AET 0 Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 OK, I'm watching these TV series, and noticed all these extras (ie not the main characters) who are there but NEVER talk - not even a yes or comment when they're spoken to. Anyone know why? If they said just 1 word, would they need to be paid more? Link to post Share on other sites
bong 0 Posted June 10, 2003 Share Posted June 10, 2003 I think its the rules - open their mouth = pay them more money. Some tv series are better than others at being discreet about it. Link to post Share on other sites
nzlegend 1 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 I was an extra on a Japanese TV drama, it was a Spanish cafe scene and I had to sit there in the said cafe pretending to talk but not actually making any sound, just moving my lips. The dumb actress screwed up her lines 20 times, it was a long afternoon. But got paid ichiman Link to post Share on other sites
oblivion 5 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Cool - get it on video to keep? Link to post Share on other sites
nekobi 0 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 hmm, i'm probably wrong, but i think it's something like if you speak, you have to join the screen actors guild. then you probably have to be paid more. Link to post Share on other sites
MistaSparkle 0 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 Kamoshika - That's awesome... how did you get hooked up being an extra?? Link to post Share on other sites
sam_casper 0 Posted June 11, 2003 Share Posted June 11, 2003 i know a couple of people that do extras work, they get a couple of hundred a day i think, thats just to wander around in the background and "pretend" to talk.... Theres always adds in our local papers for extras... so either they arent paying as much as they used to or as Kamo said its very boring!!! Link to post Share on other sites
sunrise 0 Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 I've done a bit of extra work here in the past, but not for a few years. They get away with murder in Japan when it comes to ripping off eager foreigners! As people have already said, in the west anyway, the union won't allow extras to have speaking parts. They would need to be paid a different rate. However, in Japan, or at least from the extra company I've done some work with, it seems that you get paid the same amount whether you speak or don't speak. Well, for foreigners working with this one agency anyway. I think they've decided that the extras will be happy to speak if asked, (I sure am) and so they don't bother to up the wages, although it depends on the part, perhaps it pays a tiny bit more sometimes.... The unions would never allow that kinda thing in the west, as someone like me (not to mention the agency) is undercutting the basic acting rate. Plus I think in the west you have to register with the union as a professional actor, or an extra beforehand., though I could easily be wrong about that. The non speaking parts are usually boring unless you're in small-scale scenes and actually have to do something interesting in front of the camera but I've done a few so-called acting parts. For those gigs I didn't care about the money so much because I just enjoyed to have a chance to act cos it's a lot of fun (I've never had any acting training). I've been murdered on a TV drama. That was fun - I got to wear a glamorous 50s silk nightgown and then I got strangled. The hardest part was having to keep my eyes open without blinking for the extremely long 'after death shot' when the police are there and I'm lying on the ground in the background looking dead. Another time I played a psychic on the TV show Unbelievable, some story about an airline pilot who died in the 30s or 40s and a psychic was consulted in trying to recover money or something. I had to do the exorcist-style rolling eyes, and then 'channel' the dead pilot who spoke through me. I thought it was totally corny (the Japanese directors ALWAYS want you to overact like crazy!!!), however when I saw the finished program it was a good effect because they had superimposed a 'ghost' of the pilot in the picture and it looked kinda cool. Another time I played someone who had gone crazy from the Ebola virus for a documentary on Ebola - that was fun - blood and sores all over my face and having to pretend to have convulsions! So when you see those Japanese TV shows with the real dramatic voice and then you see a film of the story supposedly happening, if there's any foreigners in there they're probably 'extras'. There are also professional actors here who are foreign, and they will get larger parts in TV dramas, etc and I'm sure they get paid more for that. The guy that strangled me was an American guy who's kinda well known on TV here (or used to be a few years ago), and he also works as a trainer in his own fitness place. (Can't remember his name and I'd never heard of him before the job, but then I don't watch japanese TV), and in the same film there were at least 2 other gaijin actors with larger parts (maybe speaking Japanese, not sure, I've only ever had to speak English and they either leave it in or have it dubbed later. MistaSparkle, you sounded like you might be interested in that kind of work. If you are I can give you some phone numbers of agencies, though the money's not good with that particular company who totally rips you off.... however there's also a bunch of companies that book people for TV commercials. To do that you have to go to auditions (no transport pay for that), but if you get the gig it can pay reasonably well. I never won any auditions, the only one I got was out of default - they did everything they could to find someone else, they kept putting off the final confirmation, but in the end they had to use me because they needed a female who could play piano (actually marimba, but where do you find a gaijin marimba player in Japan?), as I had to mime a marimba part on a TV commercial. That was a fun gig - they even gave me a coach to teach me the marimba part and I talked them into letting me sing on the recording too, since they knew I do that for a living. (Of course that paid extra). Link to post Share on other sites
nzlegend 1 Posted June 12, 2003 Share Posted June 12, 2003 Quote: Originally posted by MistaSparkle: Kamoshika - That's awesome... how did you get hooked up being an extra?? An aquaintance called me one day, she had done lots of work as an extra through an agent, she went on that TV show with gaijins of all nationalities on it talking about strange Japanese stuff. But this one day her agent needed more foreigners to fill up the cafe in the show and she knew I had Fridays off so she asked me to come, so I went. interesting to do once but would soon get tedious me thinks. Heard from a buddy back home whose mate was a "Lord of the Rings" extra - said it was long, hard and boring with little glory but cool to be part of it and see behind the scenes Link to post Share on other sites
LiquidX 0 Posted June 13, 2003 Share Posted June 13, 2003 That must have been awesome. Sounds like movie sets are a major disappointment to people looking in from the outside. A friend of mine once went to Universal for a shoot, can't remember what movie, but he said for the most part it was people waiting while the tech heads did their stuff. Interesting to see behind the scenes though. Link to post Share on other sites
magotpie 0 Posted June 14, 2003 Share Posted June 14, 2003 I've done some extras work back in the US - as someone else said lots of hangin around and waiting, but interesting to see how things go all the same. I wasn't allowed to talk, if an actor talked to me may part was to nod. Link to post Share on other sites
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