Day 98: Something Different

Today was a day for something different - we were going to be extras in a BBC TV show! Shandos had heard about it through some travel blogging friends while we were in Brunei, and although they wanted us for two days and we could only make one, they still agreed to take us. The show is called Foreign Bodies and is a scripted drama/comedy about British expats living overseas. The episode we were filming was set at a music festival in China.

Filming was to take place in a small town called Gopeng, about 2 1/2 hours drive north of KL, and transport would be provided. Since it was a night shoot (obviously, since it's a music festival), we were going to be there until midnight and wouldn't arrive back until 3am. So we took it very easy in the morning, sleeping in and mostly mooching around. For lunch we went over to the nearby Berjaya Times Square food court and grabbed a cheap bite.

Call time was at a hotel about 20 minutes walk away, only a few doors from where we'd stayed last time in KL. We got an Uber there rather than walk in the heat of the day, and met the production assistant. Our group ended up being six people - myself and Shandos, a young Canadian guy, a Dutch girl, plus an Australian guy and his Ecuadorian girlfriend. We all hopped into the minivan at 3pm and set off.

The drive was fairly unexciting though a bit of rain around annoyingly. Stopped a couple of times, and then the driver got lost in the last 5 minutes trying to find the tea farm where we were filming! I found it on Google Maps and directed him the last bit of the way.

Having done a bit of extra work before I knew what to expect - a lot of "hurry up and wait" type stuff. We sat in a crowd of about 200 extras (mostly Chinese-looking Malaysians), got some make-up done and were given the usual instructions to wait around for an hour or so.

Eventually it was time to do some filming, a bar scene in a large tent at the festival. We got put in the "crosser" group, where it was our job to walk through the scene and back out, crossing the camera to give the illusion of more people being there than there actually are. Had to make no sound though, as they were recording the dialogue live on set so lots of miming was the order of the day! It's fun at first but soon devolves because you're doing the same thing over and over again, listening to the actors run through the scene over and over.

The directors would do about 5 takes from one angle, then move the cameras and do another angle for another 5+ takes. Then another angle. And so on. Every time they call "reset" and everyone has to go back to their original positions, the crew have to reset all their equipment etc. I'd say they spent probably 5 hours filming this one scene that will probably last for around 45 seconds in the finished product.

Things got a bit slowed down at one point though because there was a fight scene to choreograph, complete with a milkshake getting thrown on someone. They had three goes to nail the milkshake throw, and every take involved 15 minutes or so of cleaning, re-dressing the set, makeup touch-ups and so on.

At one point one of the assistant directors grabbed me and put me right behind the main actors, so I should hopefully be pretty visible in the finished product! I was wearing a fairly distinctive blue and white horizontal stripe t-shirt with LED sunglasses, so hopefully I'll be easily noticeable! Apparently the show is planned to air around spring next year (northern spring I assume).

By midnight it was time to wrap up - a smaller crowd of extras who had hotel rooms in the nearby town were staying until 3am to film another scene (a stunt involving a Portaloo apparently), but we were let go and set off on the long drive back to KL. A bit of chatting and a bit of dozing, and eventually we arrived back around 3am. Another Uber to the hotel, quick shower to rinse the makeup off, and then bed by 4am. Easily our latest night of the trip!Read more