Bollywood Extras: Read all about it!
iView Author: ROSHNI MULCHANDANI (Fremont, California, USA)
Email: roshnimul@gmail.com
Bollywood Extras: Read all about it!
Bollywood extras unfortunately have no real value in Hindi cinema. On occasion you spot the odd one that catches your eye and then they disappear into the scenery. For the most part, that is probably their brief when being casted: Fade into the background. While the actor is meant to be stand out from the crowd, they blend into the setting of the film. Most of the extra’s that appear on celluloid, are struggling actors who realize that they really have no honest chance of making it big or are waiting for a big break. They use this time to make some extra money and manage to hustle it out in Bollywood’s capital Mumbai. It sadly is a filmy truth; an “extra” or “background” actor could possess immense talent but if they are not the brightest star in the sky, they remain in the foreground.
Interestingly, a racket regarding extras has not only exposed a few hidden unknown secrets. A lot of the time, extras belong to a union which ensures fair treatment, wages and benefits. What does this mean for producers? Ultimately, they have to abide by the rules set by the union or else risk their chances of gaining a wretched reputation amongst the extra crew. This has resulted in an interesting change in how production companies have started to hire extra actors.
An interesting minor documentary by Christopher Booker divulged a new method being employed by a certain production house when searching for extras in their films. A tourist visiting the city of dreams, was enticed into working as an extra for the day and his one days worth of work bought out secrets that were practically unknown. This particular production house hires casting directors who roam the streets of Mumbai looking for firangs who are out and about exploring the city. These tourists are pulled aside and asked if they are keen on being part of a film. Bollywood is no longer an Indian phenomenon and is known by people all over the world. Naturally, these visitors fall victim to this enticing opportunity and quickly succumb to being an extra on the sets of a Hindi movie. They eagerly are told that they will have to work a twelve hour shift with food, makeup, costume, transport and 500.00 Rupees as an added incentive. A verbal agreement is all it takes and the deal is sealed.
These local scouts from casting agencies are not interested in hiring on any local Desi wannabe actors that parade around the streets hoping they will get their break. Instead they look for white folk who will add eye candy to the film’s atmosphere. Finding foreigners on the streets of Mumbai is never really an issue and in turn, these freelancing directors flock the monumental areas finding Bollywood enthusiasts waiting to be a part of the glamorous world of Hindi cinema.
While it all sounds like fun and games, it is a lot more grueling than it seems. The new extras are taken to the outskirts of Mumbai into the doors of Film City where they intend to make their debut in Bollywood. Incentives, they are given no doubt. They are given fancy clothing and makeup to help them blend into the sensational background, food and eventually their pay. However, in the bargain, they are not told about the grave surroundings. This particular group of extras were made to wait hours in rooms without any ventilation until the shot was supposedly ready to be shot. When asked if they could leave, they were told they were not allowed. In fact, the “artists” were told they would be fined 3,000.00 rupees each if they left the premises. After five hours of waiting, they were called to the sets. Eventually the shot was shot and canned. They were also told they would meet great people and have a blast. That failed to happen.
So what is the big deal? I’m not sure if such instances occur in Hollywood and frankly, it is never fair to compare both of the giant film industries. However, it really was sad to see that overseas fans of the cinema who came to have a good filmy time and were treated so unfairly. It may explain why Indian extras prefer the use of unions; they were clearly being taken undue advantage of.
As much as we enjoy Hindi movies, as audiences we must let production houses know that if they go out of their way to ensure that the bigger actors are taken great care of, they must to the same for the smaller actors. Just because they do not drive fancy cars or have established surnames which bring in vast amounts of audiences, undoubtedly without them a Hindi movie would be incomplete. It is the “little people” who make the films as big as they get. While they may be deemed as “extras” who are expected to play minor roles, they play a major part in ensuring success in a Bollywood feature film.
On a parting note, I want to give a quick shout out to all the extras who are never recognized or given due accolades; they never win awards nor do they get interviewed by famous publications. Kudos to the extras for all their extraordinary hard work.
Tags: Bollywood, Christopher Booker, Extras
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Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
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Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
‘Kudos to the extras for all their extraordinary hard work.’
Kudos to you for writing this as well.
Are we allowed to use that word?
I thought the term now was junior/character artists??
Or background actors.
I don’t doubt that the conditions you experienced were insufferable. Sometimes, when I’m an extra, though, I find it annoying when other extras don’t realize that shooting a scene takes hours and they want to leave in the middle of it.
roshni, i suggest that you got to a set for a single day and see for yourself what happens there rather than ratcheting up some random ‘minor’ documentary..
on an average only 3-4 shots get canned in a single day… and almost all these extras that you talk about are used in film songs…they are picked up from colaba/gateway of India and taken to film city… they get into weird costumes (depending on what the song is about), eat ‘catering’ food, gape at ’stars’ and cant understand why the latter doesn’t know how to dance, act or sing and are surprised as to how someone else’s voice is used for the songs… the sheer absurdity of it all acts in a reverse psychology way and they leave to go back to their hotels etc to update their facebook profiles and talk excitedly about their ‘bollywood’ experience..
and the unions that you are talking about are the biggest bunch of bums in the industry.. they take commission, bribes and what not from everyone with the ostensible reason of supporting their own lot and one will be surprised how the dancers, spot boys, production assistants etc are not even covered in health insurance and other privileges (considering that these junior artists etc pay a lot of money to get the union card and are promised all these benefits)
there are more than 20 associations under the umbrella Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) and all are run by illiterate bunch of thugs who under the garb of representing the union are only interested in making money…
one classic example is that Cine Dancers Association (CDE) should be concerned that Indian dancers (especially females) are losing out on shoots because of the influx of foreign dancers from England and Russia.. but this same CDE takes commission from choreographers and dance coordinators and allows this to happen much to the producer’s delight…. there is no protest, no petition, nothing…and the people who suffer are the female dancers (interestingly some of them have even got lead roles in south Indian movies)..
that is life, that is Bollywood.