Christian Brandt: Movie Star

Welcome to the blog post where I egregiously inflate my already inflated ego. Enjoy!

You are now looking at a newly minted, fresh from the set, certifiable movie star...extra. An extra in the tv show Tremé, which is all about New Orleans post-Katrina (it starts three months after Katrina hit). Let's be clear, being an extra is not as easy as it sounds. I literally sat in a tent in the freezing cold for 3 hours in order to do this one scene from the show. It was grueling, and I didn't even get a hotel room, or wine (there was breakfast, though!). Being an extra, however, isn't as anonymous as it may seem. Au contraire, ye of little faith, I walked past the cameras at least 50 times, which obviously means that I'm going to be featured prominently. Who knows, maybe they liked my impassioned shouting so much that they'll ask me back for a more permanent role. That's how people make it in this business. It's a dog eat dog world out there.

Speaking of impassioned shouting, let me elaborate on the whole point of this. In January, 2007, two people were murdered in New Orleans when they opened their doors to robbers. The city had been suffering from extremely heightened crime rates post-Katrina, and these two, seemingly random, acts of violence sparked an impassioned response from New Orleans' embattled citizens. Basically, the episode that I was working on was a recreation of this march.

In preparation for my acting debut, I watched the first episode/pilot, and I really, really enjoyed it. The acting was superb and the plot was interesting, which means that it's probably worth watching. It definitely set up the rest of the season, which I haven't watched (and, let's be real, probably won't. Laziness dies hard). I arrived (read: walked, no limos for me. This job is so. hard.) at 9 AM with Kat and Carolyn. This is when the sitting-in-the-tent-forever ordeal happened. We were there with all of the other volunteers. No, I wasn't paid for this. I did it to advance my acting career. And for the publicity, because any press is good press. I was initially unsure of what we were going to be doing because the producers didn't tell us anything. What we ended up doing as marching, complete with signs (Kat had a "WE ARE WATCHING YOU NOPD" sign, complete with creepy eye), in three different locations. The first location was just north of downtown, and was supposedly where "everybody came together," basically the joining of the neighborhoods of New Orleans. The next two scenes were pretty much the same thing, just in a different place.

BUT, at the second scene, something interesting happened. We were supposed to be marching down Canal St. along the street car tracks. 90 percent of this scene was spent dodging the street cars, which sounds fun, I suppose, but gets old REALLY quickly. What I thought was interesting about this scene, however, was the fact that the directors separated the extras by race. The white extras were marching down Canal St., and were supposed to join with the black extras, who were walking down a side street. They billed it as "black and white coming together," but Carolyn and I both thought it was racist. Kat agreed with us, and also pointed out that their racial segregation (which was ostensibly to be by neighborhood) was incorrect. The city of New Orleans is a lot more racially integrated than the producers were showing (head here to see what it looks like). I mean, I understand why they did what they did. Who doesn't like a great story about races joining together to fight some social evil, but come on, talk about beating a dead horse. Kat, who is a local, was extremely bothered by that, and I can't blame her. New Orleans is ALWAYS misrepresented in the media, especially post-Katrina. And for a show that bills itself as a show about post-Katrina New Orleans, doing something like this seems to be irreverent. When one of the crew members told us that we were going to be separated by race, everybody around us (who I am assuming were mostly New Orleanians) were confused, and it was super awkward. The mood was lightened by one of the extras, who was black, who said "Well, I guess I'm going to the black side of town," to many laughs. But what do I care, I was getting my acting debut (which is far more important that petty race issues).

I have to say though, I'm not sure I'll ever sign up to be an extra again. I'm so over it. Even if (read: when) my face is shown prominently on television, the amount of pain and suffering (and work) that had to go into those few seconds of fame was totally not worth it. I'm so over being an extra. I'm so over staying in a freezing cold tent for three hours. I don't even think that's legal under the Geneva Convention! I certainly am over being a volunteer. Enough of that, I say. My face/time/(facetime?)/money/acting ability are worth more than nothing! I didn't even get severance benefits. Or health care! Anyway, I'm sure the directors of Tremé were in awe of my amazing performance (Emmy-worthy, if I do say so myself). I mean, that's what I would do if I were them.