Extra Business

The unemployment rate in Georgia is a number most would rather ignore (a little over 9% and still above the national average). But a new market making scenes in Atlanta and parts of Georgia show a promising decrease in that percentage. I’m not talking warehouses or factories, here. It is Atlanta’s growing television and movie industry.

Scoff if you’d like, but Atlanta is becoming the new Hollywood and gaining momentum.

TV shows like The Vampire Diaries and movies like the new Footloose, Due Date with Zach Galifinakis and Blind Side with Sandra Bullock, in her Academy Award winning role, have all been filmed in and around Atlanta. And although most of the big name actors are imported from around the nation and world (aside from Tyler Perry’s productions) these and many other shows and movies are littered with Atlantans. They’re called "extras. "

For those not hip to the industry lingo, an “extra” is a person who fills the crowd in a stadium scene, walks through the halls where the main character goes to high school or sits in a café sipping espresso in the background (some even have lines!) While the McDonald’s down the street may not be accepting any more job applications, television and movie productions are hoarding in paid extras by the dozens. I recently spoke with some resident Atlantans who are regular extras in many shows and movies you’ve probably seen.

Jeremy Bennett, 21, shares how he came to be an extra: “I started looking on Craigslist for different film/television/theatre jobs. That is where I found my first extra job.” The job he found was for the straight-to-DVD movie Van Wilder: Freshman Year. He laughs, saying, “The film was terrible. I’ve never even watched the entire thing.”

Regardless of the quality of his first film, Bennett went on to many successful productions as an extra, including The Vampire Diaries, of which he has done twelve episodes, saying “[it’s] a great production to work on here in Atlanta.” His resume also includes movies like The Lost Valentine, 96 Minutes (in which he was also a stand-in for Evan Ross, Diana Ross’s son) and My Super Psycho Sweet 16: Part I and II, with another Atlanta extra: Jake Akins.

Akins, who also discovered extra work through the online classifieds and forums Craigslist, is a background actor with stunt experience. He estimates that he’s been on at least 17 sets and his stunt skill took him to sets at least four hours away like The Crazies. Akins pulled thirteen hour days on the set of The Crazies, directed by Breck Eisner, and would return home bloody and bruised. And much like Akins says about scenes hitting the cutting-room floor-“It happens to the best of us”-long hours and physical commitment just comes with the territory.

Among the productions in Akins’s bio are The Blindside, Past Life and, a cult favorite, Zombieland. “[on Zombieland] I went on set expecting to just be another extra in a zombie flick…[I] luckily auditioned and landed the role of Banjo Zombie,” says Akins. “I became the "face" of Zombieland, and pretty well known for my role. It was amazing.”                

Although the two young men plan to move on with their acting careers, working as an extra can be an enjoyable source of income. Akins relied on extra work, like Bennett, for supplemental income but has now moved on to actually make "really great money on it." But Bennett still warns that the income is not always so stable.

When asked about whether they thought Atlanta could hold its own against the constant advances in the movie industry, Bennett stated that "We have tax incentives that make it cheaper to film here plus new production facilities going up," and Akins agreed saying “If Georgia maintains...tax credit for movies, Atlanta will continue to bloom!”
 
Both Bennett and Akins now look for extra jobs in Atlanta with Extras Casting Atlanta, at nearly 42,000 likes on their Facebook page.