The Extra

Audio

While you listen

oCoder Education - English listening Audios are suitable for learners with different levels of English. Here are some ways to make them easier (if you have a lower level of English) or more difficult (if you have a higher level of English).
You can choose one or two of these suggestions – you don't have to follow all of them!

Making it easier

Read all the exercises before you listen to the audio.
Look up the words in the exercises that you don't know or don't understand in a dictionary.
Play the audio as many times as you need.
Play each part of the audio separately.
Answer all questions in the exercise.
Read the transcript after you have listened to the audio.

Making it harder

Listen to the audio before you read the exercises.
Only play the audio once before answering the questions.
Play the whole audio without a break.
Don't read the transcript.
Now, listen to the audio and do the exercises on the following tabs.
If you do not complete all the question, you can play the audio again. After that, read the dialog to make sure that you understand all word in the audio.
1) What does he mention first about extras?
How much they make
What they wear
When they appear
Where they stand and sit
All of them.
2) What does he mention about being an extra?
Cities to work in
Practicing lines
Making contacts
All of them.
3) How does he describe the job?
Exciting
Challenging
Boring
Stressful
4) What does he say about his past life?
He lived in San Diego.
He moved to Los Angeles.
He worked in real estate.
All of them.

Todd: OK, Matt, we're talking about acting and you were an extra. Can you talk a little about what an extra is and your experience?

Matt: Sure. Extra work is basically background in any scene for whatever reason. Obviously, movies and television, they need to be authentic looking so they obviously, in restaurants or in places of public business, they need extras to walk behind the main actors or be set behind the main actors to set the scene, so there is tons of work in Los Angeles and New York for those types of jobs and obviously they are paid a lot less but people do survive doing that and use it as a way to springboard their career and meet people and network and make contacts while they are on the set because extra work is mainly about waiting and you are on the set for long periods of time, from twelve to sixteen hours doing virtually nothing but waiting for the set to be ready for you to go out do your twenty second saying and then go off the set and wait until they reposition the cameras, so it's a very... it's quite boring and so you need to have something else to do while you are waiting and a lot of people in Los Angeles use that to meet people.

Todd: Well, so how did you get started? How did you get onto a movie set?

Matt: I was in San Diego living at the time and I had just quit my job in real estate and was taking acting classes in San Diego, and actually the guy who taught my classes also was a pseudo-agent or knew people who did a lot of film work in San Diego and so I was able to get work in San Diego for a couple of months and then from there found out about the extra work and was intrigued and obviously, naturally I was looking towards Los Angeles just because that is where you need to go to get work if want to do that for a career.

Todd: OK. Thanks Matt.