April 28, 2006
Confessions of a Hollywood Extra
2001 and 2002 were all about music videos. I must've worked on over 200 of them during those two years. They were easy jobs where you stood next to rock stars, ate free food, and made $100-$300 for a day's "work".
The hot directors at the time were Mc G, Nigel Dick, Dave Meyers, and Joseph Kahn. I worked for all of them at least three times. The extras, the crew, and the casting directors were like one big alternative family, bouncing back and forth from one musician's music video to the next.
McG (The OC and Charlie's Angels) directed a Sugar Ray video I did called "When It's Over." He was very relaxed. He would do two takes, and yell "Beautiful! Print that, moving on." He intuitively knew what looked good and he was very efficient. I spent several weeks working on Charlie's Angels 2 and his style was the same. He always seemed to be best friends with whomever was in front of the camera. He never appeared stressed or eager, no matter what. His crew did all the stressing while he casually made adjustments and got the shot he needed.
Mark McGrath was all sweaty from lipsynching his song. He HAD to take his shirt off, so Mc G shot the scene with him topless. His body was not as toned as I would've thought, but no one could deny he was one hot 40-year-old. Angelyne had given me a pin of herself and I offered it to Mark. I told him I thought they would make a cute couple. He laughed and said he had enough girlfriends already. He would kneel down next to the extras in between takes and make small talk. The other guys in the band were also friendly. The guitarist, Rodney Shepard, encouraged us to steal craft services when we were leaving. "Just take it! They're going to throw it away anyway," he told us as we stuffed our backpacks full of free junk food! (Watch here)
– Sham Ibrahim
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