"G'day
My 5 cents worth on the extra debate...
I worked as an extra for a day, last week on the set near Twizel. This was apparently the biggest shoot of the entire movie in terms of extra use. There were well over 400 of us there. A huge day.
I expected that if anything would go wrong, or if any of the rumoured ill-treatment was to surface, it would be on that day.
However, I was never given a reason to doubt the integrity of the crew. The whole thing went extraordinarily well. All of the extras were treated with the utmost respect, and all the supporting crew were extremely attentive to any needs. Safety and comfort were top priorities.
I talked to many of the other extras who had been involved for most of the shoot there. They only had very good things to say about their treatment, and all were delighted to have been involved.
I had a hoot. A fantastic day. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and consider myself very lucky to have had such a privileged insight into the project.
I was gob-smacked at the detail. For all of those people who harbour even the smallest doubts in what we will see - forget it. It's going to be fantastic!
Cheers
Arfa"Arfa wrote in again to add:
"Yeah, I was an Orc too. Loads of fun. All my childhood fantasies (well, one of them) come true. I didn't find my mask too bad, though it was a bit hard to hear at times.
We had a really warm day as well, but the crew made sure we were out of the masks as much as possible. There was even a photographer on set who took individual photo's of us in costume. They will be posting these out to us...but not for another 2 years!
This was totally unexpected, and totally unnecessary, but I think it shows that they do give a damn about the all of the people who are involved, and wanted to make everyone take away good memories of their time on the set.
I took time off work, but would have done it all for free, of course.
Feel free to publish what you want. I don't think I'm breaching any of my confidentiality agreement by saying what an awesome day we had."