The other day, I was an extra on Friday Night Lights. I figured it would be a great experience to meet people and to be able to promote our upcoming fundraiser and webseries.

From what I saw, there are three kinds of extras. A lot are just the locals who wanted to do something fun and felt doing extra work would be just the ticket. They often don’t come back because they don’t realize that sometimes, as an extra, you are some of the last to leave, there are a lot of long lines, and there may be times where you get yelled at. Happens on every set. There are others who are between jobs and are just looking to make a quick, easy cash. Extra work is easy to get into, you get fed, and it’s immediate work. Only problem is that it’s not steady. The good thing is that if you just want to get paid to just chit chat with other people, it’s the perfect job for that.

There are other kinds of people who do extra work. They are the independent filmmakers of Austin who either want to get a foot in the door and make connections among the crew or else to network with other local filmmakers who are extras. The experience on a set, even if as an extra, is pretty valuable.

When I was there, it was the night after a rainstorm and dewiness brought something that Austin hadn’t seen in a while due to the drought: mosquitoes. So, here we were, two hundred extras in cheerleading uniforms, colors of opposing teams, and crew all swatting ourselves and trying to keep from being eaten alive. I think a few of them tried to fly up my nose at one point. Still, it made for a fun night and cheering for a football game, even for a fake one, is a pretty easy thing to do when you already love football.