Part of the Job...

Did you ever get to do any speaking roles?

A few times. Very small parts which are best forgotten, trust me. :cool:

It doesn't happen very often. It's called an upgrade: extra --> actor. (Same union - more $). I also worked as a stand-in a few times. And, before I did extra work, I worked at various crew positions.

BTW, the above photo of me is cropped. I occupy a smaller part of the frame in the actual film. It is also very brief. If you blink, you'll miss it. Such is the fate of a mere extra. Most of the time we aren't visible at all in a recognizable way. In the biz we are referred to simply as "background." If you've seen a film shoot, you may have heard the words shouted "Rolling!" then "Background!" (that's us) and then "Action!."

Except when Clint Eastwood is directing. He just says softly, "Whenever you're ready."
 
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All you Hollywood peeps need a thread just for the secrets behind the scenes! lol Jad has shared some great stories.
 
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For me at least, "Hollywood" was 18-hour days in an art studio!

Most of my stories can't be told in a family setting. This was 40 years ago when I was young and knew everything, lol.
 
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For me at least, "Hollywood" was 18-hour days in an art studio!

Most of my stories can't be told in a family setting. This was 40 years ago when I was young and knew everything, lol.
LOL I know...Jad is very careful not to give info that might harm someones rep or be considered private...or too "much".
 
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Posting on another thread reminded me of another non-value added activity we had to endure in the the 90s during the Total Quality Management (TQM) craze, team building events.

Some of these were very low key, like the team going bowling or having lunch together. Others were week long extravaganzas at distant, high class conference centers that revivaled upscale resorts. There were companies, often with very proactive sounding corporate names that all seem to end with "Group," that were paid big bucks to run the events. They would focus on communication and trust among team members, and there were lots of silly games involved. Two of the most popular were a variation of "telephone" we played as kids, and falling backwards to be caught by a teammate. The stupidest one I ever had to do was build a putter out of vintage Tinkertoys and play a one hole miniature golf course.

I remember thinking the average American taxpayer would have been appalled at the money spent to send 60-70 people cross country to a luxury conference center to play games.
 
Posting on another thread reminded me of another non-value added activity we had to endure in the the 90s during the Total Quality Management (TQM) craze, team building events.

Some of these were very low key, like the team going bowling or having lunch together. Others were week long extravaganzas at distant, high class conference centers that revivaled upscale resorts. There were companies, often with very proactive sounding corporate names that all seem to end with "Group," that were paid big bucks to run the events. They would focus on communication and trust among team members, and there were lots of silly games involved. Two of the most popular were a variation of "telephone" we played as kids, and falling backwards to be caught by a teammate. The stupidest one I ever had to do was build a putter out of vintage Tinkertoys and play a one hole miniature golf course.

I remember thinking the average American taxpayer would have been appalled at the money spent to send 60-70 people cross country to a luxury conference center to play games.
I remember when this concept of team building was a thing too. We did the fall backward game and the one where you have to lean against each other to keep from falling. There were various assignments to Build something or follow some directions as a group. I HATED this type of training. Too much having to touch people you really didn’t even like sitting next to. ;vo
 
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Right now my employer is in the middle of a new marketing effort with an online emphasis. All employees are being asked to sign-up for various social media platforms to "like" the company posts.

I just spent the last year getting off social media "platforms" and am not interested in signing-on again. I hope they don't make this mandatory or otherwise lean on us to do it. I would make an account with a fake name, and they can do that themselves without me.
 
Another mandatory, time wasting function was the weekly staff meeting. A boss would usually pass on a few worthwhile tidbits, then muse wistfully. These meetings always ended with "around the room," each person in the organization was given the opportunity to update the group on what they were doing. This was usually painful.

Every organization I worked in had one or more of what I called "look at me, I'm wonderful" types who reveled in telling us how busy/important they were. They'd go onto excruciating detail about issues they were working. For reasons I never understood, these guys were almost always EEs.

Late in my time in Joint Strike Fighter, we got a new boss, a no nonsense female colonel who was a descendant of a famous WWII general. Her first staff meeting was moving along smartly, and then we got to one of our two self aggrandizing types. He was maybe a half dozen sentences into his spiel when she stopped him cold saying something like, "While we all appreciate your brilliance, we all also have work to do. Is there anything the team as a whole needs to know to do its job?". He stammered something and she went to the next person. At that point I was ready to nominate her for sainthood.
 
Too many meetings are a sign of a dysfunctional organization. I hate those regular "update" meetings. Always stuff that could be handled with a simple email.

A good Project Manager is worth their weight in gold.