a la 1962, and to think of myself as a "blue blood." I had been told by casting I would be an extra for the "street scene" in 1962, in the Martha's Vineyard village of Edgartown. After I dressed, I was sent with other extras to a Baptist church a few streets away - we all walked - where another crew - this one armed with lipstick and hairbrushes - worked to make the extras actually look their parts. There I watched seven hair and make-up specialists transform the female extras by teasing, curling, and poofing their hair into unimaginable forms and sizes. "It makes me feel like a million bucks," said Claire Kiedrowski, a computer map-maker from Stockton Springs, after getting a hefty hairdo which people said made her look like Jackie Kennedy. "They curled and teased the daylights out of it." I got my hair treatment from Brenda McNally, a veteran movie hair and make-up person from Rhode Island. She told me one of her favorite experiences in film was working on "American Buffalo" and getting to do Dustin Hoffman's hair and make-up every day. As she trimmed the hair around - and coming out of - my ears, I thought, "Wow, Dustin Hoffman and I share the same hair stylist." McNally and the other hair stylist were using old magazine ads and copies of Waterville High School's 1962 yearbook for ideas on what the hair should look like. After a couple hours at hair and make-up, I went back to the Community House where "street scene" extras were told to wait on one part of the lawn. Every so often a crew member would come from behind a corner of the building and say, "You, you and you, come with me." I waited to be picked for a couple hours. But no luck. Then the man who had been herding the extras all day, a man who called himself "Big Pete" - veteran Pete McDonald of Owls Head - said they needed more people for the chowder house scene. Especially men. So I jogged over to where wardrobe people were looking over chowder house hopefuls. They asked who was supposed to be in the chowder house scene. I wasn't, but I raised my hand, anyway. They asked who had a change of clothes for the chowder house. I didn't. Still, a young wardrobe man began looking us over, telling some they were too well-dressed for a downscale chowder house. He looked at me, said I'd be fine if I put my sweater away. So I did, and ran to be with 20 or so other extras who were marched into Dock Square by Big Pete. We waited in the middle of Dock Square, while dozens of crew members set up lights and microphones and wind-blocking canopies. Hundreds of onlookers were in the square, watching the activity, and some actually took our picture as we waited. What an ego trip. Then, about eight members of our group were taken to a riverside deck behind the Copper Candle shop, which was being used for the set of the chowder house. I remained behind. Twenty minutes later, a crew member came out and said he needed three more people. He pointed to Knust, Gerry and myself, and marched us up to the deck. We sat at a metal table with an umbrella and waited for some direction. Penn had a fleece jacket wrapped around her, because it was a little breezy in the shade, and she sipped a Poland Spring water and whispered to the director, Fred Schepisi, who seemed to always be smiling. Penn had the same melancholy look on her face when she was on camera or off. She was probably trying to stay in character. The mother of one extra tried to chat with Penn, but Penn didn't even seem to see her. Someone handed me a gold jacket and said, "Wear this." Then somebody else came over and said, "You can't wear those glasses." So I shoved them in my pocket. My big moment as a Hollywood extra had arrived, and I could barely see to witness it. But I certainly could feel the excitement. I probably will for a long time. Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at: |
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