What's it like working on a film set? Working as a "stand in"

Not only am a fan of films and TV shows, but I have also worked on a lot of them in minor roles and also whatever else they were willing to pay people for. Normally there is quite a lot of money that can be made on a film set, particularly in the USA where wages are forced to stay high for whatever reasons and if there was some work to be done near where I was and I had the time, I normally jumped at the chance to be in them. I had access to these jobs because I know a guy that is a production assistant for a smaller subcontractor studio and when they get the call to help on a project, he will let me know about the jobs that are available and how much they pay.

These jobs are not going to make you famous and you almost certainly will not even get your name in the credits. Several of the jobs I did in this realm were cash jobs that were probably illegal and nobody paid any taxes on it. Not my problem!

Some jobs are better than others though and one of the better jobs that you can get is probably being a "stand in."

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Stand-in jobs are not going to be available for just anyone because in order to get hired for the job you have to have somewhat physical characteristics of the actor that you are standing in for. This is not the same thing as a body double. You do not need to look exactly like them but there are a couple of things that are very important. You need to have the same skin complexion and be around the same height as the person in question.

I am just under 6 feet tall and have a somewhat athletic, but not hyper-muscular build. I'm Caucasian as well so this qualifies me to be a stand-in for a great many actual actors.

The actor I was standing in on the job that paid the most and had the most days of filming was for some film that I never got to see the end result of and I believe it was straight to DVD. It was a while ago back when people actually bought and made DVD's if that gives you any idea about how long ago it was.

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What being a stand in entails really isn't that interesting but it is exceptionally easy. You also get treated a lot better than the other nameless extras on a movie set because they need the same person for all the scenes that the actual actor is going to do. You sit in a room away from the other extras and some assistant will come and bring you a costume every now and then. Then you put the costume on and are ushered to where the scene is going to take place and the director tells you to stand in various places and they hold some sort of light gauge near your face in parts of the upcoming filming where the actor is going to do their lines.

The director then uses this information to make adjustments to the lighting rigs or whatever the heck it is that directors do to get just the right look that they are hoping for in the scene before bringing the actual actors out to really shoot the scene. While it may vary from film to film, you don't actually have much interaction with the real actors who generally speaking are kept separate from the rest of the people on set before they come in and do the actual scene.

The only time you really ever so much as see the actual stars of the film is after the director gets all the settings exactly the way that he needs it to be and then you are ushered out and the actors are ushered in. Often, there will be multiple stand ins simply standing in various places preparing the lighting for the entire scene that they are going to be doing.

It is very boring but after they are done you go back to your space and take off the costume when instructed and then read a book or listen to music on headphones or whatever the heck you want to do until you are called in again. You don't make a fuss because there are plenty of other people that are that height and skin tone that want to make a couple hundred dollars a day for essentially doing nothing.

I do not remember the name of the film (because they never told us what it was) or the name of the actor because he was a minor actor that I didn't recognize and as far as I know he never made it big.

How do you become a stand in? Well first off it doesn't hurt if you know a production assistant and have been friends with him for decades, like me. If you can pull that off then you will get all the relevant information handed to you and this all goes rather smoothly. I have seen stand ins get treated rather badly if they manage to screw up things and delay the production.

If you don't happen to have nepotism on your side like I did, you can get "upgraded" to stand-in of you are already a background actor on a film set. Getting a job as an extra normally is offered to just about anyone and if you behave, turn up on time, and don't complain you can normally get upgraded to higher paying jobs as stand in's if you just let someone in casting know that you are available for it. If they ask "do you have any experience as a stand in" you can just say that you do. It's not like they are going to do a background check.

Having this job will really open your eyes to how incredibly time-consuming filming a movie actually is. It takes a lot longer than you might think and after doing some work in these positions I have a tremendous amount of respect for people that work in this industry, especially directors who have to be there for every step of the way.

Before I worked in these jobs I always just kind of assumed that actors and actresses were spoiled prima donnas that got everything handed to them. There are really long hours involved in filming and a great deal of the work has to be done and redone and redone dozens of times until the director gets exactly what they are looking for.

I wouldn't say that anyone should pursue a career in this field though, there really isn't much money to be made in it and you can't depend on it always happening where you happen to live, that is unless you live in LA, Georgia, or some of the Canadian filming hotspots.

These days I am financially comfortable enough that I would probably turn the jobs down if they were offered to me, but I am really glad that I did them because it opened up my eyes to how complicated filming something actually is!