I just uploaded at few photos from my scrapbook of being an extra for the movie 'Eddie and the Cruisers'.
Back in early 1982, my Mom spotted an ad in the local paper from a talent agency looking for extras to star in local movies. She called the agency and made an appointment for all of us to go sign up. I remember signing a contract, filling out questionnaires about our biography and posing for pictures. A few week later, we got a call from our agent asking if we would be interested in working on a film in New Jersey. We said 'heck yeah!'
My brother and my Mom left on May 14th, 1982; riding along with our agent. My Dad and I drove down a few days later. I took along with me a cheap 110 camera, a Polaroid instant camera and my Sanyo portable tape recorder. I had just turned 13 the week before and the cassette recorder was one of my presents.
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We spent the next two weeks hanging out and doing small bit parts in various scenes. If you look closely in the beginning of the movie, when Ellen Barkin says 'Wendel' and they show the black and white film of the Ebb Tide motel, where they are removing the body of the saxophone player and putting him in the ambulance - I'm the guy on the bottom left, wearing a light grey coat (next to a taller guy in a black coat) under the umbrella. My Mom and Dad are the couple on the balcony on the left, looking down.
We each got $40 to 'act' in that scene, which was about an hour's worth of work. That was decent money back then. My brother was in a bunch of scenes inside Tony Marts. He played a bartender and a person in the audience in the two nights of shooting when I was there. During the nights when my brother was shooting, my parents and I sat at the unused section of the bar, near the kitchen area. I remember there was a couple pinball machines and a bowling game where you throw the ball and the plastic pins fold up. It was also the area where the camera man would bring the camera to load and unload film cartridges. He would bring the camera back with a clip board and write down how many feet they shot, how many good and bad feet of film they used and how many feet they 'printed'. I watched him take the side off the Panavision 35mm camera, remove the exposed film cartridge and load the camera with new film. He left some exposed film clippings on the bar and floor, which I brought home as a momento.
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During those long nights, I would fall asleep at the bar, listening to 'Wild Summer Nights' and 'Tender Years' being played over and over as they shot the same scene over and over, after changing the camera angle. They had two Nagra reel to reel tape decks, one for playing back the music and another to record the dialog and audience. The director would tell the crew to 'roll sound' and 'roll cameras', they would respond back 'we're rolling!'. Once the camera and tape decks were up to speed, the crew would yell back 'speed!'; which meant that all the equipment was running and up to proper speed. The director would call the crew members to mark the scene with the clap board and he would finally call 'action!' to start the scene. Back then, there was no digital anything, so all the audio was done on tape - including the playback of the music that the band pretended to play. There was a pair of Shure 'Vocal Master' black and silver speakers on the stage which were connected to the playback reel to reel tape decks. All of the music was played through them and you can see the speakers in quite a few of the stage scenes. They played the music so loud that it almost sounded like a live band was playing.
There was one scene that they shot over and over again into the wee hours of the morning on the 22nd - it was the scene where they play 'Tender Years' and Michale Pare', grief stricken after Wendel, the sax player dies and he can't sing the song. They must have shot that scene 30 times. Each time, the timing and emotional performance of Michael Pare changed and evolved. On one take, I pulled out my Sanyo tape deck and hit record. I got five minutes worth of audio:
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I sat on one of the stools, with my head on the bar, eyes closed, drifting off to sleep hearing the same music and dialog over and over again until 2am in the morning. I really can't believe that 30 years have passed since I sat on that bar stool, having the time of my life.
I have a few more pictures I will be scanning and adding tomorrow.
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