My first casting on the TV show "Community"
So I’m writing this to share with you my day on the set of the TV show “Community”. I figure it would let all you know what it’s like to be an Extra on a TV show, and just share a few stories that happened to me.
On Wednesday, I received two text messages to the phone saying that someone either me or Dawn had been casted. Dawn was casted about a month ago on the show “Community”, so she had been down this road before. Realizing there was two messages I called Dawn and asked her to check my email, in the off chance someone actually casted me. Sure enough, there in my email inbox sat an email saying I too had been casted with Dawn.
So our call time was at 11:30AM, planning to get up at 8, we ended waking up earlier and getting up earlier. We left earlier and ended up at Paramount Studios, around 10:20ish. I planned on staying in the car until the time got closer, but I had to pee like crazy, so we decided to go on the lot to find a bathroom. So we check-in with security, which kind of makes you feel special, cause they check you in and you get this little pass printed up that says so and so is expecting you. So the guard gives us directions, and were off.
Of course the lot we parked on is on the other side of the lot, from the soundstage where we had to check in at. So from what I heard is a 2 mile walk, across the lot we started walking that way. We were walking down the road and I glance at one of the parked golf carts, that read the title “Men of a Certain Age.” Now very few people know, but I will say it here and now…I HAVE A HUGE CRUSH ON SCOTT BAKULA! I don’t care if the man is 50, I’d still do him! I’ve had such a huge crush on him for years, I was obsessed with Quantum Leap! Well Scott Bakula is on the show “Men of a Certain Age”, so immediately I go “Dawn!” as I point to the Golf Cart, my eyes open wide I speak “You know what that means?” to which Dawn responds “No! Melissa No! Don’t make me have to put you on a leash!”
But the urge to pee overrode my hormones as we continued on trying to find a bathroom. Of course the bathroom we find is on the second floor, and by this time I had to pee so bad I honestly don’t think I could make it up a flight of stairs. So I tell Dawn let’s find another one. By that time we’re about half way across the lot, so Dawn says “Why don’t we just go to where we need to check in, cause I know there’s a bathroom over there..” So I agree and we walk over there. Sure enough we find a bathroom and I take care of business, walking back out we realize there are no other people there yet, so we walked around the lot for a little while, killing time until our call time. About 11:15 or so we walked back down to the Wardrobe trailer outside of the Soundstage, and there is a little group of people out and about.
So Dawn and I get in the crowd with everyone else and are just chillin, we start talking with this other extra named Karen, and talking about being casted and things. Now before I go any farther let me say this, Dawn and I are HUGE fans of the show “The Soup” with Joel McHale! We both agree he’s hilarious and we never miss an episode of the show…plus we both think he’s sexy! Joel McHale just happens to be in the show “Community”…SCORE!....Last time Dawn was casted she wasn’t in a scene with Joel, she only got to work with Chevy Chase so I figured there was no way we would work with Joel…but who do you think we see walking down the road? Yep….Joel Mchale…Sunglasses on, talking on the phone, white shirt, jeans …looking oh so sexy! I see him walking up the road and immediately my ovaries send off a code 5 alarm…I mean I’m hearing bells and whistles in my head, so I’m like watching him walk up the road, but I know the number one rule of being an Extra is not to be a fan basically…you’re not supposed to make a big deal over the actors, no asking for autographs or pictures, no talking to the main actors unless they talk to you first, that kind of thing. So I start like kind of glancing at him here and there, trying to stay involved in the conversation Dawn and Karen were having. Honestly, I could care less what they were talking about, I was mainly thinking “Does Dawn know that’s Joel?” Sure enough, he walks by us, and Dawn turns to me and whispers “Was that Joel?” which I simply smile and nod.
To say that upped my excitement would be an understatement, that totally made my day, just seeing him in the flesh. So after a few minutes pass and my ovaries calm down, I start thinking, and I turn to Dawn “Um…If he’s here, you know what that means right?” Dawn simply shakes her head when I continue “That means odds are, he’s gonna be in our scene!” Of course in the back of my head, I’m like No way! I’m not that lucky!...
So finally the AD shows up and we get in line to check in, and get our payroll paperwork. Basically the way it works, is you check in, they give you your time sheet and tax sheet, you fill it out and keep it with you all day, marking down when you go to lunch, and when you get wrapped, then at the end of the day when checking out, you give it back to the AD who signs off on it, then you get a check a week or so later…You get minimum wage 8$ for 8 hours, then time and a half for over time, then double time when you pass 4 hours of overtime.
Anywho, so I go up to check in and the guy “Spyder” asks me for my last name when I say “Matts” as I watch him go down the list I remember that there will be two Matts’s on there so I say “Um…there’s two on there, I’m Melissa” He finds my name on the list, looks at me and goes “Is this Dawn?” pointing to Dawn who was standing next to me. I said “Yeah” to which he says “Sisters?” as Dawn and I both nod, he smiles wide and goes “That’s awesome! You’re the first pair of sister’s we’ve had casted on here” Which of course made me and Dawn smile. It seemed like after that everyone knew we were sisters.
So ‘Spyder’ checks us in and sends us to wardrobe (yeah we get to go to wardrobe), we wait in line, and then it’s our turn. They told us what not to wear so the wardrobe lady, give us the once over looking at what we were wearing then signs us off and approves us. It honestly amazed me how many people didn’t listen and wore what they told us specifically not to wear.
After getting approved there the Props department (yep, we get to go to props too!) came over and took us to where they were located. So we get in line over there, now I honestly have never done this before, so the whole time I’m asking Dawn like a million questions, and I think she was about to kill me. So I go first and the prop guy looks at me and hands me a blue plaid backpack, then pulls out a binder and goes “You get a binder too..” and I’ll admit…I felt kind of special with a binder…and Dawn got an orange Hawaiian backpack. As were walking out of props I turn to Dawn and I’m like “Do I put my binder in my backpack?” and Dawn just like rolls her eyes and she’s like “No, you carry it!” and of course I’m like confused, so I say “Are you sure?” to which Dawn sighs and says back “Melissa, if the prop guy wanted it in your bag, he would of told you to put it in the bag! You’re supposed to carry it in the scene!” So we wait around with our props, filling out the payroll paperwork, and finally ‘spyder’ takes us to holding.
Holding is basically a place where they keep us while they are getting the scene ready for filming. So we’re not like roaming the set, or in this case, so Dawn and I aren’t trying to find Joel McHale’s trailer. Holding for us was another Soundstage, since the scenes we were filming were all outside scenes. So they brought us in to an empty soundstage and all 60 of us, grabbed chairs and sat.
We were in holding for about an hour or so when ‘Spyder’ came and got us. So we followed him to where the set was, which happened to be outside of Paramount’s administration building. So we waited out there for about a half hour, when finally they started placing us. Now at this time, the stand-in’s are on set, so Dawn and I cool were as cucumbers. Well they’re rehearsing the one scene, when the director decides that they need people to block two of the main actors. So who do you think they choose? Oh yeah…you know it…they come to me and Dawn and go “You’re gonna be our blockers…” So we’re listening to the other AD explain to us we had to do. Basically, two of the actors were gonna be walking by a group of the other actors, when they walked by we had to cut in between the two actors and the other group so the camera could cut away.
So the AD is showing us how to do it, so we understand, and we’re all cool and everything. Until I realize, the stand-ins…are..well….stand-ins….and the director calls for the real people to get in position. I’ll give you one guess who’s in our scene…oh yeah…wait for it…of course…who do we see, but mister 6 foot 4 funny man himself, Joel McHale walk out and get in position. And to add to it, he’s the one spot we have to squeeze between to do our blocking, so we are within like touching distance! Touching Distance! (you all will be glad to know, I fought the urge, and didn’t cop a feel once! Now that’s dedication folks!)
Anywho, so we do the scene once with the real actors, trying to ignore the giddiness because Joel Mchale was in the scene, we make it through, do the blocking perfectly we get to the other side. Now no one told us what we were supposed to do once we get off camera on the other side, so were standing there, and one of the other crew members, yells at us to get our attention, telling us to walk back across. So we do what she says, and soon enough the director calls cut. So the crewmember that yelled at us earlier runs over to talk to us, and she goes “The director says one of you looked at the camera, but I don’t think it was your fault. I think I yelled at ya’ll and you looked at me which happened to be right in the area of the camera. So it was my fault, I don’t think you were looking at the camera at all…but just be aware of it” Which was kind of funny, cause then she was like “My bad…” as she walked away. So we had to block a few more times, which went fine.
Now let me say this, when you’re trying to block, and you have 58 other people walking in every other god given direction, it’s hard as hell to get to a position and have a clear walk way at one specific moment! No one else was told that we were blocking, so Dawn and I literally had jump in front of people and do what we could to get there. Sometimes people cut right in front of us and we couldn’t block at all, but we did what we could. One time, I felt so bad! It was our time to block, and we couldn’t get through because of all the people, so I find and opening and practically lunge to get in position and totally shoulder hit this other extra, I mean we ricoched off each other and bounced back, Dawn luckily grabbed me before I fell into Joel and the other actors, and of course we kept on walking like nothing happened. God, I hope they don’t use that one for the show! By the way, I still have no idea who I hit!
So we were still doing the blocking scene over and over again, literally like 10 feet from Joel when he turns to the actress next to him and goes “Do you wanna hear an impression?” to which the other actress says “Sure”, all of a sudden he makes this weird yelling sound, and the actress says “What was that?” and he goes “That’s the sound of everyone in the world if they all threw up at the exact same time!” Oh My God, I was dying! The actress was like “Oh My god” and just rolled her eyes, as she explained to the director what Joel just said. Meanwhile, like 10 feet away, Dawn and I are cracking up! We are laughing so hard, yet trying to stay quiet…We couldn’t even look at each other, it was so funny! It was funny, cause it seemed like we were the only ones laughing, cause Joel looked over at us, and smiled at us as we were still chuckling.
We finally finish the blocking scene, and get re-placed for the next scene. We do the scene a couple times, and as we’re walking back to our position, I’m walking through the main part of the set, between the group of actors, and Joel (who had stepped away from the group for a moment, trying to work on one of his lines), so I’m walking and of course right at the moment I go to take a step, I’ll give you one guess who takes a step at the same moment and I almost run smack into! Yep, you know it! So I’m like “Whoa!” as I stop myself, Dawn grabs me by the backpack and arms, trying to make sure I don’t fall, as I look up at the 6 foot 4 hottie in front of me. At this point my mind is blank, my eyes are wide open, and my ovaries are doing a dance of joy. I’m frozen staring at this guy when all I can say is “I am so sorry!” in an oddly sounding high pitched whisper. He was so adorable! He smiled wide and goes “It’s alright, It was my fault anyways…” as he let us cross in front of him.
So we’re back in position and calmed a bit, and we’re standing on the side of the building waiting for our cue. I’m standing there minding my own business, when Joel and his costar are standing about 5 feet away from me, getting into position for their shot. I can tell Joel is talking to her about something, and he’s pointing to his rib area, next thing I know he lifts his shirt to show her and what do I see? Hip Dents! The man has Hip Dents! That right there was the end of me…I fell in love with the man right then in there! Now I’m not sure if ya’ll know what hip dents are so let me explain. When a man is muscular or in shape, near the hip area his body forms almost a V shape, Dawn and I call those hip dents! Probably one of the sexiest things to me, besides the abs…and yes I’m that shallow. Anyways, that did me in…I was gushing and gushing like crazy! We do the scene and as I’m walking with Dawn we walk past Joel and I tell her about the hip dents, and only moments later Dawn gets a view of them herself when he raised his arms to stretch.
A few moments later, we’re still on the same shot and we’re waiting for taping to begin
when Joel who is about 5 or so feet away from us looks over to Dawn and I and smiles. Then something weird happens, he starts walking our way! I mean he was walking right towards us! He gets mere steps for us, he was just about to say something to us, when the other actress in the scene called him back to his position…We still don’t know what he was gonna say, but I think it’s either one of two things…#1 I think he was gonna say something to make us laugh, since he had us laughing the whole time, and we were like the only ones laughing. I think he totally knew we were fans! Or #2 he was gonna say “Are you sisters?” like everyone else on the set that day!
So we’re filming the last scene with Joel for the daytime, and we’re getting back in position, which is like right behind the camera, but we have to face Joel. So we’re walking with our backs to Joel, when all of a sudden we hear him yell “Does she want Chlamydia?” Which immediately Dawn and I crack up laughing, we turn around, Joel looks right at us and just busts out laughing! It was so funny! What was even funnier was after he yelled that, the script lady yells out “That’s what she said!” and the Director responds “No she already has Chlamydia, give her something else!” Dawn and I were rolling!! It was so funny!
I should probably tell you the scene was at a Sex Ed type fair thingy, so that might make a bit more sense… It was funny though, cause Joel had this one line and we were watching him film, and he had to say an STD and every time the director would yell cut, he would ad lib another disease in there, and in the last take Joel goes says “Or I’ll get Pelvic Inflammatory Disease!” and had this like panicked look on his face, it was so funny!
So they bring in a couple other actors to film a scene, and us extras were on break. Dawn and I are sitting down, drinking some free water (score!) and we’re just chilling, when the sound guy goes “How you ladies doing?”, Dawn and I smiled and we’re like “Good…” when the sound guy goes “You two sisters?” I was kind of shocked, that everyone was recognizing that we were sisters so I was like “Yeah, how’d you know?” and he goes “Well, ya’ll kind of look a like…You don’t look exactly alike, but you can definitely tell ya’ll are related” The sound guy was really nice, he was telling me about a book he wrote, when he found out that I was a TV production graduate. It’s a book for film students who get their degree but don’t know what to do with it (Hello Melissa!) The book gives step by step directions how to make connections, coming from a guy who’s been in the business for over 30 years. He showed me the book, he was going to give me a copy but, he only had the one copy on him. But I have the title and might look it up on amazon or so in a few weeks.
We were replaced for another scene that involved the two actors who play Troy and Abed. Now Dawn, had worked with these guys before and she told me how funny they were and she told me that she had a crush on the guy who played Abed. Now I’ve never seen these guys before so were about 10 feet from them and I go “Which one?” and Dawn whispers to me “The one wearing Green” to which I reply just a bit loudly “The one with the stripes?”, the next thing I know Dawn yells “Melissa!” and covers her face with her hand, I look over and the guy who plays Abed is looking right at us. So I smile back at him, as Dawn is like dying of embarrassment.
After a few more shots, we get sent to holding and then are sent on our lunch break, by this time it’s like 5:30 PM. Dawn and I walk down to the cafeteria they have on the Paramount lot, and buy some snacks and sit down and began to munch on it. My back is to the door and I’m happily munching on my food, when next thing I know, Dawn quickly takes the bite of chocolate cake in her mouth, then throws her fork down on the plate and goes “I’m done!” really quickly. I looked at her like “What’s your issue”, as she had this serious expression on her face. So I asked “What’s wrong?” when she goes “Look who just walked in!” I turn around and sure enough there’s the two actors who play Troy and Abed, going through the cafeteria line. I know my sister well enough that I know she won’t eat in front of regular strangers and I know for damn sure no piece of food is touching her mouth with mr. heartthrob in the room. So we quickly left and went back to holding.
It was back at holding when we find out that the rumor wrapping time is about 2AM…which some people we happy about others not so happy. We’re in holding for about an hour or so when they came and got us for another scene. By this time it was pretty chilly out there, so we were all trying to stay warm. This was the only scene we did with Chevy Chase, but I was kind of psyched that I got to see him. So we were waiting for them to set up the scene with Chevy and Joel, the props guy took all of our backpacks and notebooks and instead gave Dawn and I each a party bag that said STD on the front…So funny!
They were looking for people who wanted to be amorous couples and the best line ever was when Dawn goes “Can me and my STD (She hold up her bag) be a couple? I named him herpe!” Oh my god, I laughed so hard! Everyone around us was cracking up. So we’re waiting for the scene, and it’s Dawn, Me, Karen, this other extra who was pregnant, and this other guy who was chillin near us. We’re standing there chit chatting when I see Joel Mchale walking towards us and of course I’m trying to stay calm as my ovaries pulled out their mariachis and began dancing all over again. Joel walks right up to us, and smiles at Dawn and me again, and goes “Do you know where the bathroom is?” (now when we told our friend this, she says he had to know where it was, so my question is…why did he ask then?) So we told him how to get to the bathroom, and told him he had to hurry cause when we were up there the security guard said they were gonna close it. He smiled once again and took off for the bathroom. Deep Sigh…
So we did our last scene with Joel and Chevy. (Yeah I was sad too it was our last scene with Joel) and we got brought back to holding. After another half hour or so in holding ‘spyder’ comes in and tells us this “I need 30 students and 5 volunteers to stay longer, and the rest of you can go…now who wants to volunteer?” Dawn and I immediately volunteered cause we figure the more hours, the more money. After he collects his first volunteers, we’re still a few short. So ‘spyder’ tells them “Look, I have the power to make you stay, so don’t make me pick random people. If I don’t get more people I WILL pick randomly” at that point more people jumped up and soon enough we had our people.
The rest of the people got sent home, while Dawn and I and the others waited in holding. We did a few more scenes and was sitting in holding when about 12:45 they come and get us from holding and say “Rumor is, this is your last scene, but don’t get too excited cause that might change…” We go to set and film the scene, and I heard the director tell the one AD pick a few to keep for the stunt scene. So all 30 or so of us are chilling to the side and by this time its 2 AM, the time we supposed to be let go. The AD comes over and picks about 12 of us, and Dawn and I are numbers 1 &2. He places the 12 of us and then we find out the others got sent home.
So us 12 were extras in the stunt scene they had, so it took about another hour or so to film that. It was funny cause Dawn had to pee so bad, she was walking funny, and I couldn’t stop making her laugh. I was practicing my “angry eyes” on her, and she was just laughing, while we were waiting for our cue to go. Cut me a break it was almost 3 in the morning, and we were tired, everything was making us laugh!
After the scene, the whole crew wrapped, and we were told to go and check out. So we went and checked out with ‘Spyder’ who logged us out at 3:12 AM. By the way, walking across the Paramount movie lot at 3 in the morning is totally creepy! I felt like I was in a bad horror movie!
All in all it was a good experience, plus we each made over a $100 for one day’s work. Just wanted to let you all know about my first experience and give you guys a little insight into what it was like to be an extra….
And since I’m at the end watch Community on NBC at 9PM on Thursdays…You never know maybe it will be our episode and you can see us! I’ll let everyone know when I find out when our episode is airing!