What to Bring to Set as a Background Actor: The Bag Veterans Pack

Picture a 4:45am call in the Valley. You left the house at 3:50, found parking a ten-minute walk from basecamp, signed in, and were shown to holding: a cold room with folding chairs and a table of muffins. You will sit there until early afternoon for eleven seconds of walking behind the lead. You will probably do it again next week.

The difference between a miserable day and a decent one is almost entirely what is in your bag. Pack like you are staying all day, because you are.

You will hear people in holding ask what time crew call was. It is not small talk. Background days run long, often twelve hours or more once you count the wait, and veterans use the crew call to guess roughly when they are getting home. Plan for a long day and you will never be caught out by one.

Bring what the booking asked for, plus alternates. Solid, muted colors are safest. Unless they are specifically requested, leave behind logos, bright white, all black, red and tight patterns, which tend to cause trouble on camera.

Hang everything. Clothes that come out of a backpack in a ball look like it, and wardrobe will choose the person whose shirt is ready. Giving the costumer a choice also makes you easier to place, and sometimes that is how people end up closer to camera.

Payroll needs real documents for employment paperwork, not photos of them. A passport works on its own. A driver's license usually needs to be paired with something like your Social Security card. Check what the booking says and bring originals.

Bring a pen. You will fill out a voucher or a sign-in sheet, there will be one pen for forty people, and someone will have walked off with it.

Meals come when production calls them, and on some days that is a while. Pack water, nuts, a granola bar, a banana. Avoid anything that crunches loudly, smells strongly or leaves sticky fingers, and be careful eating in your on-camera wardrobe. A coffee stain on the shirt they picked for you is a bad way to spend the afternoon.

There may well be a craft services table. Just do not plan your day around it, and remember it might not be the one meant for you.

Holding rooms are kept cold, or they are a tent in a parking lot in July. Bring a hoodie you can pull off quickly when they call you, and something to do that you can put down mid-sentence. You will bring a book you will not read. Bring it anyway.

Keep your phone on silent, and keep it off the set entirely unless you are told otherwise. Being the person whose ringtone goes off during a take is a story the crew will tell long after they forget your face.

The background actors who get called back, and sometimes moved up, are rarely the most striking people in holding. They are the ones who were where the AD left them, came back from lunch on time, and did not need to be told twice. A packed bag is a big part of that. You are not going to be the one asking to borrow a charger, a pen or a jacket.

Pack it the night before, by the door, with your keys on top. When the alarm goes off at 3:30, you will be grateful you did.