2008 was widely proclaimed as “the Summer of Film” in Seattle, where 4 features were shot, ranging from the super-indie Humpday (by local filmmaker Lynn Shelton) to World’s Greatest Dad starring Robin Williams. And I made it my mission to get my face – or at least my body – into one of them.

 

In Seattle, you needn’t be a professional actor to appear in a film, as most of the ones shot here are low budget and looking for volunteer extras. Last fall, I heard that a horror movie was being filmed near Seattle, and that people were needed to portray zombies. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and spent one very long, cold night in the deserted small town of Port Gamble chasing a scantily clad young woman across a cemetery. You’ll spot me easily in Z.M.D. (Zombies of Mass Destruction)– I’m the only member of the undead wearing a huge plaid flannel nightgown.

 

That experience left me hungry for more, so I joined a couple email lists that would alert me when extras were needed for other films. Not long after the zombie movie, however, I broke my leg, and when the first day of the Summer of Film came around, I was still walking with a cane and under doctor’s orders to take it easy. This worried me because the local shoot I had set my sights on – Robinson Devor’s North American – seemed unlikely to be featuring orthopedic patients.

 

My first encounter with Devor’s work was the Woman Chaser, a smart and goofy 1999 comedy about a used car salesman who decides to enter the movie business. A few years later, Devor teamed up with Seattle writer Charles Mudede to make Police Beat, an offbeat crime film based on the weekly column Mudede wrote for a local alternative newspaper.  Police Beat got some national critical attention, and Devor and Mudede teamed up again to make Zoo, a documentary about a secret society of people who have sex with horses which was shown at both Sundance and Cannes. Both films were beautifully shot and visually captured the unique look of the Pacific Northwest.

 

 

What drew me to North American (another Devor-Mudede collaboration) was the way that Seattle would be portrayed. The film is about an airplane pilot grounded after an apparent nervous breakdown. He sneaks out of his hotel to visit a large nearby park, which was to be filmed as an amalgamation of many of Seattle’s parks. As a Seattle native and park lover, I was thrilled that Devor was going to use bits and pieces of our real parks to create for us the Central Park I wish we had.

 

The emails soliciting extras for North American began arriving in June. Every day was a new casting challenge:  Two beefy police officers (must have own uniform!), a large group of people in sleeping bags, teens needed to lug a keg up a flight of stairs. Some roles I clearly wasn’t qualified for, others were happening while I was at work, and yet others required more ambulation than I could muster.

 

In early August, I received an email calling for the very last group of extras that would be needed for the film. Luckily, it asked for people in my age range to pretend to take an audio walking tour in the park next to the Ballard Locks on a weekday evening. Hey, I could do that! I was instructed to email one of the film’s staff, and to put “I Am Audio Tour” in the subject line. I did, and was then told when and where to appear, to bring my own ear buds, and to dress “exactly as if I were going on an audio walking tour.”

 

 

I arrived exactly on time and knew I had found the right spot when I came across a random group of people looking like they were expecting something to happen. As the rest of the extras and I waited for a crew member to show up, we traded stories about our experiences in other productions. Some of them had appeared in a restaurant scene in the Robin Williams movie (or had tried to, but didn’t make the cut), while others were hoping to get into Dear Lemon Lima, a teen comedy that was just about to start filming at the Seattle Center. None of them had been in the zombie movie, though.

 

Not long after, a young woman arrived and told us the crew was on their way from shooting at Woodland Park. She gave us forms to fill out and invited us to go get dinner if we needed to. It’s fortunate none of us did, as a few minutes later the lead actor (dressed as the pilot) arrived and chatted with us; then Devor appeared with a very minimal crew. Everyone was friendly and pleasant.

 

It turned out Devor wanted the walking tour to take place on a steep hill. When he saw my cane, though, he suggested that I stand at the top, as if I had already arrived and was waiting for the others. This worked out well for me, as it allowed me to watch him direct the rest of the extras and the pilot up the hill toward me (though of course I couldn’t look at the camera, as I was supposed to be acting!) Between takes, I also got to chat with several people passing by who wanted to know what was going on. I tried to be a good ambassador for the film, although I had to literally push one man out of frame. Altogether the experience didn’t take much more than an hour.

 

Watching Devor work with the cinematographer to stage and shoot the scene reminded me that great filmmaking is about composition and visual detail. They arranged and rearranged the extras walking up the hill, and filmed us several times from slightly different angles. I know that all of this work will probably result in a single shot of a few seconds’ duration, one image among thousands in the finished film: a bunch of people walking up a hill in the background as the main character strolls past. It’s a shot I used to think of as filler, a filmmaker killing time between plot points. But as my appreciation for cinema has grown, I’ve come to see such shots as the foundation of a certain kind of film – one that speaks as much through contemplative visual images as through dialogue or action.

 

Being involved in the making of such films increases my appreciation even more. I am excited to see the finished product. And if someone asks where I can be found in it, I will just say: “I am audio tour.”