Wishing all our MCTV characters a very happy and safe Easter weekend. It’s been a great, but busy start to the year and we thank everyone for their ongoing support and hard work.
We will be back in the office on Tuesday 6 April.
Beth, Paul and the MCTV Team
The Central Coast has been turned into fictional southern US town of Belle Isle as shooting continues on Netflix’s Pieces of Her. The Sydney Morning Herald has published great pics (above) showing a local bar turned into a Crab shack and some ‘Belle Isle’ police cars. MCTV members are still being submitted for background roles on the production, which stars Toni Collette.
The SMH article mentions “Umina socialite Lisa Masters (above) who wanted to be an extra but missed out”. It doesn’t always go your way, but hang in there Lisa, there is plenty of work around at the moment. It is important to have representation, as the bigger productions generally source their talent through agencies like MCTV.
Best of luck to everyone who’s been submitted!
Russell Crowe is the latest star to join the cast of Thor: Love and Thunder. It’s been reported that the production team wanted to keep his cameo a surprise, but after he was snapped socialising with the rest of the cast and director Taika Waititi, he has been sprung! However, his character in the movie is still under wraps. Despite the steady stream of news about the movie, it’s sure to be full of surprises when it’s released next year.
Submissions are still underway for extras roles on this epic production. Good luck to everyone who has been submitted!
There is such a wide variety of work in the film and TV industry. Each month we place members in jobs as stand-ins. A stand-in is a person who substitutes for the real actor so that production decisions can be made without the real performer being on set. Stand-ins allow the director of photography (DOP) to light the set and the camera department to light and focus scenes while the actors are absent. The director will often ask stand-ins to deliver the scene dialogue (“lines”) and walk through (“blocking”) the scenes to be filmed.
While you won’t even appear in the finished production you will get paid and it’s great experience for being on set and in front of the camera. For a tongue in cheek look at the work of stand-ins check out this trailer for Drew Barrymore’s latest move…The Stand In .
While TV dramas and films come to mind when thinking about extras, MCTV is often asked to provide gameshows with audience members. Name that Tune was shot in Australia last year for the American market with a studio audience made up of hundreds of MCTV members. In more gameshow success, congratulations to Jimmy who got a speaking role (as a cameraman!!) at the end of this promo for Mastermind on SBS.
If getting paid to watch shows as they happen appeals to you, apply here.
Long awaited sequel, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway has opened in Australian cinemas, just in time for Easter. The movie, which was filmed in Sydney in 2019 was due for release in 2020, but got put on hold. Now Aussies are the first to get a look at the movie with international release dates for the USA and Europe later in the year. Over 100 MCTV extras are seamless beside the CGI bunnies, badgers, hedgehog and deer!!
Definitely one for the school holidays! Check out the hilarious trailer here.
Big congratulations to the MCTV members who appeared in this ad originally in 2018 and got paid for it again this month. The clever Jim Beam “I’m Eugene” campaign was very funny, memorable and popular.
It feels like money for nothing, but when TVCs run for longer than expected or are re-run, featured performers are paid a “rollover”, an additional payment is made to cover the extended time the ad is running. Rollovers can be quite substantial depending on how featured a performer is in the ad and the terms of the original contract.
Almost right on cue for George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing, Sydney’s weather transformed for scenes which appear to be set in London. Movie star Tilda Swinton has been snapped in a London cab sporting a new red bob haircut. Check out the pictures here.
Tilda’s great new look is courtesy of Oscar winning hair and makeup designer Lesley Vanderwalt (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Great Gatsby, Peter Rabbit, Moulin Rouge). Miller has assembled an amazing crew for the movie including DoP John Seale, known for his work on The English Patient, The Talented Mr Ripley and Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, who has come out of retirement for the movie.
Oscar-winning set decorator Lisa Thompson, composer Tom Holkenborg aka Junkie XL, Babe production designer Roger Ford, The Matrix costume designer Kym Barrett and Captain Marvel and Avengers VFX supervisor Paul Butterworth are also in the team. Details of the movie have been strictly kept under wraps but with what we know of the cast and crew it’s going to be incredible. More details on the production team can be found here.
With rain, rain and more rain predicted this weekend, why not check out some of the movies made over the last few years in Sydney. Try and spot the locations and maybe even yourself – hundreds of MCTV people feature in these movies alone:
So grab the popcorn and get ready to binge!!
Check out this trailer for the new psychological mystery series, Wakefield. Set in the Blue Mountains, the series explores themes of mental illness, family and race with intelligence, humour and heart. All 8 episodes will be available to stream on iView from April 2.
The show features many familiar faces including Mandy McElhinney (Bad Mothers, Squinters) and Geraldine Hakewill (Wanted, Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries), Ryan Corr (Love Child, Packed to the Rafters) and Kym Gyngell (Underbelly, The Straits). Over 20 MCTV members also feature and in background and extras roles.
Executive Producer for Jungle Entertainment (who made the show in partnership with BBC Studios), Chloe Rickard says, “Wakefield is undeniably authentic, poetic and powerful. Despite one in five Australians living with mental illness in their lifetime, social stigma on the issue of mental health still prevails – this series gets right to the heart of this controversial issue, whilst being hugely entertaining.”
Read more here.