On Guard (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} onguard) wrote,@ 2003-05-20 15:15:00 |
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Extras extras (and more extras)
So some time ago Will and I went through the script and counted out how many speaking roles are in the movie. The total count: 31 (not including the four leads), a number which has since gone up a few as we tried to expand our script to ensure that it actually finishes at feature length. This number also does not take into account the number of people needed as non-speaking extras, which at a bare minimum would number 20. Of course we could use some of these non-speaking extras as speaking extras for other scenes. In any event it looks like, to be safe, we'll need 50 extras involved in this production over the course of our two day shoot.
Of course we won't need them all at once. I broke it down scene by scene and we won't need more than 10 at a time for whatever scene we'll be shooting. Some scenes, thankfully, will have hardly any extras. The trick is that if we don't want to have them hanging around all day, we need to schedule as best as we can to estimate what time they'll be needed. This is something I hope to accomplish with Leland and Craig this week.
In the meantime, there's the task of assembling the extras. Our first options have been to invite our own friends to see if they'd want to take part -- through this effort we've gotten 25 people to express interest. Not bad, that's half the extras we need. Next we invited those who auditioned, since we met them, we know what kinds of characters they could play. 19 responses from those ranks. Almost there. So as a final safety measure, I emailed all the people who sent their headshots and resumes who a) supplied their email addresses and b) were non-SAG. 160 people in total. I invited them to take part yesterday morning. As of now I have 50 responses. So it looks like I have a healthy pool to draw from.
The next step I suppose is figuring out just who goes where and who should play what. Though we call them "extras" a number of these smaller parts are significant. So it will take me some time to sort this out...
One idea I had, as a lark, was to invite these folks to come up with their own "lobby moment" -- what they would see themselves doing in the main lobby of an office building. If what they came up with was good, we could have them do what they described when it came to shooting. I might just ask them that to see what they come up with...
The other issue is rehearsal -- I'm not sure whether I can do this or not, even if I want to, with time getting increasingly precious. Will it be enough to assign them roles and instruct them over email/phone as best I can -- or is it wishful thinking to think a rehearsal prior to the shoot won't be necessary? I'm sure we'll have to work it out a little during the shoot, but I'm hoping it won't take more than 10-15 minutes to get them to do it the way I want if they already have their sides handy. We'll see...
So some time ago Will and I went through the script and counted out how many speaking roles are in the movie. The total count: 31 (not including the four leads), a number which has since gone up a few as we tried to expand our script to ensure that it actually finishes at feature length. This number also does not take into account the number of people needed as non-speaking extras, which at a bare minimum would number 20. Of course we could use some of these non-speaking extras as speaking extras for other scenes. In any event it looks like, to be safe, we'll need 50 extras involved in this production over the course of our two day shoot.
Of course we won't need them all at once. I broke it down scene by scene and we won't need more than 10 at a time for whatever scene we'll be shooting. Some scenes, thankfully, will have hardly any extras. The trick is that if we don't want to have them hanging around all day, we need to schedule as best as we can to estimate what time they'll be needed. This is something I hope to accomplish with Leland and Craig this week.
In the meantime, there's the task of assembling the extras. Our first options have been to invite our own friends to see if they'd want to take part -- through this effort we've gotten 25 people to express interest. Not bad, that's half the extras we need. Next we invited those who auditioned, since we met them, we know what kinds of characters they could play. 19 responses from those ranks. Almost there. So as a final safety measure, I emailed all the people who sent their headshots and resumes who a) supplied their email addresses and b) were non-SAG. 160 people in total. I invited them to take part yesterday morning. As of now I have 50 responses. So it looks like I have a healthy pool to draw from.
The next step I suppose is figuring out just who goes where and who should play what. Though we call them "extras" a number of these smaller parts are significant. So it will take me some time to sort this out...
One idea I had, as a lark, was to invite these folks to come up with their own "lobby moment" -- what they would see themselves doing in the main lobby of an office building. If what they came up with was good, we could have them do what they described when it came to shooting. I might just ask them that to see what they come up with...
The other issue is rehearsal -- I'm not sure whether I can do this or not, even if I want to, with time getting increasingly precious. Will it be enough to assign them roles and instruct them over email/phone as best I can -- or is it wishful thinking to think a rehearsal prior to the shoot won't be necessary? I'm sure we'll have to work it out a little during the shoot, but I'm hoping it won't take more than 10-15 minutes to get them to do it the way I want if they already have their sides handy. We'll see...
