Aaron Marcus, an extra on a bar scene early in his career, pointed out that a prop glass was empty after multiple takes. The prop crew member shut him down harshly. He learned the hard way that unsolicited help on set can backfire, and now he's careful about when to speak up.
In this video, I'm going to be sharing with you something, uh, that was pretty bad that happened to me on a movie set. And hopefully this way you will be able to avoid this problem. And if you watch this video to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you. It's how to best deal when working with famous actors on a set. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Actor and Model Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. I'd I love sharing information that I've learned from the 37+ years I've been working as a full-time actor and booking almost 1,300 jobs so far. Hey, if you haven't done this yet, don't forget, click the subscribe button, click the notification bell. That way you always know when I upload a new video. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. That's really helpful. I was Working as an extra. This is many, many, many years ago on a movie set, and it was at a bar. And look, it's just part of my nature. I try to be helpful if I can. I want everybody to have a good experience. And so sitting at the bar, and we had drinks— it wasn't real alcohol— and we shot this scene many, many, many, many times. So we're at the bar, we're supposed to be drinking, and You know, we were asked to, you know, take a sip. And, and so at one point, you know, I noticed— this was pretty early on in my career, but even at that point I knew that the, uh, drink— the glass was filled to the top. And it's the same scene being shot over and over and over and over again, and now the glass is almost empty. So I was thinking Maybe I should just tell somebody I was concerned. It's called continuity, just to make sure that if the glass is seen, that it looks normal, because it would look kind of weird if at the very beginning of the scene everything changed a lot. So when they were making some changes, I saw somebody who worked in the prop department, and so So I walked over and I said, hey, I just wanted to let you know when this scene started I had this much liquid in my glass and now it's almost empty. I just wanted to let you know about it. Look, I thought I was being a nice guy. I'm just trying to help out. I didn't want an editor to be in the middle of working on a scene and then noticing that the level of the glass changed because sometimes you see that stuff like with cigarettes. You know, it's the very beginning of a scene and somebody is lighting up a cigarette, and I guess with all the takes that happens, if it's not caught, all of a sudden the cigarette is almost gone, you know, and it kind of throws you off a little bit. So anyhow, I was just trying to be a nice guy. And, and by the way, and I wasn't being arrogant or nasty or saying, hey, you're not doing your job. I just said, hey, I just wanted to let you know. This guy looks at me like he wanted to rip my head off. And he said, hey, do you work in the prop department? I said, no. I said, I'm just, just an extra here. He goes, well then just be quiet and just sit down. And he said a couple other things too, but the point is, look, it's, it's hard. Sometimes it can be hard when you think that you can offer something that will help But you just have to be really, really careful. And, and I can tell you, I mean, right after that, I, I stopped. I, I didn't offer anything to anybody. But then as the years went by, what I started doing was I was getting a better feel for sets, and it seemed like if people were just really nice, it was a warm atmosphere on the set, and people were kind. Um, I would offer it if I— once again, I'm— I wasn't blaming anybody. I wasn't insinuating people weren't doing their job. And so sometimes I would, but sometimes— and I hate to say it's not my job, but sometimes people just take things the wrong way, even though what you're doing has You know, good intentions, and that's the only reason for doing it. So you really have to feel things out, you know, and pick and choose if and when you're going to try to say something to help somebody. And sometimes you just have to let it go, you know, and you just think, I don't want to— I don't want to get involved with this one. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you. I'm curious if you all have ever experienced anything on a set where You know, you said something, you didn't say something, something happened because of that. Either way, please share it in the comments section. The other thing too is I wanted to let you know, if you look up here, you will see the link for a really good video of how to deal with working with famous people. And I've, I've been really, really very fortunate. I've had scenes with 3 Academy Award-winning actors, and And I dealt with things differently, you know, depending on who they were, depending on my character, what's going on in the scene. So anyhow, I think you'll really like it. I hope you enjoy the video. Once again, if you haven't done this yet, click the subscribe button. Also click the notification bell. And also, if you like it, please give it a thumbs up, and that helps let other people know that there's value in the video. And most importantly, share this. Help your fellow actors, share the link with them so we can continue to build a great place on YouTube where people, you know, will share information. We can learn from each other, we can help each other. And so please share it and help me build the channel. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya. See ya.
