Retirement Life
It still surprises me, when I bump into someone I haven't seen in a while, and they say, "Hey! I saw you (in a commercial/on TV/in a movie) the other day." I mean it is to be expected, as I've been doing this for almost five years now, and sometimes the scene or advertisement will get some eyeballs. But for the most part, the Background work I do, you'd really need to know what to watch for in order to see or recognise me.
Here's a good example of a typical scene when working as Background. This is from Sandra Bullock's new Netflix movie called "
The Unforgivable". Another guy and I are standing outside the office, where Sandy is meeting with the parents who are taking care of her sister. They exit the room, and for the briefest millisecond of a moment, you can catch me standing outside. Believe it or not, this is actually what they wanted, because after the first rehearsal, the AD comes over and says, "Can you shift a little to your left? Perfect!" But anyone but me, they'd never know that I was intentionally placed there!
Then there are the days when you know that you're going to be "featured" in a scene. It's pretty easy to tell, especially when you can see your reflection in the camera lens! This one was another Netflix movie "The Perfection" - it's a pretty creepy movie actually, but you never really know what they are about when you are filming these scenes.
But most of the time, we're working on TV shows filmed here in BC that most people I know aren't going to watch (Riverdale, Supergirl, etc.). However, when the BC goverment commercial runs for a month during the local news and during Hockey Night in Canada, people were bound to notice me (grandpa at the end).
And then there's the time when a fellow BG said, "Hey, you're on Shannon Dang's twitter feed!" Of course, I'm just a blur in the background, but it was funny that someone recognised me from that. But speaking of feeds, my wife and I were sitting in the ferry lineup this past summer, and she was scrolling through her Facebook feed, when this came across:
The strange thing about this one, is that we had shot those scenes over four years ago, and I only got paid for the day session photo and video shoot. i.e. I did not get a buyout or residuals for use. But I guess because the company that these were for (Destination Canada) is partnering with Expedia for this, maybe they don't have to pay anything for usage? I had finally gotten over it, when this appeared on MY facebook feed:
And the final weird one, is that if you were to google image search my thumbnail to the right, you'd get a hit for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, listing me as and extra on Helstrom! So just like that, I'll exist forever on the internet - Marvel, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
