The Background & The Foreground

It takes a great deal to get this girl to Brooklyn. It also takes a great deal for me to "work" as an extra. Both of these things, however, I did today. It would take one incredible person to get me to do so, and my red headed roommate is just that girl. She's producing a short film by a director that we know from Columbia, and I am so proud of her that I had to support. I tried to treat the borough excursion as an adventure, the subway annoyances as time to be in good company (and play some killer road trip games) and the inevitable background lackluster as... inevitable.

Background on background: In my first "real life" year, my aversion to background is one of the many experiences that I chose to learn from first hand, as I am eternally the "learn from experience" type gal (euphism for anyone who ever has made a mistake). Free food, paid screen time, its basically getting paid to act right?! Mmmm... Not think again bright eyes. Even being in the presence of Alec Baldwin (and... yep... nearly peeing a little bit), 30 Rock's Ben and Jerry's make your own sundae station, and thrilling my grandma over 1/4 of my face gracing her television for a nanosecond wasn't quite enough incentive to make this mistake again... five times. Four was enough. There is, I found, a charming subculture of people who can make a living off of background work. I respect these individuals, have made some delightful friends in them, flirted with tall, dark, and handsome hopefuls, and learned that its just not my cup of craft services tea. It hurts too much to see 18 year olds in the roles I would like to play, wonder how they became successful, wonder how I haven't yet, almost regret Columbia (which I so consciously know is ridiculous) and work at any job until that has an undefined end time. The Brooklyn adventure made this first hand experiencer realize: Bklyn is charming, I still prefer Manhattan, I should still explore Prospect Park, it feels warm and fuzzy to do things for people you love, and, yep, still not into being an extra. Even though I got free beer.