I was listening to a podcast from 99%Invisible, Roman Mars, all about film extras, and the now world famous Central Casting in Burbank California. The story behind how Central Casting came to be is fascinating and it was born out of the exploitation of mainly women by the Hollywood film industry.
Extras were referred to as ‘atmospherians’, which I thought was a wonderfully descriptive phrase for people who are the mute crowd in films.
It’s interesting that these people will literally queue all night and through the day just get a chance to register with Central Casting, that’s not to get a job as an ‘atmospherian’, that’s simply to get a chance of getting on the database.
There are two points here:
1. The words we use are important, if you want to stand out don’t use the normal, mainstream and unremarkable, use words like ‘atmospherians’ or even better create your own unique words that are rich and descriptive.
2. Don’t queue all your life to get chosen by others. Choose yourself, bypass the heartache of waiting for others to notice you. Bypass the process of queueing day after day hoping to get on a database. Create your own stuff, make yourself the lead role not the extra.
You can become a ‘creatorian’.
Philip Dodson 