Research as Background Actor - Hell on Wheels Season Two

Research for writing material has led me through many avenues.  I've sat through court cases, boring and exciting.  I've taken jobs as clerical labour help, clerical medical help, bakery labour thumbing butter tarts, camp counselor, camp cook, long distance operator, waitress, executive secretary to managers and VPs, research assistant and the like.  I've written stories using the materials I've seen in many iterations.

I want to write a script for a movie or television show.  It's a dream of mine.  So...

Last year I signed up to become a background actor.  I got casted for one episode of Heartland.

This April I tried out for an open casting call for Hell on Wheels; a show I'd only seen two episodes of last fall and wasn't sure I liked the level of violence portrayed.  But, beggars can't be choosers.  There is a dearth of shows or movies in Alberta right now.  I'll take whatever comes.

Now I signed a waiver whereby I wouldn't disclose the whereabouts, take pictures of the actors, disclose anything relevant about the series.  All that.

But I do have bragging rights to being on the set.  Maybe I'll even see myself on TV.  That all depends on the cutting of the film.  I could very well end up on the cutting room floor.

I can tell you I have a new respect for actors.  All actors.  I couldn't believe the number of retakes, new directions, replays with different camera angles or lens settings, replays with different lighting.  And just plain retakes.

Maybe the director has some undefined desire and he's going to keep on shooting that one scene until he sees it.  Who knows - he doesn't say why, just 'let's do that again; roll, action and cut'.

And those of us have to sit, stand or move in exactly the same way we did for umpteen times, until he is satisfied.


Let me take you through my day.  I got my set time call the night before, after wrap up of that day's shoot.  I was lucky that the call came before 10pm, for an 11:00am start.  With instructions on how to get to the location.

I drove forever, deeper and deeper into the country watching for the signs - not obvious let me tell you - I'd been instructed to follow.  Several times I pulled over to review my notes on the way.  Finally, after a scary hike through field after field, and thanking my 4-wheel drive as it had rained hard the night before and was still drizzling so parts of the track were starting to wash out, I crested a hill and saw about ten industrial trailers.  I pulled into the crew and background parking area, traipsed through mud to the sign in trailer and started the process to turn me into a 1800+ woman.

Costume came first.  Layer upon layer I was helped into.  I finally understand why women back then needed help to get dressed or undressed.  I'm talking two petticoats of what felt like heavy canvas - but I know it was just heavy cotton with layers of ruffles - a heavy wool skirt, a flannelette high buttoned blouse, a wool jacket, a wool knit shawl and a bonnet.  We are talking, I swear, of about 35lbs of clothing.  Oh right, and boots that didn't quite fit - close, but after 14 hours no shoes or boots feel good.

Hair and makeup was the next stop.  I carried my bonnet over to the next trailer, taking precautions of lifting my skirts up enough that they didn't drag in the mud.   As my bonnet wasn't a full affair, my hair was elaborately french-braided and upswept with many hairpins before the bonnet was firmly affixed to my head.

Makeup got me next.  Not to add makeup.  Nope.  This is 1800+ after all.  Only loose women would be caught dead wearing any makeup.   I was dusted with dirt; face, neck and hands.  Debate was held over my hands, as to whether they needed to cut my nails - not polished nails by any means, but longish.  I know I cringed before they decided the nails could stay.

Now all this took about 3/4 hour before I was ready to be ferried down, with others of the background group, to breakfast.  Yeah, I know, it's almost noon.  But it's called breakfast.  And it's good, hearty food that we were instructed to eat well of.  No-one could tell us when the next meal might come, so we filled our plates and ate.  And the set call came.

Remember that it's been raining.  There's mud everywhere.  Slippery as all get out.

Loaded again into the vans, we made our way down a switchback mud trail at I believe about 45 degree angle to get to set.  After about 10 minutes of hair-raising driving - no way would anyone have gotten me to drive that course, even in a 4-wheel vehicle - we rounded the final corner and the whole set unveiled itself before our eyes.  Track, train engine, passenger car, more rails stretching back towards a settlement just upgrading from a tent city.  Civilization, up many steps from the whole tent city of last year's episodes I was told by returning background cast members.  I never got to see the town up close as the train was well away from those buildings.

We waited in a heated industrial trailer, just us backgrounders and our keeper.  The trailer had lots of goodies to nibble on, drinks aplenty, cards, newspapers and magazines to keep us busy while we waited for our calls.

As I said I hadn't seen the pilot film, nor many of last year's episodes, so I was amazed.  The prop department has done a fabulous job on the train set.  I now have a new appreciation for my ancestors riding the rail out to the opening west after the hours sitting on a reproduction train bench for the bum-numbing hours of taking that scene.  The 2 foot wide center aisle had to be maneuvered by the actors, the cameraman, the mobile lighting, the sound man with boom and the cord man who made sure nobody tripped over that camera cord.  We, the background passengers sitting on those uncomfortable slatted seats ducked and moved so the crew didn't fall into us.  The other women and I had to keep those full skirts and petticoats out of the aisle, but still stay in character.  And for 4 hours at a time, we filmed in that train car.

We got told the bare basics of the scene and were to act, silently, as if the scene really happened all around us.

We never sat in that car for more than 4hours.  Someone would call out 'background return to holding' and off we'd go.

We wended our way between expensive cameras, crew and director in the dark, trying desperately not to touch any of the equipment, and hold our skirts up from the mud tracked in by all and sundry.  Then we had to navigate the steps down to ground.  I know I can step down in regular clothes.  No problem.  But you try going up or down steps with ankle-length skirts and petticoats.  Not an easy feat.  No wonder women back then didn't stray far from home. Those outfits are heavy and unwieldy.  Winds can unbalance you with one strong gust.  And they needed as many helping hands as they could find for any uneven ground or rises.  I can't imagine trying to walk up a hill.  Or down for that matter.  And then we had to walk the 700 yards or so back to the holding trailer across an uneven muddy former animal pasture.  Going to the bathroom was another experience I've got to hand to my female ancestors.  We at least had a trailer for our evacuation.  Getting your skirts in before you closed the door was interesting.  Lifting said skirts up enough to squat, then pulling up any under clothing with skirts and petticoats in the way is not just interesting - it's hard.

So the day progressed with all of us backgrounders putting in miles of back and forth with the ground getting muddier and more rutted as wheeled equipment got moved around.  No part of the day was sunny, and of course the day grew darker.  Now we are in God's country.  There are no power lines to be seen.  So no lights except what the generators powered.  That power was mainly needed for the filming equipment.  Lights out in the field might detract from the atmosphere of the shot.  So we walked in the dark.  Still trying to keep relatively dry.

Don't get me wrong.  The shoot was fun.  The people with me awesome.  The crew helpful and funny.  Even the main actors kidded with us whenever they weren't busy with script rehearsals, reshoots or listening to the director's edicts.  Not that we were allowed to talk to them first, but we could answer.

We played any part the director ordered.

Oh, yeah, lunch - at supper time - came at 7pm.  We got ferried up to the food area where all the backgrounders had to wait till everyone else - and by that I mean the main actors, the director and all the crew, the important people - got served.  Another hurry up and wait.  We had an hour, of which we had about 15 minutes to actually eat,  In a warm, dry tent before being herded back into vans and ferried back to the set level.

And I'm back on Monday for another shoot.  I'm hoping that I'll be picked for a season actor.  I don't need any lines.  I'll be happy being in the background watching those graced with real acting abilities, admiring their stamina and memorization skills.

I'll be taking notes, too.  Because my dream is to write a script that's good enough to make it's way to the screen.  I'm not greedy.  I'll take a TV spot.  I'd love that.

So wish me luck.  Though this playacting background is hard work, it's fun too.  And I consider it research for my script writing education.  Who knows.  Maybe my dream of writing a script that's good enough to be filmed will come true.  That'd be awesome!  Otherwise, I'm having a great time, meeting some really wonderful people I'd never meet any other way and getting paid enough that I'm not out of pocket for this experience.