Chapter 514: It’s Hard to Be an Extra

"Extras, gather here!"

"Hurry up, we're about to start!"

An assistant director, holding a loud speaker, stood on the square of the main hall of the Qin Palace and shouted.

The contestants of "Actors Please Take Your Place", wearing eunuchs' and maids' uniforms in the style of the Warring States Period, took small steps and filed out of the side hall next to them.

They couldn't take big steps, there was no way, this kind of clothing was tight on the lower body, and only allowed them to walk quickly in small steps.

After they finally stood in the square, the casting director in charge of these extras continued, "Your task today is very simple."

"Just play the roles of maids and eunuchs well!"

How to play?

Very simple.

More than a dozen stage managers came forward and quickly led these contestants to their respective positions.

There were both inside and outside the palace.

They had only one task, which was to stand still and do the work of attendants.

Today, the "Strategies of the Warring States" crew is going to shoot the scene of the King of Qin attending court.

In this play, there are about 20 scenes involving court meetings, and the crew concentrated on five days, intending to shoot them all in one go.

Today, five or six scenes were arranged, starting at 8 am and lasting until 5 pm, when the sunset begins to set.

In other words, these guest actors will stand guard for eight hours, except for an hour for lunch at noon!

You don't need to do anything, just stand where you should stand and watch the leading actors of the trial ministers and princes "acting".

Then kneel down in the line prompts of "attending court" and "kneeling in peace" from a special actor who specializes in playing eunuchs, and that's it.

Lines?

No.

Shots?

It is estimated that when shooting the leading actors, you can occasionally bring half of a contestant's face.

This is the plain and unpretentious day-long shooting task of ordinary extras in Hengdian.

At the beginning, the contestants of "Actors Please Take Your Place" still had some expectations, after all, many of them were experiencing crew work for the first time.

However, when they stood there blankly for half an hour, watching the third-tier male actor who played the male lead standing in the hall and arguing with the emperor "indignantly", starting, NG, and then starting again, after repeating this several times, the contestants who thought it was interesting at the beginning began to feel bored.

Watching these actors repeat the same scene back and forth is really boring.

"Hey, brother."

"Is it usually like this for extras, just standing here for a whole day?"

Standing outside the hall, Marco, who was responsible for playing the eunuch guarding the gate, chatted with the guard standing next to him, who was wearing armor and holding a long spear in his hand.

This guard was a real extra, hired by the crew for 4,000 yuan a month, specializing in playing non-speaking roles such as guards, attendants, and subordinates.

"What else can we do?" The extra named Li Jiu looked straight ahead, just opened his mouth slightly, and whispered to Marco: "Being able to stand still for a whole day is already a relatively easy role."

"It's tiring to play a passerby. We have to keep walking back and forth on the street. Every time the director called "cut", we sat down and rested directly on the spot, otherwise we would be too tired to walk after walking for a long time."

"The easiest thing is to play a dead person."

"Is it easy to play a dead person?" Marco asked curiously.

"Of course it's easy!"

"Especially for anti-Japanese war films, sometimes you have to shoot battlefield scenes all day long. To play a dead person, you just need to put on makeup, find a hole, and lie down for a whole day."

"I know a buddy who is very good. Even if there is constant gunfire on the set, he can still sleep."

"He specifically looks for dead people in anti-Japanese war films. Every time he gets a role, he goes to the Internet cafe all night the night before. He gathers at the set at six in the morning, buries two blood bags in his chest, and falls asleep on the ground."

"I woke up from a good sleep and made money."

Listening to Li Jiu's sharing, Marco was stunned. This was so different from the "actors" he heard from his teachers in school.

"Is it true?" He asked in disbelief.

"Of course I'm teasing you." Li Jiu couldn't help laughing. He felt that these high-achieving actors who were said to be selected from universities such as Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, and Shanghai Theatre Academy were just like that. They were stupid and didn't even know common sense.

"How could the crew really let you sleep all day?"

"But I didn't lie to you. My friend is really amazing. He can fall asleep on the "battlefield". He was caught by the assistant director several times and was scolded a lot."

"Oh, oh." Marco nodded blankly.

At this time, their chat finally attracted the attention of the assistant director on the scene. The assistant director with a tuft of mustache immediately picked up the loudspeaker and scolded: "The two extras standing outside the hall!"

"We are shooting, what are you talking about!"

After being interrupted by him, the scene being shot was wasted and had to be reposted.

Several actors who were speaking their lines had some dissatisfaction on their faces and turned their heads to look outside the hall.

Being stared at by a group of "ministers" all of a sudden, Marco panicked and quickly bent down to apologize: "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

That is, he was a contestant of "Actors Please Take Your Place", not a real extra, otherwise everyone from the assistant director to the group leader would have to teach him a lesson.

"Don't do it again!"

"Try again!"

"Get ready!"

In a side hall of Qin Palace.

At this moment, the side hall has already been converted into a "studio", and more than a dozen monitors show the real-time footage taken by more than a dozen cameramen on site.

The chat between Marco and his extras was naturally faithfully filmed.

Seeing the clear and stupid Marco, Wu Yuan shook his head and laughed, "This part can't be cut."

"This group performance is quite interesting, he is a joker!"

"Marco is using his words to help the audience understand the working conditions of the extras."

Being an extra performer is really not an easy job.

Playing a dead person is not as easy as Li Jiu said.

Although being a dead person is indeed easier than roles such as passers-by and guards, as there is no need to stand for hours or walk back and forth to consume physical strength, but to play a dead person, especially a dead person in a battlefield scene, you must wear death makeup.

That is to say, a lot of blood bags must be stuffed on the body, then the blood bags must be broken, and a lot of dirt must be smeared on the face.

Lying on the ground all day with such a dirty and smelly thing is not a comfortable thing.

Especially for some crews with strict requirements, in order to prevent cheating, you "die" in this position. Generally, during these scenes, you cannot move. You must stay in this position and wait for all the scenes related to this scene. You can't move until the scene is finished.

It's also because playing a dead person has more restrictions on group performances, so they can get an extra fifty yuan a day.

"Everyone says that the entertainment industry is good, and they are vying to enter the entertainment industry, become an actor, and come to Hengdian to make a career."

"But there are not so many good things in the world."

"Being an extra in Hengdian, unless you really have no other job options, is really not a good thing. It can only be said to be a waste of youth."

Wu Yuan, who has worked as the assistant director of the crew in Dream for more than ten years, knows very well how difficult it is to perform as a group, and how hopeless and futureless it is.

"I hope that after our program is broadcast, the reality of the life and work conditions of these extras will be able to cool down the current overheated situation of some young people who regard Baoqiang as their idol and desperately want to come to Hengdian to work as extras. "(End of chapter)