I promised myself to write a blog everyday, but extenuating circumstances got this to reach the web almost one month since the last word I typed..

I feel really bad about it, but the thing is that I’ve been sucked in a wormhole that puked me out in 18^th Century’s London. To summarize I’m working as an extra  (or “supporting artist” as some up-their-ass people insist on clarify) on the set of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 4’: I’m in few words one of those blurry human figures that you see hanging on the background during crowd scene in movies.

It can be a fun job and it is pretty well paid for what you do –staying in your ‘first position’ till you hear ‘BACKGROUND ACTION!!!’ eating loads of food, reading lots of book and meeting loads of interesting people.

As I’m doing a Sound Arts course is also an interesting opportunities to see professional sound recordists at work, but in big productions like these it is hard to get a grip of what’s going on, and especially in this film case seems like the emphasis is more in sound post production.

Luckily enough the shooting was taking place mainly at Greenwich, next to the Trinity College of Music, and I had the opportunities to see amazing piano player rehearsing from one of the windows next to the set. I heard performances of Richter, Debussy, Satie and many others that I couldn’t pin down.

The best thing about this job is the network opportunity that gives you, as apart from some actors and performing arts students the rest of the extras wild bunch are persons coming from a musical background: I met three people from my same course, professional musicians, and elderly people of which some jammed with great players and composers such as Miles Davies and Keith Moon.

It is not always fun though: after the 3^rd day in the same ‘first position’ next to the same people dressed in the same way you feel a bit like Bill Murray in ‘Ground Hog Day’, and you wonder if there’s any way to get it right and get out of there.

Another thought I had, not being interesting in an acting career, is that I feel like we extras are sheep moved around the set by assistant directors that assume the role of dogs in this whacky metaphor. The personal assistant to the director is nothing less than our shepherd.

I almost had the job as Johnny Depp’s body double, and that could have gave me enough money to cover all my school fees and loads more. I still made enough to buy some material for a final project, like an installation or studio time.

So yeah! I think this is a great job if you’re a student and you want to make some money while having time to study.

Plus where could I have met someone so supernatural like Keith Richards if it wasn’t for this? Wild Horses...