When I’m not travelling, I work as a Supporting Artist (SA) or extra. Basically, if you watch a film, TV show or advert, I could be one of the blurry crowd of people miming in the background! It’s a great job to balance with travelling because I can work on productions whenever I’m back home. It can be long and cold hours, but most of the time it’s also great fun!
The tales I have from set are second to none, but I never thought I’d come across a film crew on my travels. Now I have a story from a set somewhere I wasn’t expecting at all: Wadi Mujib, a canyon in Jordan.
I’m in the process of writing a whole post on my experience at Wadi Mujib. It was an incredible adventure with twists and turns along the way, both metaphorical and literal! But this story is from before I even entered the canyon, back when I was still on dry land.
Making my way into Wadi Mujib with a few friends I’d met through my hostel, we passed a small film crew in the Information Centre.
Picture it: two cast, a single camera and a five-person crew. It was hard to work out whether they were filming a small film or show, or whether it was a documentary of some kind.
My travel buddies and I paid them little attention, instead focusing on fastening our wet shoes and life jackets. Suddenly we were approached by one of the film crew, who beckoned to me and one of my friends. I think he was probably the director as it was such a small crew, but I’ll call him the assistant director just in case. Other SAs will know that it’s so rare the director even looks your way that it feels a bit like an inflation of my ego to assume he was the director. So I’ll call him the AD.
“Can you stand here?” the AD asked, placing us in front of the rack of life jackets. Perplexed, we did as we were told. There were two other young women from Germany standing there already. Neither of them looked like they had any idea what was going on either.
“When we say ‘action’, you put on a life jacket and walk away,” the AD told us. “OK?”
My heart nearly stopped beating. “Yes!” I cried. The other women looked at me, bewildered.
“Guys,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. “I’ve totally got this.”
What were the chances? I’d travelled nearly 3000 miles to the Middle East and out of nowhere I’d been picked from a crowd of tourists to be an extra in a Jordanian production! And they’d managed to pick me, someone that is literally paid to do this on a regular basis!
“Why are we standing here?” my friend asked me. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to be the background in their film,” I told her, unable to stop myself from adding excitedly, “This is my job!”
She didn’t seem to understand why I was so thrilled. Instead, she was confused. “So what do we do?”
“They’ll call ‘action’,” I explained, “and then we put on the life jackets and walk away, acting completely normal.” Challenging stuff.
Part of the fun of Wadi Mujib is that the canyon is full of waist-high water. I was thus only wearing a swimming costume with my shorts. As we waited for the film crew to set up the shot, the AD came towards me and angled me away from the camera. I got the message; I was evidently wearing too few clothes for Jordanian viewers!
Luckily, I’m a professional (*tosses hair*), so this didn’t faze me. If there is one thing I know how to do well, it’s stand still facing away from a camera. I can also add miming and walking from A to B to my list of accomplishments.
After a few moments hanging around, the AD called action. I put on my life jacket, expertly remembering not to turn my cleavage towards the camera (I told you, I’m a pro). Having fastened the buckle, I looked up at the other ladies. They were all staring at me, clearly waiting for a signal from the expert. Smiling, I led them out of shot and real dialogue began. Of course, it was all in Arabic, so I had no idea what was going on.
Eventually the AD called cut and came over to thank us. There was no need for a second take. What can I say; I’m no amateur. As the AD turned back to the crew, I knew I couldn’t let him leave just yet.
“This is my job!” I said enthusiastically to him, pointing at myself and the others. “I’m an extra!”
The AD stared at me for a second, then smiled and nodded. He didn’t understand what I was trying to tell him. If only I’d learnt how to say “extra” in Arabic, along with “thank you” and “hello”.
Most people would have left it there, but not me. I needed him to appreciate how good I was at standing in the back of shot. It was essential that he understood he’d just found himself a professional background artist. Really, he was lucky I wasn’t invoicing him for my skills.
The other three ladies drifted away, leaving me alone with the AD. As he too turned to continue working, I began speaking again.
“This is my job!” I repeated eagerly. “In England, where I’m from, I do this every day!” The poor AD was still nonplussed and tried to turn back to his work. But I refused to give in.
“This is my job!” I said for the third time, this time pointing at the camera.
This did the trick. A big smile of understanding crossed the AD’s face and he suddenly became as enthusiastic as me.
“You are alone?” he asked me. Normally this isn’t a question I enjoy men asking me when I travel solo, but for this I made an exception. The AD was gesturing round at the film crew. “Come with us!” he said.
The nature of SA work is that if you say “no”, you don’t work. As I’m sure other freelancers can appreciate, it’s ingrained into me to say “yes” to jobs that come my way. Regardless of this not being a real job offer, I still strongly contemplated joining the crew as they traipsed through Wadi Mujib.
Ultimately it was timings that stood in my way. Our taxi driver had given us two hours to make our way through the canyon and back. It seemed manageable on its own, but I knew that with a film crew in tow this would be impossible. I’ve worked on a lot of film sets, and I wouldn’t describe a single one of them as fast-paced.
Reluctantly I said goodbye to the AD, who bid me farewell just as fondly. I ended up enjoying my adventure in Wadi Mujib, with it surpassing all my expectations and surprising me in many ways. But what a completely different adventure I nearly had!
I still need to scour recent, low-budget Jordanian productions for my swimsuit-clad cameo. It’s the only proof that this surreal and bizarrely coincidental encounter really did happen. And at least I know there’s a job waiting for me if I ever move to Jordan!
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2 Comments
Summer · 02/17/2020 at 4:28 PM
What a funny coincidence! It’d be cool if you were able to find what they were filming!
Daisy · 02/22/2020 at 11:03 AM
Definitely such a coincidence! Yep, I need to have a really good look. It would be so funny to find!