What it’s like on a movie set? The insider secrets!

The machine gun swung around towards me.

The soldier’s eyes settled on me for a moment as he scanned the crowds crossing to and from the airport entrance.

This was normal, especially since the war a few years earlier. But the tension had never left, the ever-present possibility of a repeat scenario always there.

A slight breeze touched my forehead. But it would be another hot day. I could already smell the heat rising from the tarmac.

I shifted my bag to my other hand and glanced at my watch.

Security had better not be as slow as last time.

An overloaded trolley came directly at me. With a soft one at the bottom, the top suitcases teetered forwards at each bump on the road. The Saudi gentleman seemed oblivious of his imminent mishap. I dodged to the left past the barbed wire barricades with a scatter of broken concrete at its feet and headed towards the terminal doors and security checks.

A movement to my right – I glanced up the street. A young man – not local.

He ran towards me, but something made him stop. He turned, ran back three paces, then froze. He stood motionless for a moment, then something spooked him. He turned and ran directly towards me.

I paused to let him pass.

A gun shot.

I dropped.

Oh god. Not again…

He ducked down right in front of me. He glanced around, looking for a way. I stared the way he had come, trying to see. A dozen soldiers in their khakis appeared above the crouching travelers, running towards us, guns pointed.

The foreigner, an Asian, darted off to my left, still in a crouch.

I was directly between the man and his hunters.

Another gun shot.

Chaos erupted.

I stood and ran. My shoe flew off – a sharp stone jabbed my foot.

Was this my last day on earth?

CUT!

I slapped my arms and rubbed them to try to warm up.

It is not mid-summer, but early morning winter. The ocean breeze is sharp, and I am wearing only a light shirt with short sleeves. And my foot hurt where I’d stepped on that stone when my shoe flew off. I pick up my suitcase, walk back across the zebra crossing collecting my shoe on the way, and back to my starting spot to wait for the next take.

Films have so much glamour to them, especially when we see the Hollywood stars on their red-carpet nights – the Oscars and Golden Globes etc – stepping out of their limousines, wearing what for most of us is a small mortgage.

And of course, we get wrapped up in the world of each movie – that’s what it’s all about, the suspension of disbelief for a space of entertainment.

But like with most jobs, the reality is far different to that. I am an extra on a film shoot, and this is what I discovered about the movie world, and the reality of making movies.

The movie is a big Korean action story - Ransomed, released in August 2023. It is based on a true story of number of Korean hostages taken in the 1980s in Beirut, and a mission to rescue one. The director and 2 actors are amongst the biggest names in the industry - Ha Jung-woo, Ju Ji-hoon, and directed by Kim Seong-hun.

Few know that Morocco actually has a big industry for foreign movies filming there. If they need a Middle Eastern setting, or the desert, Morocco is stable and cheap, and has a smaller mountain of paperwork required. Some of the big ones have included Gladiator, Indiana Jones, The Bourne Ultimatum, Inception, Game of Thrones, and MIB.

An old projector displayed in Cine Alcazar in Tangier.

The day starts – not like any other day – but at 4am. A minibus collects me from a spot near my house for the ride out to the set. Then, in the chill pre-dawn, we have a basic breakfast, dress, and go to makeup and hair. For me that means a longish process – they’d decided to put my hair in a bun. It makes me look twice my age – but hey. I am here to add background texture for their movie, not to win a top model contest.

Then after clocking in, there’s the lineup.

At this point, still pre-daylight, we have to strip off all the extras for warmth. They need their photos to maintain continuity. Standing in lines in the gravel carpark hugging the spotlights for an extra milligram of warmth, surrounded by trucks and tents in the base camp - the sky is still dark above us, the full moon still bright above the horizon, the cold we were feeling from the early winter hour bites deeper. The wind is coming straight off the Atlantic Ocean.

This is where I realise just how many people are involved in movie making – all the extra jobs that are created. Not just hair and makeup, those sorting dress, researching for accuracy, location scouts, scenery people who even place the lumps of concrete and rubbish to be appropriate, and those whose entire purpose is to watch for continuity (like making sure the condensation on the car rooftop after a winter night is cleaned to fit a middle of the day summer scene).

There’s also the casting people, those who make sure of getting everyone to the site, the people who take care of the food, order buses, the cleaning, putting up the tents and moving them at each change of location, right down to those whose entire job seems to be just to carry the props of the stars, or make sure people have water, and are safe and well.

Little wonder at the claim (as per the credits) that 15,000 jobs are created by the making of each feature film.

Now we jump onto the big buses for the 400 metre trip to the actual set. We pile off the bus and stand in a line in pairs feeling very much like school kids again. Then they tell us to climb back onto the buses. Before getting off them again after a space to move across to the other side of the hedge.

Seemingly senseless, but everything done has a reason behind it. Credit to them, I think piling back onto the buses was to keep us from getting too cold.

All this happens before daylight. With outdoor shots, they maximise every minute they have.

But then the waiting begins.

It takes a while to organize shots – moving cameras, props, reorganizing people and telling them what they want them to do. And through all this – we wait.

And we do exactly as we’re told.

My warmth is a cape I bought in Istanbul, with a hole for my head – so I can’t even use it. Now my hair has been done and sprayed to a solid state , it’s a matter of not disturbing it – increasingly difficult as the wind picks up. I frequently feel a tickle on my neck - it is the lovely hair lady tucking another stray strand back into place and arranging more bobby pins and hair spray.

We walk and run across that crossing a maybe a hundred times over the 3 days. There are usually 3 cameras in different positions. After about 3 takes – when they decide they are happy, they do a new take from a different angle, tape a slightly different section of the scene – slightly earlier, slightly later, a section in the middle, change the position of the extras, try something different with the main actors, work on making sure everything flows, change the mix of extras… endless scenarios.

And my feet hurt.

They gave me the biggest shoes they had, but I have big feet! And I was not the only one with that problem. I think bandaids for feet has been the biggest demand on first aid.

Standing outdoors from 8am til after 6pm, waiting for the sun to warm us, shivering when the wind blows, huddling as the sun sinks lower, and crossing the same way endlessly – suitcase in the same hand, no change to clothing, same relative position to others – depending on how they might end up wanting to edit the scenes together later…

Then the undoing process – we go back to the tents to change again. It will be 8pm before I get back home. 16 hour days of freezing, hanging around outdoors, and waiting… Sounds tedious?

It is soooo much fun.

I write action-adventure mysteries. I love these sorts of movies. And here I am, not just in a movie, but in the middle of an action scene.

The three days of shooting will probably be only a couple of minutes of movie, and I will be just a blur somewhere creating the background texture, if I’m lucky.

But I will take that.

It is a massive amount of fun.