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Sunday 29 October 2017

Actors, Extras and Support Artists.

If you are an Extra working in films and TV, or to use the modern vernacular Supporting Artiste, I would suggest you stop reading this now as I am about to be rude about you.

Well, some of you. 

Three times a year the actor Toby Osmond and I run a networking event in London for actors, writers, directors, producers, financiers, distributors, sales agents, casting directors, crew etc. to meet one another.

Needless to say, a great many actors have been asking to join in. If we don’t know them we check them out. A number of times I read their IMDb credits and it says things like “man in bar” in this TV series and “city banker” in that feature film. There are dozens of listing all with the same none named parts.

This is not acting. It’s an extras work. Important work but it is different from acting. 

They open a door in the background of a scene being filmed and then walk silently in and go to the bar. That’s it. Is that acting?

It does not involve that much skill. No three years of training at the Mr. McGill School of Extras living off baked beans and doing the night shift at some burger bar in order to pay the fees. 

A true professional extra is worth their weight in gold. I used to employ a gay couple who worked all the time as they were so good and knew the game. They made such a good living at it they did not have to do anything else, although this was in the 70's and 80's when there were far fewer extras than there are today. Neither of them, however, would have ever called themselves an actor. 



Acting is a great skill honed over many years and it is hard learned either at a drama school or else those who (like myself back in the day) have come up through the ranks of theatre rep, tours, fringe work, TIE and small parts. Now I have just returned to acting after so long I realise just how good so many of them are, especially those who can do comedy. 

All actors have earned their dues.

Now thanks to IMDb extras and supporting artists are listed as actors. 

These extras are now putting themselves forward for jobs that they do not have the skills for. 



Over the last few years I have met so many of these self-proclaimed “ actors” in Soho members clubs, or at parties or in Cannes and they swan about saying that they are actors but by the very saying of the word “ I am an actor” they are aligning themselves to Helen Mirren or Derek Jacobi, Gemma Arterton or Ben Whishaw.



They are extras. A none speaking body who sits or walks from A to B. They need to know how to do it of course, but is it acting? 

I recently played George V on TV and the extra who I fed my lines to was so receptive that I was thankful for his contribution as it resulted in my giving a better performance. He, however, said he was a supporting artist NOT an actor. 

That's the difference. 

Now there is nothing at all wrong with being an extra, at all. It is a very important function and we need them to make our dramas real, and I feel I should point out that I am not attacking those extras or support artists who call themselves extras or SA's. 



Who I am attacking, are those who give themselves delusions of grandeur by proclaiming themselves to be professional actors and post elaborate credits on IMDb, not as extras which would say "uncredited" which is fine, but they make up character names that are not in the script and so they are profiled as actors. 

These people come to Toby and my networking events and talk to directors and casting directors saying they are actors. They are wasting these people's time that could be taken up by actors who really need a job. 


Toby and I only want proper legitimate actors at our events. Real actors who are looking for work. Not posers pretending to be actors. It's hard enough for actors as it is.

I have myself done extra work. In the early 1970’s I played the title role in a West End and then touring production of THE WINSLOW BOY. As I had not any training I was nervous about acting on television. A friend of mine at Yorkshire Television arranged for me to spend two weeks as an extra on a brand new TV series called EMMERDALE FARM which was broadcast in just a few regions of the UK at the time in the afternoon after the lunchtime news.



This was invaluable because I learned so much watching how the actors pitched their performances which was very different to what I was used to onstage. I also understood about camera angles and how to hit marks without looking. Therefore, when I would later play some big acting roles on TV I knew what to do without doing it badly and looking like a fool, which would have happened if I had not been an extra. I also actually liked doing it and it was then very well paid. I am not sure if that is the case now. 

I also have no problem with actors who down on their luck who do some extra work to get by. These actors I admire. I have given dozens of acting friends extra work jobs in the past to help pay their bills. 

Neither do I have a problem with the person doing extra work with the intention of becoming an actor. I did this re TV. I have met several directors/ producers over the years who have helped extras become actors. One director I know was so impressed with an extra she had lines written for him. He is now a full-time actor. 

My beef is with those extras that are just extras and never want to do anything else. They often have other well paid jobs and I have been told by them that they do it for fun and the money is a bit of pocket money. So few actors these days earn very much money at all given how such a large number only work a few weeks of the year. This type of extra really must stop announcing to the world and his wife that they are actors. Making up a character name and putting it down on IMDb is wrong if they have no lines. 

Think about it, if every Orc or stormtrooper or Titanic passenger did this then the credits on IMDb for certain films would be enormous. 

I have collected business cards from so many of them over time in which they announce Mr. Big Head, Actor (not extra).


A duck should say it’s a duck and not a swan if it's not a swan.

If you are an extra call yourself an extra. It is a good profession. But it is not acting. There is I am afraid a big difference. 

I will always defend the actor. Of all the sectors within the entertainment industry, no other group of people is as dedicated. No other group of people has to put up with the slings and arrows they face. Therefore we need to respect their craft. 

Wednesday 4 October 2017

Back up data issues.

This is a tale for those in post-production. A kind of "Nightmare On Backup Disc's". 

There is just one scene in my latest doc that I could not recreate. Other's would be very difficult but I could get around them. It was the UK's June 8th Election Day and then the post-mortem that followed first thing the next morning.

This is what happens on any shoot - I put the rushes on my laptop, then transfer them to a portable drive and then to a larger drive. If Don McVey is shooting (he was not on this shoot) he also transfers the rushes to a drive I bought him. I then take everything to Jon Walker who backs up everything three times. 

Thus I have everything backed either five or six times. 

Jon had put all the rushes online because Emlyn Price and I have spent much time paper editing them. These were of course not the master 4K rushes and could not be used in the final film. Included in them were the election day ones. 

However, Jon's copy of those particular rushes corrupted, and they were the only rushes he had not backed up multiple times. Not to worry as I had it back up numerous times. 

It turned out I had all the rushes on the portable hard drive EXCEPT the election day ones. They were on there as that's how I transport them to Jon's. They have disappeared. How ?

Shit. 

My worry was because we had filmed all through election night, I was so tired that maybe I had transferred the rushes from my laptop straight onto Jon's computer. I had long ago wiped those rushes from my computer so as I Ubered back to see if I had them I was extremely apprehensive as I was worried that in my tiredness I forgot to back them up. 

Luckily I did have them all on my other larger hard drive. 

I mention all of this because I have worked with filmmakers who only have two backups of their rushes. One recently argued with me with some authority that two was enough because the probability of two hard drives messing up was a million to one......or something. 

So the moral of this tale is backup, backup, backup and once more backup.


As a resulted of this post on my Facebook page There is an interesting Coda from sound man Phil Antigua -  

At the end of the day myself as an Audio Engineer and you as a Filmmaker, we record and back up our data effectively onto rust-coated, plastic, spinning discs. Well... SSD’s are technically clustered arrays of transistors but where it all ends up on are always rusty discs! Digital archiving is in crisis. There is still no secure way of backing up any project today and even storing 4K RAW files in twenty different locations (virtual or otherwise) becomes increasingly insane as we move to 6K, 8K RAW images & beyond... Technicians & engineers must provide us with a physical archive format that doesn’t depend upon the magnetic charge of rusty metal stuck onto a spinning disc or tape. Seems archaic when you say it like that!