A day in the life of a movie extra

By Jeanne Brei, Special to The Sunday

Sunday, April 17, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Glamorous, it’s not. Exciting? Not really.

But thousands of Las Vegans spent nearly a month this year working as extras in “Jason Bourne,” the latest installment in the Bourne film series starring Matt Damon.

Actors, retirees, college students, the self-employed and the unemployed were among the 5,000 extras who spent 10 to 12 hours a day filming on the Strip.

“A grand thank you to all of the Las Vegas talent who we booked on this show,” casting director David Parada said. “The production company was so happy and impressed with the people we booked and how accommodating the people in Las Vegas are, from working either at 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or the people who worked from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Las Vegans are the best!”

The extras

Casting directors hired two groups of extras to film daily from Jan. 4 through Feb. 8. Unit 1 had daytime hours; 2,000 to 3,000 extras “attended” a convention at Aria. Unit 2 worked at night, shooting car chases, crashes and stunts. Extras played pedestrians and vehicle drivers.

The pay

Many of the Unit 1 extras worked for free, having applied through beinamovie.com. Most of the extras who worked overnight shifts were paid $80 for the first eight hours, then time and a half. Members of the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists earned nearly double that rate. Craft services kept a table of munchies, soda and water for the union, nonunion and unpaid extras. Julie Goldman Casting and David Anthony Casting handled local casting.

The film

“Jason Bourne” is the fifth film in the Bourne series and is the sequel to 2012’s “The Bourne Legacy.” Based on the Robert Ludlum novels, the franchise stars Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, a U.S.-trained assassin who suffers from amnesia. “Jason Bourne” was directed by Paul Greengrass and stars Julia Stiles, Tommy Lee Jones and Vincent Cassel. It is scheduled to open nationally July 29. The first trailer, featuring a car chase on Las Vegas Boulevard, debuted during Super Bowl 50.

The work

Being an extra doesn’t require much in the way of skills or experience, but it does have its own lingo, requires the ability to follow directions and demands a lot of patience. It calls for actors willing to do the exact same thing, the exact same way, over and over.

Directors do multiple takes of every shot. Often, they will change lenses, angles or cameras to get different versions of the same action, and they want extras in the background to look, move and act the same each time.

The lingo

Rolling: The camera is filming.

Back to one: Return to your starting spot; the scene will be shot again.

Sound speed: Don’t talk or even whisper; audio is being recorded.

Background: Extras should start their assigned actions (walking, “gambling,” running, etc.).

Action: Actors with dialogue should begin.

Cut: End of scene; filming is done.

Back to holding: The holding area is where extras spend much of their time waiting to be called on set.

Special assignments

Extras who wanted to work as drivers had to take a test to determine how well they could drive in reverse. Part of the job entailed backing up in heavy traffic to a starting point on Las Vegas Boulevard. About 100 extras were booked each night as drivers, and they received two-way radios so they would know when to turn on their car and headlights as the stunt drivers readied for each take.

Outtakes

Some stunts took several takes to get right. Two had to be reshot. One involved a SWAT vehicle speeding down a ramp at Aria to turn left onto Las Vegas Boulevard. A limo was supposed to broadside the SWAT vehicle, but the limo missed it and hit two other stunt cars instead. It took more than an hour to clean up the vehicles and set up another stunt limo. On the second take, the limo hit the front of the SWAT vehicle instead of the middle to make it spin like the director wanted. Las Vegas Boulevard had to be reopened, so producers chose to stage the stunt again the following night.

The set

For nearly two weeks during filming, the production company closed Las Vegas Boulevard from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. from Harmon Avenue to Flamingo Road. Every hour or so, crew members would open one lane of traffic in each direction to let drivers through. Each time, several cars tried to get into the movie by changing lanes, which would delay filming while production assistants had to explain that the drivers need to be hired through a casting agency to appear in the film. Stunts were filmed in multiple locations. Among them: inside and outside the Aria, on Las Vegas Boulevard, at the north valet at Bally’s and at the Riveria.

Unexpected twists

• Actor Nick Payne, who moved to Las Vegas from Pasadena in 2014, was hired as a convention attendee but got promoted to a featured extra playing a police officer. He received a wardrobe fitting, extra pay and several days of work. “I loved working on the film; it was cool,” Payne said. “I got to network on the set between takes. They say all it takes is one big feature role and it goes from there. Matt Damon walked by and smiled at us.”

• Actor Gary Colombo spent several nights working as a pedestrian on the Strip. A wrong turn by a leading player bought him more camera time. “Watching the crashes was cool, but the best part was the final night’s chase scene, when I got on camera with Vince Cassel. The SWAT car was going to come crashing into the Riviera into some slot machines. Vince was supposed to jump out of the car with a machine gun in his hand and run through the casino. The original staging and each rehearsal didn’t include me in the shot, but in the first take, Vince made a wrong turn and nearly knocked me over. I guess the director liked it, because he continued to do every take by nearly running into me.”

The bosses

A production assistant (PA) watched over the extras and escorted them to and from the set. Most of the PAs were Las Vegans working 12-hour days for $150. The majority of the rest of the crew was brought in with the production company, many from England.

“You have to be versatile in this business to make a living,” said aspiring director/producer Michael Pearson III, who worked on “Jason Bourne” as a PA. “I can do casting, be a camera operator, be a production assistant. … I’ve been making a living in film in Las Vegas for the past three years.”

In their own words

• "I do background work because it supplements my disability income. It keeps me active in the entertainment and movie industry. I’ve been acting since I was 18. This is my dream.” — Kirt Dow, a SAG member since 2003 who was badly injured in a car crash several years ago

• "I’ve been a huge fan of all the Bourne movies, and getting to participate in one and getting paid for it was a real thrill. One of the exciting things was standing out in the freezing cold watching car crashes on the Las Vegas Strip. It’s a great deal of fun and somewhat exciting, even though you spend a lot of your time waiting to get to set or for takes to get set up.” — Arthur Bloberger, writer

• "It wasn’t glamorous by any means, but we had nothing better to do yesterday. Matt Damon was there filming parts of the scene, and overall, it was a fun time. ... Someone tried to steal our seats during a scene! People were hell-bent on their chance to rub elbows with Matt. It was ridiculous.” — Kaycee T., an extra booked through BeInAMovie.com, wrote on Yelp. She was cast as a convention attendee