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My first day on the job was Wednesday, April 19. I took half-a-day off of work and spent the morning at Burke Lakefront Airport, where I found out I wasn't going to be an ordinary extra. Extras who drive cars undergo special training, earning the title "precision driver," and also earning an additional $15 per day.

There were about fifty of us there, studying under a dude in an Australian hat and sunglasses named Scotty. (I'm still not sure of Scotty's title--stunt coordinator, maybe?) Scotty broke us up into groups of eight or so, and then instructed each group, in turn, in the fine art of movie driving. Movie driving, I discovered, bears little resemblance to real-life driving. For starters, in real life, you normally don't have to worry about making room for the car chase that is transpiring around you. In movie driving, this is achieved by keeping yourself in a "weave formation" (also known as a "zipper pattern"):

Each group ran through this exercise a couple of times--and I must admit, seeing that stunt car racing towards me head-on at 70 MPH was one of the biggest thrills of the whole experience. After each run, we were instructed to back up (a tenth of a mile, perhaps) into our starting positions, which was not easy. Scotty then taught us another secret Hollywood technique, called a "roundy": it's exactly like a U-turn, but it sounds cuter.

Once everyone had completed the exercises to Scotty's satisfaction, we learned a few other tips. For example, they don't like to see brakelights on camera--it distracts from the foreground action--so the trick is to maintain formation without using your brakes. It helps to shift into a lower gear, so you don't coast as fast when you lay off the gas. Daytime running lights are a no-no for the same reason, so you need to either pull the fuse or drive around with your parking brake engaged one click--apparently the latter won't hurt your car, and it keeps those running lights off.

After four hours of training, they sent us home, telling us that we had all done a good job, but they weren't sure how many of us they'd be calling back for the actual shoot, scheduled to start on Friday. I didn't hear anything Thursday night, so I figured I was out of luck. Friday at lunch, I get a call:

So, fairly confident that they had called me in by mistake, I skipped out of work and rushed downtown, making a brief pit stop at home to pick a turkey sandwich and my pass to get onto the set (an orange piece of paper with my name and "Columbia Pictures" written on it; I'll probably post a scan at some point). At a quarter to two, I pulled over to a barricade downtown on E. 9th--it was hard to tell exactly where because they had pulled down all the signs, to make the streets less identifiable as Cleveland--and asked a guy in a bright yellow Spider-Man-branded vest where I was supposed to go. After consulting with someone on his walkie-talkie, he told me to go to E. 9th and Euclid. Ten minutes later, I realized the guy was at E. 9th and Euclid. I asked him again (more sheepishly this time) where I was supposed to be, and he told me to just park the car and wait on the corner for someone from casting to come along.

Shortly thereafter, Amanda from casting escorted me to "extras holding," a converted conference room in a nearby bank that would come to be known as "the pen." There were about twenty other extras there, some new faces and others I recognized from the training. Amanda congratulated us all on being part of the Spider-Man team, then helpfully informed us that at any time, any member of the crew could send us home for any or no reason. The list of explicit "dealbreakers" included:

• showing up late
• talking to the press
• snapping a photograph
• getting caught with a cell phone on set
• failing to complete the required paperwork in a timely manner

Amanda reminded us repeatedly that there were four-thousand other applicants waiting to take our spot should we misbehave. In essence, we were considered "a part of the team" in the same way a box of tissues might be considered a part of the team: of limited utility and utterly expendable.

Amanda then introduced us to Tony, the wardrobe guy. Tony quickly looked over the lot of us, before asking, "You guys brought the stuff, right?" After a moment or two, we collectively decided that laughter was the appropriate response. (Tony looked like an aging surfer/hippy; maybe a vaguely worded drug joke was his standard icebreaker?) Tony stayed straight-faced. "Seriously, you didn't bring anything?" We shrugged.

This enraged Tony, and he took it out on whoever was tuned in to the same channel as his walkie-talkie. From what I could gather, the scene they were shooting was supposed to take place in an upscale neighborhood in the middle of Winter; nobody told us, so we were mostly dressed in t-shirts and jeans. When Tony had calmed down a bit, he picked out about ten from the group to visit the wardrobe trailer. The criteria for his choices were unclear; at first it looked like he wanted just the worst offenders, but then he picked a girl who was already wearing a perfectly acceptable business jacket and skirt combo, and he left out a dude wearing a tank top and denim shorts. It's just as well we didn't understand, because everyone was ready to compete for a chance to check out the glamorous Hollywood wardrobe trailer. I was passed over, for whatever reason, but just as he was getting ready to leave with his flock of chosen, another crew member in the room pointed to me and asked, "What about this guy?" I put on my best "pick me" face, and Tony spent a full ten seconds considering the option, his brain silently running through arcane calculations to determine my worth.

"Nah, I don't like his jeans," he concluded.

The nameless crew member had a contradictory set of calculations. "What do you mean? They're dark, they don't even look like jeans. He should go." Who was this guy? And why did he care if I got to go to the wardrobe trailer? Questions without answers. Anyway, Tony relented.

"Eh, what the hell. Come on."

The wardrobe trailer was one of about a half-dozen in the parking lot the crew referred to as "base camp." For some of us, Tony picked out full ensembles; one guy got a full 3-piece suit. Others were given items to complement their existing outfit. I got a gray sweater and a filthy, long leather jacket to wear over the collared-shirt and jeans I had worn to work that morning.

We were shuttled back to the holding area in a white van with tinted windows. By this time, most of Euclid was lined with onlookers, hoping to see some movie magic. As we drove by, they all started cheering. They must have thought Tobey Maguire was in the van. (It turns out Tobey wasn't needed in Cleveland. The shoot was strictly second unit: no name actors, no Sam Raimi.)

Back at the pen, I got a chance to talk with some of my fellow extras. A surprising number of them had been extras in previous Cleveland productions, mostly low budget crap with names like Renegade Explosion, but also some higher profile releases like American Splendor and Welcome to Collinwood. A couple of them were active in the local independent film scene, if such a thing can be said to exist, working with such Cleveland luminaries as Johnny Wu and Bill Johns. In addition, when one of the caterers dropped in, I instantly recognized him from the locally produced Attrition, in which my buddy Josh co-starred.

Then there were the total newbies, like me. "Xterra Chris," so called because of the bright yellow Nissan Xterra he drove, would eventually be told to go home because his car was too distracting. (Not a problem for me and Granny Corolla.) The "Xterra" name stuck even after he returned the next day in a dull gray Volkswagon. There was also Poindexter, who reminded me of a Celebrity Boxing-era Vanilla Ice. More than anything else, Poindexter was there to get paid. A few Poindexter gems:

• "They made you change your clothes? You should get an extra $5 for that."
• "Three days into the shoot, we should all walk out unless they give us a $7-a-day raise. They'll do it!"
• Pointing to his pay voucher: "See this box where they told us to write $75? I'm gonna write $75.50. What are they gonna do?"

Around 6:00pm, after sitting in the pen for four hours, Amanda told us all to go home; they weren't shooting that day. She said they'd call us later that night if they needed us the next morning. "Will you call us if you don't need us tomorrow?" somebody asked.

Amanda laughed. "Definitely not. No."

A follow-up question: "So, if we don't hear from you by midnight, should we assume we're not needed?"

"No, we can call you at anytime." This was the level of respect we could expect to receive as extras.

So ended day one of my exciting adventure on the set of Spider-Man 3. For those of you who read the whole post, I salute you. And I promise, if you tune in for the next post, Spidey himself will make an appearance!