As I stated in Chapter 2, Prime Casting provided me a list of the other casting companies in the Los Angeles area. This list turned out to be very useful in obtaining work as an extra. Nearly all extras are provided to the production companies by the casting companies. I registered with several of them but most of my work came from a single casting company.
Registration with a casting company consists of visiting their office, paying a nominal registration fee, usually between $10 and $25, and usually having your picture taken for their files. Some will accept head shots, in addition to the pictures they take, not in lieu of them. Sometimes there's also a photo fee, also nominal, in addition to the registration fee.
In addition Prime Casting, which I discussed in the previous chapter, I registered with the following companies:
- BJ's Casting
- Central Casting
- Cenex Casting
- LA Casting Express
- LA Casting Group
- Bill Dance Casting
- Judi's Casting
- Sally Perle Casting
- Star Casting
I got more than 95% of my work from a single casting company, Cenex Casting. Cenex Casting and Central Casting are owned by the same people. Together they do the vast majority of casting of extras. Generally, Central Casting finds work for SAG (Screen Actors Guild) extras, and Cenex Casting for non union extras. I'll discuss unions in Chapter 4.
I was fortunate in that one of the casting directors at Cenex took a liking to me and saw to it that I got as much work as I wanted. Her name was Kathy (in this book I will use only first names except for people who are well known to the general public). When I registered, she gave me her business card and asked me to call her direct line. Each casting director has favorites and the favorites get some of the prime assignments. Each casting director is responsible for the casting of particular shows. When Kathy had no work for me, she usually was able to refer me to one of her associates. Other casting directors at Cenex who got quite a bit of work for me were Louie, Veronica, Shannon, and Mary Ann. Because of the high turnover of casting directors, I'm not sure if any of them are still with Cenex. I know that Kathy went back to graduate school with plans to become a teacher, Veronica left because of illness (Lupus), and I believe Shannon tried her hand at acting. Louie and Mary Ann were still with Cenex when I stopped working, but I don't believe they're still there.
To get work, an extra calls a casting company on the day before he/she wants to work. Most often the work is for the next day only. Occasionally the call is for two or more days, and sometimes an extra on the set is asked to return. The casting director, upon getting a call, will ask the extra for name and/or social security number and look at the person's image on a computer screen. If there's a match between the extra and the job, the person is cast. If you are known by the casting director, this step can be avoided. Once in a while the casting director will call the extra. To be known by one or more casting directors is a big plus in finding work. Because one of the shows Kathy cast was "Beverly Hills 90210", I was cast on that show 15 times for a total of 20 days work. This was over the 2-1/2 years that I worked as an extra.
Except for Central Casting, Cenex Casting, and Bill Dance Casting, I'm not sure if any of the others are still in business. Casting companies, except for the major ones, seem to come and go.
For the rest of this chapter, I'll discuss some of the work that casting companies other than Cenex got for me. I'll include Central, as they only cast me a few times over the 2-1/2 year period. Subsequent chapters will relate primarily to work obtained through Cenex.
As Central casting became union only shortly after I registered, my work from them was limited. I was cast in a feature film called "Sneakers", with Robert Redford shortly after registering. I was in one scene, as a businessman crossing the lobby of an office building. Shortly thereafter I was cast in a made for TV movie, Sinatra, where my scene was exiting a plane after a very young Frank Sinatra, wearing a 1940's wardrobe. Central also cast me on two days of Picket Fences, after Cenex had cast me on the first of the three days. Also on the first day of a feature film called Born Yesterday, with Cenex casting the second day. Finally, I worked on a Central voucher on a made for TV movie called "Ride With the Wind". I was actually cast by Cenex, but got a Central voucher, because I was a last minute replacement on the show, which was cast by Central. I'll go into vouchers in Chapter 4.
The two extremes of how an extra appears, as I stated earlier, are in the foreground interacting with the actors (though not speaking) and in a crowd scene with hundreds of other people. Most work is somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. The interesting thing about being cast by Bill Dance was that it was usually one or the other extreme. I was cast four times by Bill Dance.
The first was in a move called "The Switch". Gary Cole played a man who became a paraplegic after breaking his neck in a motorcycle accident. I was a hospital attendant running down the hallway pushing a gurney with him in a halo (neck brace) right after the accident.
The next was a movie called "And the Band Played On", a docudrama about AIDS. I was a doctor at a conference table where a decision to use Hepatitis B vaccine was being debated.
In both of these movies, I was in the foreground interacting with the actors. As a contrast, Bill Dance also cast me in "Man Without a Face", with Mel Gibson, in a scene with hundreds of other people at a football stadium attending a graduation. Finally Bill Dance cast me in "Ed Wood", one of over 500 people in a theater. That turned out to be the longest day of my "career", from 5AM till 1AM the next morning.
Star Casting is another casting company that cast me in some made for TV movies, all early in my 2-1/2 year stint as an extra. They were "Kiss of a Killer", which starred Eva Marie Saint and Annette O'Toole, "Stormy Weathers" with Cybill Shepherd, "Elvis and the Colonel" which was a movie about Elvis Presley starring Beau Bridges, and "Majority Rules", with John Getz, Blair Brown, and Jensen Dagget. "Majority Rules" was the most interesting work I got from Star Casting, because I was a Secret Service agent guarding Blair Brown's character, the first woman president of the United States.
I worked one day on "Majority Rules" and was asked to return for more scenes later. Unfortunately, I had plans to go to Palm Springs for a surprise 50th birthday party for the wife of a long time friend on the Saturday that I was asked to work. I'm not sure whether or not it was a coincidence, but after declining that day's work, I was never again cast by Star Casting. I'm not sure they're even in business any more.
LA Casting Group got me two jobs, "Scanner Cop" and "Pentathlon". These may have been production names and may have been released by other names, because I haven't heard anything about either show since working on them. I remember very little about "Scanner Cop" except that I was a doctor in a hospital scene, and one of the actresses had been a regular on "Hunter".
Although I was only in crowd scenes in a football stadium and on a grassy knoll, I really enjoyed working on "Pentathlon" because the scenes I was in were filmed at Citrus College in Azusa, a four mile drive from my home. Usually I had to go 30 or more miles for work. Also I worked both days on a union voucher, which had a higher base pay. It was nice being able to get home ten minutes after finishing work.
Judi's Casting only got me one job. It was for an Infomercial for a product to hide bald spots. I was just one of many people in the audience. ABC's Good Morning America weatherman Spencer Christian was the host. Among those endorsing the product was NFL football coach Buddy Ryan, who was between jobs at the time.
Finally there was BJ's Casting. They didn't get me any work, per se, before going out of business, but I got one day's work indirectly from being registered with them. A woman named BJ, not the BJ of BJ's Casting, was attempting to go into business for herself and had gotten ahold of a list of extras registered with BJ's. She called me late one night and asked me to be at the Media City Center Mall in Burbank the next day. The mall was not yet open to the public and the whole day was spent wandering around the mall, filming a commercial that would be aired in Japan. The day was different, as some extras were recruited off the street, which is unusual, and craft services provided beer at the end of the day, which is very unusual.
I got no work whatsoever from Sally Perle or the LA Casting Express. In the case of the LA Casting Express, they got most of their extras from companies that would provid groups of extras to the casting companies. I describe this a little bit below. Sally Perle did not charge a registration fee until she cast you in your first job. Since she never cast me, I didn't have to pay the registration fee. She eventually closed up shop in LA and set up a casting company in Las Vegas. Her roster of extras was picked up by a casting company called Rainbow Casting, who invited these extras to register with them.
To conclude this chapter on casting companies I will touch on some of the other ways extras can get work.
One fairly common way, though frowned upon by the casting companies, is for an extra to "spec", which is short for speculate. To "spec", an extra goes to the location of a filming in hopes that the production company can use him/her, either because someone didn't show up or because the extra has a "look" that they would like to use.
Besides communicating with individual extras, some casting companies have arrangements with firms in business to provide extras to the casting companies. These firms have extras signed up, guarantee them a certain amount of work, and do the calling for them, so the extra doesn't have to call in every day. I wasn't interested in these organizations, because I didn't want to work every day, and they were best suited for those who wanted to work as much as possible.
Often when filming is done at a remote location, and a lot of extras are needed, extras will be recruited from local communities, schools, military bases, Indian reservations, or whoever can provide a large number of people for crowd scenes. Sometimes, these people work without pay, just for the fun of it.
Finally, an extra may be cast as the result of winning some contest, be a relative of cast or crew, or know someone in a position of authority. Usually this is a one time thing, done just for the experience.
This page was last updated on September 13, 2003
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