CBS' "Without a Trace" had its budget sealed in May 2008, before the economy fell apart, and the show is not cutting back on extras. "We tend to hold onto the bigger scenes because they add more production value," says executive producer Greg Walker. "The bigger the scope, it has a wider cinematic feel, so the show doesn't feel closed in."
"Right now we're down on the back lot of Warner Bros. and have dressed it as Chinatown and I didn't cut back one extra," says Scott White, "Without a Trace's" co-executive producer. "That's what gives the scene life. Right now we're not forced to make those decisions." But if the show gets picked up for its eighth season, Walker and White might be forced to make a different decision.
"The studio and network are going to be downsizing their budget, cutting back 10%," says White. "Creatively, taking extras out of a show is a bad move, but in expectation of budget cuts we will cut back on our general allowance for atmosphere." With regard to the unemployed people lined up at Central Casting eager to land background work, White adds, "I feel for those folks over there."
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Making a success of it
Jian Najac, 36, is one of the lucky ones. He's built a career others dream about, turning random, unstable background work into a steady, well-paying job.
His advice? "Buy a couple of good suits and figure out what type of person you are. I know this well: I went from a homeless guy to a G-man overnight."
With long hair that fell past his butt, Najac started as a nonunion extra with Central in 2003. He booked a few jobs as a prison inmate or street thug, but crime wasn't paying. "One day I cut my hair and almost overnight I was allowed to join the union," Najac says, speaking from the set of "Without a Trace" where, with a clean-shaven jaw and close-cropped hair, he plays one of the show's regular FBI agents. He also carries a badge on "The Mentalist," all three "CSIs" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
It takes three Screen Actors Guild vouchers to move from nonunion to the higher-paying, health insurance-providing union jobs. But acquiring those vouchers is tricky, a matter of hustle and luck. Najac says that befriending the first assistant director can be a good strategy, but sometimes it just comes down to a union extra failing to show up. "By contract, the productions are required to hire a certain number of SAG extras," he explains, "So say you have one arm, and they need a one-armed guy -- you get the voucher that day."
Najac won his first SAG voucher when he booked an extra gig on "The West Wing." "Me and another guy were dressed up as SWAT officers. We were in Griffith Park on one side of a ravine and they wanted us to run through the woods, over a lot of fallen trees and sharp brush. So the first A.D. says, 'Is that OK?' And I looked at him and said, 'I might be a little underpaid for this.'
"I went for it and got it," Najac says.
Kevin Jessup, 54, wanted to get into acting in the 1980s but then he got married, had four kids and decided it would be a better idea to install water heaters for Sears. He did that for 13 years, then owned a couple of pizza places in San Jacinto -- until Wal-Mart opened a store nearby and drove him out of business. When his wife died, Jessup, who sports a gray mustache and rides a 6-foot-tall unicycle, decided it was time to give his old dream a shot again. The kids were grown. He had his wife's Social Security to count on.
"I've got a good work ethic. I'm well-mannered. That goes a long way in this particular job," he says, sinking into a folding chair by the window, waiting for his son to register with Central Casting. Jessup signed up last June and inspired all four of his kids and his 82-year-old mother to become extras. He works a couple of times a week and is now SAG eligible but hasn't paid the $2,335 initiation fee to join the union.
"It's kind of tough in this economy," Jessup says. "We live in Hemet, which is quite a drive. Over the summer when gas prices shot way up, I was spending $45 to make $65." Still, his eyes twinkle at the thought of it. "You can't look back on your life and say you didn't try."
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