STRICTLY ON BACKGROUND, PT. 43: ODDS & ENDS

 

A more appropriate subtitle for this piece would be "Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel". A combination of the pandemic with additions of HBO Max and Amazon Prime to our streaming choices has allowed me a first look at some of the productions I've worked on. In other cases, boredom made me revisit Netflix for a second look, just in case I missed something initially. 

Because for every moment of juicy screentime on Madam Secretary, Bull, or Gotham, there were plenty of others where I was literally just out of camera range or was so far away that I missed myself when they originally aired. For instance, I worked on three scenes of HBO's The Undoing, but you wouldn't know it. I was also MIA in the movie The Goldfinch. Both starred Nicole Kidman. Coincidence? 

Anyway, here's a few shows where you definitely wouldn't have noticed me.

FRIENDS FROM COLLEGE: June 11, 2018. Working at Kaufman Astoria Studios always gave me the chance to wonder if I was trodding the same soundstages where The Marx Brothers filmed Cocoanuts or Animal Crackers. And that was pretty much all I got out of working on this day. Perhaps because I was clearly seen the first time I was on Friends from College, I was now relegated to "Nobody Worth Seeing".

Both my scenes took place on a mock-up of the LIRR. In the first, I was standing in the left rear of the shot near the doorway. I'm the guy in the blue shirt and brown jacket, with my head tilted down, likely in shame of how far I had fallen in the pecking order of extras.

The second scene came at the end as one of the passengers exiting the train. This time I was wearing a tan suit. That's the only reason I know this is me. Certainly you wouldn't recognize me. As you can see, I didn't even bother aiming the camera at the laptop properly -- you can see the icons at the bottom. Does it matter? Not at all.

 

SEARCH PARTY: August 8, 2017. Another train passenger. We worked at the New York Transit Museum, where productions occasionally film subway scenes. (It's built on the site of a long-unused station.) The A.D. liked my Panama hat. The director apparently didn't. I'm in the pink shirt and wrinkled khaki pants. Not my best angle. At least we were in and out in only three hours.

 

HIGH MAINTENANCE: November 14, 2019. We worked at a Brooklyn Chinese restaurant named the Fortune House. And unlike other restaurant scenes I've worked on, we were actually encouraged to eat what was served, which in my case was a noodle dish. 

Remember what I said about being just out of camera range? This was a perfect example. I was placed at a table with a woman playing my wife and a young guy as our son. The wife was easily seen. I was nowhere to be seen. It's like they planned it that way. 

Except... when the lead actor got up to make a phone call. The image to his right in the rear, head down once again. This time not in shame, but to eat. 

 

THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT: May 17, 2018. The SVA Theater on West 23rd Street. We were all "Movie Premiere Fans", going wild as the actors (playing actors!) make their entrance. According to my Google Timeline, we were shooting this scene from 3:08 p.m. to 4:53 p.m.

Look really carefully at us. I'm the guy on the left end of the line in the brown jacket and tan baseball cap, standing next to a woman in blue. It's times like this I wonder why they hired me and not someone else.

 At least in my second scene my face was briefly visible, as I walked past a car featuring the leads. The rest of the time we were all sitting inside the theater. By this time, it was pushing midnight. Entire evening timeline: 4:55 p.m. to 12:53 a.m. Don't become an extra if you want excitement. 

 

THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT: March 10, 2020. Hudson Yards. My final job
before show business shut down for six months. Appropriately, I'm walking away from the camera in my fedora. They gave me a blue backpack as a prop, which, if nothing else, made my image pop out a little. As if it meant anything. 

Since I lack Showtime, I don't know if my appearances on Ray Donovan and Billions were prominent.  I gave up fast-forwarding through the first season of Succession and Grand Army for my one scene on each. The movies, Harry Haft, The Saint of the Impossible, and Little have yet to be released. 

On the other hand, Y: The Last Man is to premiere on Hulu later this year. I worked on the pilot episode in September... of 2018. I play one of many men at an Israeli air force graduation ceremony who die simultaneously from causes unknown. Let me know if it was worth waiting for. 

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