Muddy, sooty, and dressed in make-believe costume – first action flic

Evading bombs and bullets

When it comes to movies, I never really managed to make the transition to that genre of the entertainment business. They seem more glamorous, and certainly the budgets for making movies are much more extravagant than budgets for television series. Sometimes the shorter the form, the bigger the budget. By that I mean that for the average television episode of 2 hours the cost will be somewhere between 50,000 – 150,000 dollars, while for a movie of a similar length the budget is bound to be at least 1 million dollars, while that of a 30-second commercial for some major product can be upwards of a million dollars if not more – go figure.

Soldier in uniform

My first foray into the movies was to be cast as an extra in a Vietnam War film “Frankie’s House” starring, among others, Kevin Dillon. I was an awkward 28 year-old, and didn’t know an M16 from and M60, but I figured that getting to run around the countryside dressed in army fatigues would be interesting. I didn’t know it at the time, but I ran into an assistant director whom I would meet again a few years later working on the Tarm Pai Doo program, and have had subsequent occasions to work with over the years. The casting wasn’t that difficult, it was only a matter of making me look like a soldier, and I had the right age for that. Getting me dressed up and then besmirching my face with charcoal and mud all helped to create the illusion that I was a soldier. We had a short session to train us in how to hold our rifles properly, how to wear our helmets, and how to look suitably ‘soldierly’. It was the first time that I had actually held a prop ‘real gun’. I have a natural aversion to guns, and as I was handed my ‘weapon’ I inspected it to make sure there was no cartridge, and if there was, that there were no bullets in it. Others being handed weapons immediately started playing around, pointing them left and right until a sudden shout brought all the playing to an end. I have had to handle guns in many other shows, and each time there is a scene with weapons, there is always some idiot who doesn’t know that even these ‘fake’ guns can be deadly or in other ways dangerous – my gun-powder penetrated glasses are proof of this – and I am sure I will have more stories to tell about gun play.

The difference between and M16 and a what?

Playing an extra

We sat; and waited. And waited some more. The conditions weren’t bad, we were in the countryside, and there were plenty of trees to sit under, and the food was fine, and there was enough action going on around us to keep us interested. There was a call for volunteers, and I stuck up my hand – I wanted to do something besides lying on the ground aiming a gun at an imaginary enemy. To myself and one other volunteer fell the task of lighting on fire the straw huts that formed the village where all the action was taking place. We practiced several times, making sure the cameras were in the right position, the lights were properly set up, and every body knew their cues. In the meantime, the rest of the patrol unit went through their paces. We were all shown where the ‘bombs’ were buried that would blow up only moments after we passed by them. Several soldiers were told they would have to ‘fall’ dead or wounded, while others were told to help carry these men out of the zone to safety. The entire scene was quite an intricate one, and it took at least an hour to make sure that everyone knew exactly what they were doing, when, and where.

Burning the village down…

Burning the village down and diving for cover

The scene started. The director yelled ‘action!’ and the first few soldiers walked through the village, sweeping through the huts, clearing them of any ‘enemy combatants’. The camera swung to myself and my buddy, and we lit the straw roof on fire, all the while nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. As the straw caught fire, we turned and joined the rest of the patrol as we exited the village. Then the explosions began. And what had seemed an orderly push out of the village by a patrol group, suddenly turned into a mad rush. No one, not a single one of the extras, had ever experienced such special effects, and there were those who stumbled who were not supposed to stumble, while others jogged faster than they were supposed to, while my buddy and I also crouched down for a moment before proceeding along the track we were supposed to take. I honestly have no idea how I managed it, but the one ‘soldier’ I was supposed to pick up and assist through the village and to safety, was lying flat on the ground. I heaved him up by his belt and slung him over my shoulder, single-handedly, while with my other hand I retrieved his rifle. In a stooped jog I made my way through the now roiling dust cloud created by previous explosions, all the while trying to keep in mind the path I was shown to make sure I didn’t actually step on a buried special effect just at the moment it was expected to blow up. Was I terrified? No, but I certainly gained a lot of respect for special effects, and even more so for the real men and women in uniform who protect our rights and freedoms – we were play soldiers, acting in play conditions, with dust and talcum-powder effect bombs going off – they, on the other hand, must face real danger in real situations when called upon.