About a month ago, my martial arts group went in for an audition for martial artists (arnisadors in particular) for some sort of infomercial promoting the Philippines. We didn't get word for about two weeks after that, until they called up Ben and another of our guy members in for a call-back. They ended up not getting it, and I and another girl teammate (we both didn't get a call-back), got called in for extras positions.
It was a 16-hour shoot on location in a place that took a 12-hour road trip to get to, and I think that after this I can safely say that I never. Ever. Want. To. Be. In. The. Entertainment. Business. EVER.
My respect for actors (and stunt people in particular, who are actually the people who get all the shite) has really shot up. There were 7 extras in all- 3 girls and 4 guys. All the girls were real arnisadors (though the other girl was from a different system), and all the guys were from the Wushu (i.e. Kung Fu) National team. (They apparently moonlighted as stuntment because they were used to flipping, high jumps, wire work, etc.) They were really great company and it was fun hanging out with them-- it's pretty rare for me to get the chance to talk to martial artists from other dojos because I'm a little bit of a purist when it comes to Arnis. I don't cross-train in other arts. ^_^;;
In any case, I got a ton of bruises and cuts because one of my parts required me to go fight the lead girl. She was really pretty, had a great body, but unfortunately was not a martial artist. She was a great actor and managed to act through what she lacked as a martial artist, but it eventually got hard when the stunt coordinator kept calling for reshoots because of some inconsistencies in her stickwork. My part was supposed to be to attack her, get disarmed, hit in the stomach, and do a flip back and fall on the ground. We had to keep repeating this part and by the end of the day my knee had been rubbed raw through the body suit (because I had to keep slapping into sand and rocks with it) and was bloody and pretty much had all sorts of dirt and crud in it. *sigh*
We had a lot of walking scenes as well, and individual fighting scenes with other extras. The bit where I was running through a fight with one of the Wushu guys was really fun because we both knew what we were doing. It was still choreographed, but we were able to go as fast as we wanted and we didn't have to pull back our hits. We finished that bit in about 3 takes.
It was exhausting work, though all the locations were beautiful. I'd never actually seen this part of the Philippines before, and it was really, really pretty. I'd say that I was happy to have the experience, but really, I don't ever want to repeat it again.
(Getting paid peanuts to beat myself up for the benefit of the lead is NOT why I became a martial artist.) @_@ Heh. But I wouldn't trade this experience for the world!
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