I’m not sure if you guys watch Homeland but if you don’t…you should. It’s an awesome show with a very engaging and interesting storyline. I have no idea why but Homeland picked Charlotte as their filming location and they are now in their third season of filming here.
Facebook was all abuzz last week with talks that Homeland was looking for yoga people to serve as extras in an upcoming shoot. I was clueless to the fact that there was even an extra’s group on Facebook but after receiving the info from several friends I decided to submit my photos and bio and see what happened. I was pretty shocked to receive an email from casting that they wanted to book me for the shoot.
Call time was 6 a.m. today. I received an email last night with details on where and when to arrive and what to bring. I arrived at “base camp” at 6 a.m. and had to check in with production, makeup and wardrobe. After we were cleared there we were sent on shuttles to location and instructed to hang out in the holding room until we started shooting.
While waiting for shooting to commence I enjoyed a cheesy and delicious egg sandwich and some fruit. Shortly after inhaling this we were off for our first scene. I am under strict orders to share no details about the scene, plot, etc with you but I was just a background person today. I did get to see Claire Danes quite a bit! I was sad to miss Damian Lewis (Brody) and Mandy Patinkin (Saul but who I absolutely LOVE from his years on Criminal Minds playing Gideon) but it was fun to just be on set all day! It’s such a production!
I had a really hard time keeping my hand out of these. It doesn’t get better than peanut butter filled pretzels. They were a great distraction during our downtime.
We broke for lunch at 12:30 and were sent back to “base camp” where there was a full catered lunch.
It was 92 degrees out while we ate so I stuck with salad but still had a hard time getting it down. I really appreciated that they had a good salad option for lunch that wasn’t hot food.
After lunch we were sent back to set to the holding area for a couple hours before we were released. It was an almost 10-hour day for which we were only paid minimum wage but I’m happy I did it for the experience. Some of you might recall that I used to work in advertising and this was an excellent reminder of how interested I am in the production side of the business. If this fitness gig doesn’t work out, it’s definitely something I’d love to pursue from a photography or film standpoint. (Let me make it clear that I mean I want to do the behind the scenes crazy logistics stuff and not the in front of the camera stuff.)
I was lucky to have my friend Wanda on set with me and we grabbed a quick picture with our production assistant Nick before we took off.
Let me know if you have questions about my experience. Has anyone else ever served as an extra? If so, when, where and for what?
