sent from: London, UK. destination: London, UK.

One of the perks of working in VFX, especially when companies still had stage-space, is that they would need to film people to populate large scenes of cities or populate background action, and who better to film than your anxious-to-get-in-front-of-the-camera workforce. Even better – they’re “free”! It was commonplace for ILMers to trader stories of the scenes they were in for the various Star Wars films. I heard these when I arrived and to say I was desperate to be on camera would be an understatement; no hollywood starlet could match my need to be able to point at the screen and say THAT’S ME THAT’S ME THAT’S ME!!! There seemed to be no ‘official’ way to be cast, no formal casting sessions. I quickly realised that the key to it were the stage co-ordinators. They were the ones who received the instructions to “find 2 Jedis by tomorrow”, or “get 5 6-foot tall people to play aliens.” So I ingratiated myself to them, made sure they knew of my interest and knew my name. Casually hanging out around the stage didn’t hurt, either, or taking unnecessary detours if I saw a new green screen go up. I hoped it was a just a matter of time. And patience. God it was hard to wait. One day, the phone rang.. “hey, how tall are you?” was the question. OH BOY.

The story continues on card #262.