Where's TD?

TDWoj

Administrator
Staff member
Well, I applied at the furniture shop today, but the job doesn't start until the end of August, they wouldn't give me any details about rates of pay (if it's commission only, or if there's a minimum hourly wage that goes with it), and besides which, if it doesn't start until the end of August, it doesn't solve my immediate cash flow problems.

I am now determined to find the $100 necessary to get signed up with a talent agency for working as a movie extra. There's all sorts of shoots going on around town right now. Surely there's work for the likes of me - they don't all have to be young and pretty, do they?

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To all my friends here, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your kind words when I was feeling down, stressed, or anxious. Your good wishes lifted my spirits and made my dark days bright.
 

TDWoj

Administrator
Staff member
Sometimes, I wonder if the universe has a certain "flow" to it. How, for example, if you are thinking of someone you haven't thought of in a while, and a day or two later, they phone you. Or if you really, really need something, suddenly, it's just there.

As some of you know, I've been anxious about work. Rather, anxious about the lack of work. I know that the graphic design industry is having a serious downturn, and I'm not the only one in the business to be unemployed.

I've been thinking for a while that it was time to find a new line of work - but at my age, what is there?

In a half-serious kind of way, I thought I'd like to try breaking into the movies. Yes, go on, laugh - but there are lots of things to do in movies besides being mega movie stars. I thought I'd try something simple, and bottom of the rung - being a movie extra (or, as they call them here in Canada, a "background player").

Almost immediately, on my first temp job for the convention service supplier company, I met a young woman who also worked from time to time as - you guessed it - a movie extra. I asked her a few things about it, got the name of her agency, but then ran into a strange roadblock insofar as the agency was listed, but it had an old address and telephone number and I couldn't contact them.

Well, I thought, this is a sign - that I shouldn't do it.

But then I ran into another person who also did work as a movie extra. And just the other day, I ran into a third person who is working as an extra.

But there was still one little roadblock - I needed $100.

What for? Investigation revealed that in the case of movie extras, one had to pay most agencies an upfront fee of $100. This is just for extras; if you were a member of ACTRA (Canadian performers union) you didn't have to.

Having so little work over the summer, $100 was something I simply couldn't come up with.

Then, in conversation with an acquaintance the other day, I mentioned about this $100 fee to sign up.

The next day, I found an envelope slipped under my door with $100 in it, with a little note about following dreams.

What do you think?
 

GlimmerMan

Huge Member
Ah I see. I guess that's OK then. Follow those dreams, TD. I was an extra on a couple of occasions in a bad soap opera we used to have here called 'Brookside'. It sucked. I sat around all day reading magazines and then had to sit in a 'pub' with a glass of coloured water with a bit of fairy liquid in it which was supposed to be beer and pretend to talk to my 'partner'. Unfortunately, when the show was aired, I could clearly be seen in the background mouthing very dramatically "This is sh*t!" Hahahahaha! I wonder when it will be on an outtakes show? Mind you - I did get paid £80 for basically doing nothing and I didn't have to pay any fee to join the agency. Best of luck to you.

GMan
 
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