4 years a movie extra

 Have i got an expose story for you. 

My therapist has told me to pen this all down to help with the voices in my head. So it's not at all meant to be anything but simply a form of medicine for me. Perhaps finding ones own medicine might help with your voices, im just saying. 

An eating props insight into life on a South African movie set. An expose of the movie industry as i experienced it.

 As a veteran of over 70 adverts, film shoots as a movie extra, and having the claim of being the highest paid extra for a day in august 2002, i feel i have some industry street cred to speak of.

For only the second time in my life, can i understand the concept of a pecking order, a feudal system, and dictatorial communist North Korean governments. 

You see, on most shoots as a movie extra, you are nothing more than an eating prop, a necessary nuisance - must be seen and not heard. You are basically a living meat prop. You have absolutely no rights. Your basic human rights and dignity is simply left at the set door. You accept and understand this reality upfront. 

The very immediate pecking order consists of a 21 yr old wrangler who has walked past a super expensive branded clothing vending cannon. Each item of hugely expensive clothing flung or rather shot onto their bodies at great speed. Creating a very desired effect of an expensive bush dragged backwards. when this no clear skin without a tattoo person tells you to jump, you simply jump. It doesn't matter that you're old, married, and have 2 kids. 

Doesnt help that your dressed in wardrobe that makes you look like a Donald Trumps straggly toupee hairpiece. 

I found the very big shoots the worst sets to be on. over 2000 movie extras bussed on set from far and wide. All excitedly meeting at 2am in the morning to be whisked away on one of 36 busses to a secret squirrel location. The battery chicken hocks we passed on our long trip to the set looked very interesting, almost inviting. We would spend up to 14 hours on set - cooking in the sun, asking the same holy grail question - "when we going to wrap?” does anyone know when we are wrapping?

An interesting anonomoly was when one of your extra buddies, a comrade in the trenches, gets promoted to being a featured extra. They can cross over to the dark side instantly. Some people can go from humble, normal movie extra to snooty fruity high and mighty featured extra at the drop of the following sentence. “hay!  you there , come stand next to Heinz Wrinkly ----- NOW !!!" 

And whilst they are languishing in palm frond bottled water heaven, you are left feeling like Cinderella waiting for your glass slipper to be found. Unfortunately, I was never a featured movie extra, although my big toe , pinky finger and left ear are splashed across TV screens from time to time. My kids bask in my featured appendage glory, and my pinky finger signs autographs at pick n pay. The little git actually feels like a celeb. 

Being a movie extra with absolutely no rights was a very humbling experience – which I hope never to ever repeat as long as I live.

The bigger movie sets with over 2000 extras left one debating whether using the green rank building site loo's was worse than actually waiting till your colon burst to rather go at home. (possibly in 2 weeks) 

Cattle and communist Russia surprisingly spring to mind at these very emotional debate moments. 

Meeting new people is always exciting in life, and the sets are a melting pot of every sort of person, creed, and appendage. 

I did enjoy sitting for hours chatting to whoever had the misfortune of sitting next to me. I met some fascinating, strange , interesting, genuine, lovely people. And, of course, the notorious liar guy. his modis operandi was to fabricate tragedies of Shakespearean proportions. spinning an intricate web of marriage, soap opera betrayal , divorce , crashing cars , spy thriller intrigue, some more marriage and loads more betrayal, all chucked gratuitously in the mix. I loved it, it was Barbara Cartland and it was the juice. 

It's strange that I didn't click at the time, but I went to school with the notorius liar guy, NLG, for short. The various villainous characters in his stories remarkably resembled a certain English / drama teacher. the beautiful maiden was the sweetest girl in the school who possibly rejected him in the tucshop line. 

Anyway, the NLGs game was up when on one set several of us over invested victims of his stories compared notes. we were actually arguing about the contradictory tragedies. We vehemently bickered about who's tragedy was more correct .(As you know, whatever version of anything you hear first is absolutely true) At one point, we all looked at the NLG to verify which Jackie Collins novel was the correct one that we where gossiping about. 

One fellow detective extra after hearing NLG going on about the absolute beauty of his betrayed betrothed. Asked him an obvious question, which none of us thought to ask. The previous wife was described  by NLG just short of a victoria secret model status. Bearing in mind, NLG was not at all Brad Clooney or even Loony Brad looking. Also, he had absolutely no money, he afterall was an extra like us all, so it wasn't riches or looks it seemed that combined the hapless NLG and Victoria. 

The question was, why did she marry you? At which we all looked away and pretended to watch the director shouting at some other hapless extra. We never did get the answer. 

it was very tragic for everyone there to suddenly realize that the NLG was just a normal bloke from the burbs, who had never ever even been married, eish, did we feel like suckers on top of being the lowest ranked element on set. 

Needless to say, I never saw the NLG  again. At least now he has a real tragedy to add to his list.( The poor bastard betrayed us all - i felt very defrauded of my invested emotions). Anyway, on the most part, every other extra I met on set was a worthy acting comrade. 

On every set, there should be an extras craft table with biscuits,  food and coffee. on an awesome set, this table is not policed and filled to the brim with treats ,sweets , food, and cooldrink. (extra heaven) on a miserly set, this table is heavily guarded by Attila the Huns personality clone , or cost effectively , does not even exist. a very obvious sign that Poll Pots on the set running the show. One absolutely must hide at all costs.

On one set, we were driven out to Atlantis dunes, squeezed into a black 3mm full piece wetsuit and unceremoniously escorted to the middle of the white sand desert , All 40 extras at 40 degrees. What awaited us was something out of a Ryder Haggard novel. A director sitting in an air-conditioned glass cubicle barking instructions with a mega phone to the wranglers for us to all prance, march, dance, and star jump in the 40 degree hot sun. After 6 hours of this little spectacle and feeling like Henri Charriere afloat on the Caribbean Sea. I was about to start the first ever South African extra revolt. 

The storming of the glass cubicle was being plotted and planned, i was caluding with a Julius lookalike, who could easily start an argument in an empty room. i was to run the storming flank. But because this involved toi toing in the extreme heat, I didn’t. 

I do know South African’s are remarkably tolerant and obedient people. When all of a sardine we were accused of collectively master minding a wetsuit hood heist. Where we would put these hoods, in a skintight 3mm wetsuit I don’t know. The theft would have been a hobbit miracle under the watchful glass eye of Sarumaan the white in the cubicle, on the hill. Anyway, we were herded back to the busses where for 2 hours we had to individually go fetch our personal belongings off the bus and parade it in front of the newly formed wrangler, director and gaffer crew inquisition. Which consisted of the full bush backward brigade and the full blue tatted assistant director. I did hear a few snickers from the dead pan inquisition when my sons Batman undies had some how landed amongst my early morning stuff as I stampeded out the house at 2 in the morning. It was eventually found that the hoods never left the Cape Town studio and just before the triggers where pulled and the nooses tightened, we where prodded back on set with no apology given, non-expected , for more of the same.  

incidentally, I can do a mean dry wetsuit star jump in 40 degree desert heat,  thick sand, and lots of rolled eye director shouting. 

Those were the days i think so fondly of. The funny thing is I don't ever use that international product I sweated for.  When I see it lurking behind me on a super market shelf I literally break out in a cold sweat and I automatically check all my pockets in case a wetsuit hood has found its way there. 

I suppose on most sets I enjoyed my experiences even the few power hungry set officials ranging from directors to wardrobe gestapo, to featured models and artists didn't overwhelm the genuine folk I worked with and for in this interesting field.  My toes still curl when I walk past a craft table or set toilet watching some old, some new faces being herded from one small space to the next. I can’t help musing that South African extras are remarkably tolerant and obedient prey for the capitalist giants advertising machine. Cattle prod branding and communist Russia surprisingly spring to mind at this very emotional moment. The perfect fusion of communism in its raw dirty little capitalist form.

My crowning acting glory came when i was a dead body in a movie. Infact i was Brian Browns dead body, (cocktail)  Peter Weller was also staring (robocop), and the guy who acted as the betraying king in braveheart Heavyweight hollywood.

My oscar worthy performance debut.  Brian Browns dead body double. He had got shot dead in the movie, and they required my highly tuned acting skills as his dead body. I was actually given the clothes brian wore and headed to set for my major role as his shot up dead body.  There is one small snag, brian is 6.6, and he has a shoe size of 13. 

If you look at me with the lights off and at a 30-degree angle to the westerly setting sun. I look like him for 3 tenths of a second just before the gamma rays fry the batteries. 

So the director says to me , "Who the hell are you?" I tell him im the dead body of brian browns character. He looked at me, disgusted, and realised the budget on his movie had just been cut.

He shoved me in an oil barrel with my legs sticking out. Where i acted my guts out for 4 solid hrs. I was the only actively farting dead body ever to make it on screen in an action movie with a braveheart celebrity. You can take my face off screen, but you can't take away my FREEDOM!

The director decided he was going to get his full fare of my superior acting.  He made me a stuntman on set. I did 2 stunts on this movie, diving out the way of a speeding ambulance just before it crashed through a huge glass structure.  

And i also drove a car into another, not as good as me, stuntman. After my 3rd take, the director said if i didn't get it right now, i would never work on another set in Cape Town again. I drove that dude plat. Still walks with a limp. 

I will send a still of the movie, just before brian was shot dead. He was also exploded abit. The now famous oil barrel i was acting in is to the side of the shot.

The chap with the green dot is brian. He is 6.6. So you can just imagine how i had to act to fill those Size 13 shoes.

Arise the formula driven artist.

Perhaps thanks, in part, to all this reality talent TV driven shows, it seems we now have the rise of the formula driven artistic creative.

Had a very brief discussion with my second hand bookshop chap last week. (you know the chats, the discussions  between the many important things you've got to do, always to brief as you have to fly off to some structured meeting you never remember again ever anyway) .  he raised some very pertinent issues. coupled with my own acquired,  limited yes , understanding of life. A potjie kos of diatribe, him adding the potatoes, mmetrying to throw in some miff ol spice. 

I feel the above needs to simply be aired and artistic creatives should also explore the concept of breaking out of this tick box, paint by numbers, formula driven creative design approach to everything currently being attempted in the arts. its really killing the very essence of  artistic creative spontaneous combustion and the artistic designs never before seen creative ethos. 

A scientific mind is not always an artistic mind, when science dominates the arts you have science and not art. the 2 are linked on levels but to my mind the 2 are not really the same. "thank goodness for that." the greatest thing about a real artist is they can never technically create the same thing twice. that's art - science will perhaps try seek to keep cloning itself - art does not - and should never rreally. being technically correct is the objective of the engineering mind.

In the past - in the music industry for example,  it wasn't always the incredible voice that was  the reason why a musician was successful. now its all about the voice.  many 70's and 80,s artists would have been hoofed straight off these viscious little talent singing talent finding shows,  hoofed off by the appointed gestapo type talent finding expert panel, that themselves are not always gifted with a great set of pipes and vocals. however are now seen to be the absolute benchmark of were  "that particular creative industry" should be going. A few minds at the apex of the pyramid, leading the creatives pidepiper style into the morass sea of singular creative understanding. 

In the movie industry for example, it also seems that creativity is being stifled by remakes of old classic after old not so classic.  instead of trying to perhaps focus on new original "take a chance" content, the movie moguls would rather tweek existing scripts of previous movies done many times before.

what ever happened to the concept of,  i love music ive never heard of before or i love films im still as yet to see for the first time ever?? critics can be the killers of individualistic thought - because we read what they say and judge according to "these never made a film, self appointed guru's". why not just go see the movie yourself - have your own opinion rather. most times it wont be the same as the perhaps jaundiced eye movie critics.

it appears to my limited understanding of such things, that we have reached a creative ceiling in many of the creative arts. WHY you might ask limited ol me?  well it could be any number of reasons. it could be possible the blockage is the very creative schools and environments created to nurture such wonderful talent.  "a rose my friend, is always a rose, no matter the soil from whence it grows."  i find any expert in the field of arts is already not current when they have very strong opinions about the subject and refuse to budge on their established ideas.  my esteemed book man - the one who was party to the 10 minute exchange of thought, throwing in the potatoes. mentioned  punk rock was great - not because it was any good - or even nurtured incredible musical talent - in fact most of the artists where just screaming, no completely shouting really on a stage. but it lit a fire under peoples idea of what music was and could be. creative endeavor doesn't always have to be a Monet. it has to be a passionate knee jerk unique response to ones own unique environment - remember only you are traveling the road your on. so only you can truly interpret it in an artistic way. so why does it appear , everyone seems to want to just say the exact same thing. its sadly the herd creative mindset or the critic color in the lines, or you not going to sing in the next round Loss Vagas mentality. why are we pushing creative synchronization, when what is needed is artistic creative individuality.

remember a troll under the bridge will not ever let you past.  even though your vision can see the beautiful green grass on the other side of yhe Bridge. trolls will never  let you past. (why?) simply because they can and will try stop you, the reason is not complicated however for sensitive creatives its reason enough to completely give up. and sadly many do.  that is why it is really up to the creative,  to find a non violent way around those who profess to be the artistic and talent scout gurus of the day, the village, the country, the world - get back to your artistic PASSION before even attempting any creative endeavor. passion is the single most powerful reason for doing anything creative.

the REAL success of your work is simply measured on how much YOU enjoyed it, the creative process is therapeutic. Artistic success is not on sales or who validates you. original creative ideas and thoughts will always be met by extreme violent opposition from the expert gestapo type "experts in the creative field" panel. its how people without all the talent showcase they have talent by controlling those who actually have the creative ability. why put yourself in that nightmare firing line, to become the next formula driven creative puppet. To  kick out an album with absolutely no RAW soul.

A person  born with a talent isn't always more successful than the folk who work hard at improving their accumulated skills through passion. these creative sloggers have  chosen to add skills to the quiver along the way.  its the artists that see beyond the trolls on the bridge, that are the true future of original creativity and original artistic endeavor. sometimes  trolls are hiding in plane sight and simply are passion killers because of their own lack of creative esteem.

so if you are a creative, please stop throwing yourself at cold fowl feet for creative validation. you really dont need artistic degrees and pieces of academic paper to tell you your an artist. (scientists and engineers need these things) real artists really dont - your last work is your degree.  you just need a little bit of self belief to passionately follow what you love doing, = create a portfolio of artistic evidence - this out ways any artistic paper degree gathering dust on a shelf - the best creatives are those that have gone around the current established system, to showcase unique ability - the system will hate you for it - but so what - a few seconds and it just hisses past to hate someone else.

original work is forged from those that remember,  only they are experiencing the life they are living - therefore only they can interpret it and showcase what they are going through. each creative to ones own chosen artistic outlet medium.

this idea might just stop the rise of the formula driven creative and give rise to the Passion Driven Creative Spontaneous Artistic Combustionite. (yup i know - its not a word -  dont care,) 

you want to be an off grid artistic creative, you must be prepared to "off piste" make up stuff, unapologetically!!

Deep Kalahari back in the day.

Desert environments distill time and allow for undiluted thought processes , its also a place one can test to see how tough one really is. absolutely no city static to interfere with ones thinking.

The Kalahari is a very special place and if you have the opportunity to go, the intensity of the place for me is absolute food for the soul. to my mind its as Africa wild as one can safely go now days.

Many, many years ago before all the rules started accompanying every trip to the hinterlands of Africa. And abit before things like game parks formally existed to contain the wild.  i went on an excursion with a Zambian copper miners son and an ex Rhodesian. i am a Capetonian or what is called a Kaapenaar, so the "bush" isnt an environment i am really comfortable in. put me on the sea and im home - put me in the bush and im suddenly very respectful of every single small noise i hear. what with lions and serious wild animals - the deep bush is not for the feint of heart. and its definitely not a place to venture in with 2 old timers who are scared of absolutely nothing the bush can throw at one. we did have Cliff Richards greatest hits keeping us company - need i say more.

We drove 300km deep into the "bush" the area we transgressed was to my mind over predatised and along the single dirt track we traveled was plenty of lion spore , the occasional cheetah spore and plenty of game tracks. cheetah spore is amazing as the claws do not retract - giving the cheetah sprinters spikes whilst chasing down springbok. so its easy enough to differentiate from other cat spore.

the reality with the lions within a desert environment - you see their tracks but you rarely see them - they are super stealthy and brilliant at keeping hidden.

for this excursion i brought along my little 2 man pap tent which was a miserable excuse for a tent really - made in a far off land for children to put up in the back yard. not for the bush at all, which really requires a proper canvas fabric tent - not the pathetic tent i brought into these can be unforgiving land.

So that night we found our spot to camp near a waterhole and had a lekker braai , a couple of whiskeys and enjoyed the night time sounds and green eye torch show that only Africa can dish up. the hyenas where fairly well behaved - however im not scared of these creatures of the night. its the lion that leaves me completely cold. it was full moon and i got to sleep around 9pm in the tent designed for keeping the mist from your face. anything other than mist and the tent is completely useless. in fact i was a little scared to even break wind in fear the tent would immediately be whisked away into the night.

it was then the car was started and the one African bush maestro headed out with the only vehicle for miles around,  to sleep under the stars far away from the paper thin tent and its 2 occupants. the Zambian wasn't perturbed and started snoring immediately - i was extremely  fortunate to get to sleep fairly easily and was out until 3am. i was suddenly woken by the urge to go to the loo. fortunately the minor of the 2 options. i was also awoken by lions making a sound that i couldn't attempt to even explain. a sound like many deep resonating instruments playing over each other.  it was a low rumbling type roar - it was an extremely deep growl that came out like a oooOOOOOOWAH  sound. deep ominous and completely and utterly frightening.  i lay awake for half an hour listening to the noise of the lions around the tent - im not sure how close they where as water tends to bounce sound over it. but it sounded like they where exactly right next to me. i lay their completely frozen - and it was then i realized something i never thought possible.  why exactly these cunning predatory creatures emit that exact sound. its a sound that the base of which comes up through the ground and hits you exactly in the stomach. and then because the sound is so completely frightening your stomach and its contents becomes a massive issue. now fear and bravery are strange things. your fear leads you to the point you desperately need the loo - whilst your bravery is linked to how urgently you need to go. so at a point in this cacophony of lion sound i charged off from the safety of the paper thin tent and  into the night,  to answer natures call. and no it wasnt the lions i was answering. how i did not get eaten is a mystery only Africa can explain. as the next day we saw lion spore all around the paper tent and a big young male lion  made his way into the veld close by our camp very early the next morning.

Africa in  its raw undiluted form is incredible - however from then on i didnt go further than 1m from the vehicle - the little metal cubicle of safety. now i am braver in the bush now days but i made 1 resolution - i would never ever go into the deep bush again in someone elses vehicle - i would only go into the bush if i was driving and only in my own transport.