The scene unfolding on the screen is pivotal. The main characters are deep in conversation, revealing important plot points. I’m listening. But, also? I’m watching what’s happening behind them. I’m watching the extras.
I love watching background characters, those unknown actors who have been hired to enhance a scene. They do it without uttering a word. Most of them spend more time hanging around on the sidelines than they do in front of a camera. They won’t know if their work survived final cuts until they see the released film at a theater or at home. But there they are, gamely giving it their best, populating a scene with all they’ve got. Some do it so naturally that they just fit in. Some over-emote, hooking me for all the wrong reasons. Some don’t quite fit; maybe they belong in a different movie. But almost all extras arrive on set knowing who their self-created character is and how that person ended up at that particular location. Often, they’ve given their characters backstories. If I watch closely enough (and don’t blink), I can sometimes catch glimmers of what that story is.
I like this. Just because the camera is focused on those main characters moving the narrative forward doesn’t mean they’re the only ones with a story to tell. Everyone has one. Every character has a reason to be where they are at that particular time, doing whatever they’re doing. Or at least, they should.
With my interest in background characters, it’s not too surprising that my current manuscript has been hijacked by a character originally brought in to support my protagonist’s plotline. This character’s role in the story didn’t exist when I first mapped everything out. Her chapters don’t even take place in the same era. But there was no denying that the story as written wasn’t quite landing, and this character was insistent that she could help me out. So, I gave her a chance.
I didn’t expect her to take over.
I should have seen it coming. Gradually, I found myself more interested in the new sections of my manuscript, less drawn to what I’d originally assumed was the plot. My bossy new character had a lot to say. Sometimes, she made me laugh out loud. I was connecting with her on a far different level than was happening with my protags. With them, I was an outsider telling their story. But New Girl invited me in, and I couldn’t wait to see where she planned to take us. Finally, I realized that I’d been focusing on the wrong plotline all along.
Can you say “total rewrite”? But that’s okay. The ability of a character to show me something unexpected rounds out the story. It adds dimensions I didn’t see before.
Film extras are in danger of becoming irrelevant. Generative AI tools can easily duplicate people performing background actions. Digital face and body scans reproduce realistic crowd images. This saves a chunk of production costs, because there’s no need to hire a bevy of live actors to populate a scene. But for me, a scene loses something when you take human motivation and unpredictability out of the background. I like the possibility that an extra might go rogue.
My characters are welcome to do that whenever they want.
