After a few minutes the director appeared and explained how he wanted them to move. Lack of enthusiasm dulled his instructions, as if he was being forced to describe the least interesting part of the day’s filming. He simply wanted them to move this way and that. Peter’s questions were cut short. If actors were cattle, the director made it clear that extras were plants.
Half an hour later, Peter could no longer feel his feet. The temperature was hovering around zero. He and the other extras had been running back and forth along the ridge of the hill while the camera recorded their movements from a hollow two hundred yards below them. He was taller than the rest of the group and deliberately hung back a little, so that he would at least stand out. Occasionally a microphone would crackle and the first AD would warn him to keep up with the others. Apart from commands to go again, there was no other way of telling that they were even being filmed.
‘I hate early starts,’ said one of the extras suddenly, as if Peter had shown signs of valuing his opinion. ‘I live in Barnet, and the travelling does me in. There aren’t many showbiz people where I live. You can’t buy The Stage in Barnet.’ Then they were off again, running up and running back down. No one had told them why they were running, or where they were supposed to be running to. None of the extras had seen a script. Only the main actors were given copies, and they were waiting inside a warm pavilion at the bottom of the hill. Peter could feel resentment building within him. How could the director see them if they couldn’t see him?
‘Could we go again, quickly please,’ called a disembodied voice, as if their movements were being orchestrated by the trees themselves. He broke away from the group as it prepared to run once more, and set off down the hill holding his arms high, like a surrendering Indian.
‘Wait a minute,’ he called, ‘I have a question. Why are we doing this over and over? You can’t possibly see us from down there.’
A bearded man rose from behind the camera and stood with his hands against his thighs. The rest of the crew impatiently dropped their arms to their sides, siding with the director.
‘I’m trying to get you lot silhouetted against the rising sun, Mr Who ever-You-Are. Can you go back up at once please.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘I appreciate that,’ called Peter, continuing nearer, determined to make his reasoning understood. ‘You could bring the camera a lot nearer and still have the sun rising in the background. At least that way you’d be able to see us a bit better, give us a bit of identity.’
‘I don’t want to see you any better.’ The director separated himself from his assistants and walked up to meet him, ready for a fight. ‘You’re just a group of generic running people. You don’t have identities. You could be anyone. That’s the whole point.’
‘Well, nobody explained that
‘Because the sun rises fast and we wanted to get the shot quickly.’ He looked up at the hill. ‘But that was our last possible take, and now the sun is too high. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’
It was humiliating, having to walk away from a group of people who were so obviously angry with him. Upsetting the extras didn’t matter, but he hated falling out with the crew in case he found himself working with them again. Clapper loaders, first assistants and sound men freelanced in each other’s crews, and turned up all over the place. Sound crews were usually men because of the weight of their microphone booms, which had to be constantly held aloft. Peter liked crews and got on well with them. They were professionals, like him. Extras were nothing, starstruck spear-carriers who got paid a tenner a night for standing behind a throne through two acts.
He hoped Jonathan wouldn’t hear of this latest fiasco too quickly. The misunderstanding could jeopardize his film audition. It would be easy for someone to put in a call and spoil his chances. All work was supposed to go through the agent. Peter was expected to call at the end of the morning shoot, so he went to the public library at Hampstead and hung around until lunchtime, then rang from a pub callbox. He assured Jonathan that everything had gone well, and the agent’s replies were relaxed and pleasant, as though the day’s first bottle of gin was already improving his view of the world.
Back out in the street it had begun to rain hard. Shoppers loitered disconsolately beneath shop awnings, waiting for the downpour to ease. Peter kept a beret in his pocket, and pulled it on to keep his hair dry. It would have helped to know something about the role he was going for. He checked the address he had written down, and headed for the tube station.
The afternoon was already darkening when he arrived in the Edgware Road, skirting filthy puddles to locate a small turning between the kebab shops and falafel bars. Walking to the far end of the street, he found himself in the remains of a cobbled road facing an old Victorian warehouse of the kind beloved by film location managers. Heavy steel shutters sealed what had once been entranceways for horses and carts. The base of the graffiti-stained building was steeped in rubbish and chunks of rotting vegetable matter, swept in from the market which operated inside during the day. Several small windows had been shattered, but all were barred and topped with spikes. For any normal job interview, the building would have sparked feelings of anxiety and revulsion. Peter knew better than to be alarmed. He could see the fierce yellow light shining behind the broad first floor windows, light that could only be thrown by the 10K lamps of a film set.
As he searched for a door, he marvelled at the extraordinary manner in which film business was run. A pretty girl could be picked from the pages of Spotlight, her agent called and an appointment made. She could then be sent along to an abandoned farm, a lunatic asylum, a den of rapists, and she would happily go along in the hope of landing a film part. It seemed so obviously dangerous he was surprised no one had put a stop to the practice. But that was the way the system had always run. Casting agents were tucked above tube stations. Rehearsal rooms sat behind strip clubs and chip shops. Dressing rooms were converted toilets. But not for the ones at the top. And not, he hoped, for him.
Peter found the notice pinned across a narrow doorway set in the end wall. It read, simply; AUDITIONS 1ST FL. As he climbed to the top of the unlit stairs, he passed a man of his own age coming down. The other actor threw him a cold smile before passing back into the street, a sure sign that auditions had started. Pushing open the landing door, he found himself in a vast wood-planked room that ran the entire length of the building. At one end the windows had been whitewashed over, and a simple screen-test area had been constructed. Before it, half a dozen people sat in plastic chairs softly questioning a nervous-looking young man. Peter approached, and was waved to a bench against the wall. After a few minutes the actor ahead of him was dismissed, and the team made notes, consulting with each other. Then he was beckoned to the vacated seat, like a patient customer about to receive a haircut. One of the men rose, shook his hand and introduced himself as Mr Ostendorf. Behind him stood a collapsible plywood table with a single sheet of paper on it. He consulted the typed list. ‘You must be Mr Tipping.’ His voice bore the trace of an accent.
‘That’s right.’ Peter beamed a smile at the assembled group and shifted in his chair. It was hard to tell which one was the director. Ostendorf ticked his name on the sheet before reseating himself.
‘Allow me to introduce everyone. Miss Deitch I think spoke to you on the telephone.’ He gestured along the line of chairs, starting first with an attractive young woman who turned out to be the producer’s assistant, then pointing to the director (why did all directors have little beards?), the cinematographer, the writer and an arrestingly beautiful woman of middle years, the costume designer. ‘I myself,’ Ostendorf explained, tapping his chest, ‘am merely the producer.’ Everyone laughed politely. ‘In my own country I have much experience in casting, but here it is more difficult, and you must be patient with me. So -’ He gestured about himself with a friendly shrug. ‘We are casting now only one role, and we shall perhaps tell you a little of this character and his story. Then we have you read a page from the script, yes?’