Fate Awaits at Central Casting

NEW YORK, NY – Feb. 18, 2010 – When it’s cold, down in the 20s, pretty much everybody wears a hat to keep their head warm. But it gives me a case of hat hair that makes me look like I have a bad comb-over.

Today I needed to look my best. It was showtime! I braved the elements sans head covering. An ersatz form of immortality was at stake: appearing in the background in movies and tv shows.

I went down to Central Casting to register as a background actor.

They’re up on the 24th floor of an office building on Sixth Avenue. I walked into a conference room where a small knot of about 14 other hopefuls were filling out paperwork. It was eerily quiet. No wisecracks. (Hard for me to keep quiet. But I was good.) Most were young, in their 20s and 30s. Most were well dressed. One guy was wearing leather and had piercings and tattoos. (He’ll probably get more work!) We went one at a time and had a picture snapped. Then a young fellow explained the system to us.

For the past 80 years, Central Casting has served Hollywood (but not New York) with bit actors, those guys and gals standing in the background behind the principal actors. No, they aren’t just ordinary people on the street because ordinary people would stop and gawk at the camera. Also, with multiple takes, the background would be constantly changing. In one shot, you’d see the lady in the pink cap picking through the post cards at an outdoor display. And in the next shot, she’d be gone. Then in the next shot, she’d be back again!

They’re called “background actors” and the pay is atrocious. Non-union, it’s $85 for a day running 10 to 12 hours.

You could do better at Wendys.

Union is slightly better, $140 plus overtime.

But in either case, you get the opportunity to schmooze with other actors, find out how the system works, get some tips on a good head-shot photographer or some inside info on who’s hiring.

Maybe even get upgraded to a “principal”. That’s gotta be in the backs of everybody’s mind. It certainly is in mine! On a show like “Law & Order”, a principal starts at $1,051 a day. If you speak under 5 lines (“Under 5”), you get $464. “They went thataway”. And if you look like a doctor, as I do, I could stretch out “congenital aneurysm of the sub-arachnoid” into a three-minute read.

Central Casting is quite new in New York, only four years. But there are a ton of TV shows being shot here: all three Law & Orders, Gossip Girl, White Collar. The Jimmy Fallon show sometimes uses background actors. 30 Rock. Blind Side.

There’s an odd quirk in union requirements. If a show is shot on videotape, it’s AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists). But if it’s on film, it’s under the jurisdiction of a different union - SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild). Actually, I am a member of both. But I am waaaaaay behind in my dues. Like about $3,000 worth. So unless something changes, I’m going to work as a non –union actor.

The opportunities for non-union work are quite limited. All the network TV series are union. But with background actors, it’s a bit different. On TV shows, only the first 25 have to be union. And with movies, the first 85. So if there’s a sprinkling of people walking behind Sam Waterston on “Law & Order”, they’d all be SAG members. (It’s shot on film.) But if there was a big crowd, 25 of them would have to be union and the rest non-union.

Because of the cold weather, they’re not shooting a lot of exteriors. But in a month or so, that will change.

Now that I’m properly registered, had my picture snapped, paid a $25 photo fee, I’m in the running.

Fate awaits.

Copyright 2010 James C. Lewis