What it's like to be an extra in a football movie
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by Joliecat
Last December 1, I had the opportunity to be a crowd scene extra in the football movie "The Comebacks." They are starting to advertise it on the internet and say that it will be out in October.
They were filming the movie scene on a Friday night, at the Fullerton State football stadium. They had put signs up to make it look like a stadium in Texas. When I first drove up, I could see thousands of people in the stands and thought, wow, this will be really crowded. Then, after checking in with the production people, it turned out that 75% of the "people" in the stands were dressed up torso dummies with hats, shirts and jackets (no arms, legs or feet).
There were about five hundred of us on hand for the scene. The director instructed us to yell and cheer, which we did over and over again while they performed various takes.
Another film crew out on the field took shots of guys playing football while closer to us, the director and the camera people ran several takes of a shot where the quarterback yells back and forth with his coach. He then turns to his girlfriend after she runs up to the sidelines, they talk for a moment, she offers him her breasts to touch, which he does. After that he pumps his fist in the air and grabs his helmet to race onto the field with the other players.
That may sound like a simple little shot, but they ran about fifteen takes of it! In between takes they would fix the girlfriend's long blond hair and monkey around with the lights and gels. Someone else kept telling us how to yell and cheer, what to say, and so on.
Movie making is a tedious, painstaking process!
