So today I did something fun, something other than homework: I got to be in a movie! Just as an extra, but still. Supposedly my name will be in the credits. :)
See, my friend April is in this Latin American Cinema class, and her professor is friends with this guy who is making a movie, and they were going to be filming on campus today and needed extras. So April invited me and we showed up around 12:30 at the registration building, but they weren't ready for us, so we came back an hour later.
The movie is called "El Regreso," which means "the return," and it tells the story of this guy who's returning to Costa Rica after having lived in the United States for a long time. Here's a link to an article (in Spanish) about it:
and the same article translated by Google:
The scenes they were filming today were ones where he was in the immigration or customs place trying to get his passport stuff figured out. There were all these chairs set up, and the main character (who is also the director) has a conversation with this strange guy sitting next to him. We extras filled in the other chairs and walked back and forth behind and in front of the chairs (to make it seem busy). So in the first scene, I was a person in the chairs, "reading" my Spanish-English Dictionary and moving over one seat every thirty seconds or so. In the second scene, which I think was supposed to be another day, we switched and everyone sitting in chairs walked back and forth while the people who had walked back and forth sat in chairs.
For the third scene, those of us sitting in chairs had to react to what was going on at the desk. Apparently, he's up there trying to get his passport but the lady working is being really frustrating. So he starts yelling, and we all look up and kind of look at each other like "What's going on?" The funny part was, nothing was actually happening when they filmed our "reactions." He just told us what was supposedly happening and told us when to look up.
It was cool to be able to see how a movie is made up close, but it was also a little boring. It took us about an hour to film a three-minute scene. I don't know how many times I moved over in those chairs. But overall it was a fun experience, and I'm going to have to try to find this movie when it comes out so I can watch it.
Below is a picture I took of the set. Of the two men sitting the chairs, the man on the right is the director, and the man on the left is the guy he meets while waiting in line. In front of them, they're setting up really bright lights. If you look closely you can see the camera (start from the red sign in the ceiling and go straight down). It was set up on a platform with wheels that ran along a pair of pvc pipes.
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