Extras Only

EXTRAS HAVE IT EASY IN FILM WORK

By Tammy Batey

For much of Sunday and Monday, South Coast extras for “the Ox and the Eye” played the waiting game. They chatted with fellow extras and feasted on the crew’s generous spread of food. But despite the delay in filming, they said they’d be an extra again in a minute.

The extras arrived on the set, an undisclosed location somewhere near the Bay Area, about 8 a.m. both days. The restaurant scene wasn’t filmed until about 5:30 p.m.

James Johnston and Bobbie Aasen were paired for the movie’s restaurant scene. They pantomimed eating and talking while the crew filmed actors Gregory Hines and Vincent D’Onofrio at another table.

Extras Only casting directors said they were looking for rural, down home Oregonians. That’s just what they got with Aasen, who runs a Bandon cranberry farm with her husband, Ed. In the photo she submitted with her audition form, she’s standing next to a cranberry picker-pruner.

After the crew was done filming on Sunday, a crewmember took Polaroid shots of everyone in each scene. On Monday, the woman used the photos to make sure people looked the same as they had the day before.

Sure enough, Aasen said, the woman found some minor changes; Johnston had moved his pocket pen holder from his jacket to his shirt pocket. On Sunday, he didn’t wear a T-shirt under his long-sleeved shirt. On Monday, he did. He moved the holder back. The crewmember taped his T-shirt inside his other shirt.

“It has to be that detailed,” Aasen said.

Johnny Hawkins and another woman also pretended to be patrons in the fictional restaurant. They were served real food - tuna sandwiches and French fries. But because the sound equipment is so sensitive, they couldn’t actually eat.

“I’d put a fry up to my mouth, pocket it in one hand and drop it back down,” he said.

Hawkins had to remember when he picked up a fry and when he pretended to sip the iced tea sitting in front of him. The crew wanted everyone to be consistent over the two days, both in dress and behavior.

Yvonne Bennett, who played a waitress, traced a weaving path through the “patrons,” carrying a large pitcher of ice water. Although she brushed by Hines and D’Onofrio’s table, she remembers nothing of their conversation. She was too intent on not tripping and holding the pitcher still so the ice cubes wouldn’t tinkle.