A day in the life of a Steve

Hello! So this one is about my experiences as a background artist, or extra, in TV shows and movies. My latest adventure left me standing 3 feet away from Johnny Depp! I didn’t get to speak to him for professional reasons, but came all the same (RHYMES!) Dark Shadows is a 2012 gothic-type movie, based on an old American TV series, directed by Tim Burton (of course!). You can find all the info on imdb.com :)

So I can’t say much about the actors/costume/set for legal reasons, but the people I’ve met- wow! One guy was a toy maker, he was in the last second everrrr of Harry Potter 7, part II! Another one I spoke to just a couple weeks ago is Roald Dahl’s cousin! Also mixed in the group of extras there were musicians, real fishermen, a captain, small time actors, a librarian, model, artist, composer anddd ‘other’ xP

I’m not really going in any particular order here, ummmm, so it was really strange at one point, Tim Burton was applying sun lotion. How often to you get to see celebrities do that!? Oh yeah, when I was 3 feet away from Johnny Depp, he was dressed in character, as a vampire and we were on set but off camera, his kids were there, they were playing snooker :D Danny Elfman was on set at one point but I didn’t get to see him, he’s known composer =] Richard D. Zanuck was floating around here and there, he’s a producer, produced Speilberg’s ‘Jaws.’ Also there was Coleen Attwood, winner of the oscar for best costume design for the movie ‘Alice in Wonderland’ She did the costumes for Dark Shadows too!

In all I did 12 days work on Dark Shadows, playing a townsperson, walking around. It lasted from the middle of July until the end of August, odd days shooting, scattered in between. On my days in London not shooting I just visited museums and got ice cream and watched movies xDD My friend Sam and his housemate very kindly let me stay at theirs the whole time, yay!

I had some pretty good shots, though it’s down to editing now, all will be revealed, we might catch a glimpse of my face in the movie! I got chosen TWICE to be in a close-up then wasn’t used. Then chosen TWICE again to have a line, then didn’t get to say it xDD Nevermind! I may have one more day on this movie next Saturday (10th Sep) as a different character :D Yet to be confirmed!

I’m not sure what else to say so stay tuned for a blog on my next Backgroundy work: Snow White and the Huntsman!