My Life in the Movies

Yeah, I worked in the movie business. Just check out my IMDB page. Lots of stellar credits. But those links and pixels don’t tell … the whole story.

My first time on a movie set was in the early 1990s in the backwoods outside of Birmingham, Alabama, answering a classified ad for extras on Femforce, an adaption of the 1980s comic book about lady superheroes. The location was an unkempt yard in front of a trailer. Not like a movie trailer-trailer, but a mobile home which was the domicile of the director-producer and his family. He ambled around in a sleeveless t-shirt while chomping something that might once have been an unlit cigar. Several other people also wandered around but their functions, official or otherwise, were never explained. I did not meet the principal cast, if they existed, but by virtue of being the only person to answer the ad, I was promoted to a speaking role. They also wanted to use my car. For several scenes I slammed shut the hood of my car and muttered “Yeah man, it’s shot to hell” to another character who would, in theory, be standing off-camera. I don’t know if this director actually had the rights to Femforce or not. The director and some of the other people talked, took notes, and gave me notes, but no camera equipment was ever deployed. At the end of the “shooting” day the director shook my hand and promised to call, which he never did, thankfully. As far as I know, no such movie was ever produced.

When I was in grad school in Spokane in the mid-late 1990s I answered another classified ad for extras in nearby Wallace, Idaho. This turned out to be for the volcano disaster movie Dante’s Peak, starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. I was part of a large crowd of townspeople packed into the high school gymnasium to hear stern warnings from Brosnan about the volcano, which then erupts, so we all panic. Though I’ve never been able to find myself in the movie, I like to think I’m somewhere in this scene (take a look at footage or the image at the top of this story, let me know if you spot anything).

Being an extra on Dante’s Peak was fun but tediously repetitive. Roger Donaldson, the director, was notoriously exacting and wanted a million takes. We panicked and panicked and panicked. I really wanted to get promoted to the front of the crowd so I’d get a chance to shove the stuntmen through the glass doors, but alas I was passed over. Pierce Brosnan is really tall.

I told such lovely tales of this experience that several of my fellow grad students came along to another extra call, this one for Kevin Costner’s post-apocalyptic The Postman, also shooting in the area months later. This was gonna be awesome because we were supposed to be part of the villain’s army of ruffians. We were even fitted for costumes! Our scene would involve attacking a village of do-gooders attached to a dam. Unfortunately the heavy snow from the previous winter meant the dam had to release water longer than expected in spring, so shooting was delayed beyond our graduation from school, and we all left. I never did see The Postman. Sorry Kevin.

This brush with Hollywood inspired me when I got back to Alabama, so I launched into the standard plan of “make a short film starring all my friends.” However I wrote a script using dozens of child actors, which is insane. The plot of “Piper” involves a guy ending up with the magic pipe of Pied Piper fame, which causes children to follow him, then stalk him, then invade his home and steal his cigarettes. As history taught me, I put an ad in the newspaper for children to be in the movie. I was worried I wouldn’t get enough, but a hundred kids show up with their parents. I was worried the parents wouldn’t trust me, but they couldn’t hand over their kids fast enough. I was worried the parents would want to hang around and keep an eye on me, but all they asked was when they had to retrieve their children. In retrospect I realized I had placed an ad as a free babysitter who also provided lunch. I nearly died producing and directing that short film which made me realize I just wanted to write scripts. Perhaps my favorite part of the film though was the fake news alert we put on a bar television that implied the main character, my friend, was a pervert. The unflattering photo haunts him to this day.

I wrote a script for another short, “Vigorish,” about a small-time hood talking his way out of a jam. It won a prize at the local film festival and got produced in a nice professional way far beyond anything I could ever do. They cast jazz guitarist Eric Essix to play a menacing thug, and then he performed “Green Onions” for the music over the credits. So that’s my pitch. I’m ready to move to LA and join your writers’ room. Pretty sure I can punch up whatever you need, punch down too, just say the word.