me am in movie. by aaron

Last friday I recieved an email from my friend Todd in a small town just south-east of us (he's in the same boat as me, having his wife in the program while he sits at home). He heard about this opportuninty to be an extra in a Japanese movie, and wondered if I would be interested in doing it with him and James another friend of ours. I immediately asked if it was going to be one of those movies where you have to take your clothes off. He said no. While I breathed a sigh of relief he said it was a WWI prison camp movie. Apparently these German soldiers were captured by the Japanese and placed in one of their P.O.W. camps. The Germans played some classical music for the Japanese and it seems that this is the whole of the movie. Not very exciting. I was hoping for some kind of techno samurai squid monster movie, but I'd guess they don't need many white guy extras for those kind of films.

The filming was going to be on Monday and we needed to be at the studios in Kyoto by seven in the morning. James offered to drive and he only lives two hours away from Kyoto so we decided it would be best to crash at his place on Sunday night and leave at about four on Monday morning. Well, James and I stayed up till about midnight talking politics and only got about three hours of sleep. Todd had nodded off by about seven so he was fresh as a daisy. We wanted to leave early so we could find the studio in time because...well...Japan is confusing. Luckily we found it easily and started our adventure.

We were told to go to the costume department first. The costume department just happened to be a bunch of clothes racks in the middle of the parking lot. The call was for about two hundred white guys and we were all told to change into our army costumes there on the asphalt. Woe to all who didn't wear underwear that day. So here you have ten score white dudes getting undressed in the cold end of October weather. And of course when you get that many people together one of them just has to be a complete bastard. I belive this guy was on some kind of drugs and he kept hooting and making comments about how certain people looked.
When your pants are down the last thing you want to hear is some amateur Don Rickels. I felt a guilty joy when later on in the day he was sitting with his head in his hands and had two of the films assistants trying to make him feel better. Those drugs must have left him feeling a little low.

We were then told to get on a bus because the shooting was going to be at a location about two hours away. Before getting on their bus some of the guys started taking pictures of each other in their WWI German uniforms. One of the casting assistants came over and told everyone that the costumes were top secret and we couldn't take pictures of them. It seems to me that early ninteen hundreds German army and navy uniforms are a matter of historical record, and most people could get an accurate picture of them from visiting a library, but the Japanese are strange. And who gives a flying rip about the costumes in a Japanese movie about classical music is beyond me. Maybe if it was one of those techno samurai squid monster type movies.

So James, and Todd, and I get on a bus with about twenty other guys and one of the assistant ladies comes in and counts us. Then she says we have an hour before we leave so we can get off and wait outside if we want, and to remember which bus we are on. The Japanese are strange. After the hour passes we all get back on the bus and the lady counts us again and says we have about another half hour before we leave. After fifteen minutes pass she comes in and counts us again. After fifteen more minutes she counts us again and once more before we leave. All twenty three of us on the bus had to start stifling laughs because the counting addiction she seemd to have was just so absurd. Why not count how many people where there early on and then once before the departure to verify everone was present. I don't know, the Japanese are strange.

After two hours on the road we arrive at the location and get some lunch. Then Todd and I are told by one of the assistants to get a soldier back pack from one of the costume department assistants. We start to get one of the packs and a different assistant yells at us to go back and wait on our bus, we start arguing that we were told to come get the packs by a different assistant and then that same assistant who told us to get the packs approached and ask us what we were doing. Anyway we got back on the bus, without the packs, and after five minutes a different assistant came and told everybody to pick out a back pack. The Japanese are strange.

Then we get some dirt makeup put on us and all go stand in a courtyard and they start to film us. They film us for about five seconds and then we stand around. For...a...very...long...time. I guess I'm a professional at standing around because after doing it for about four hours somebody paid me 9,000 yen.

Then we got back on the bus and sped back to Kyoto with a minimum of beauracracy. We gave back the uniforms and that was the end. Oh, and while we were standing around I took a picture of some of the extras.