Action!

At 11:30 p.m. last night, I found myself standing outside a little diner in Brooklyn. The neighborhood was dim and quiet, scarcely anyone there, and oozed with the unsettling feel of Are You Afraid of the Dark?'s eerie, early nineties theme song (which still gives me the heebie jeebies, by the way).

I was with four friends, about to make our acting debuts as extras for the MTV series My Life as Liz. You probably haven't heard of it. Don't worry, neither has anyone else. I know I hadn't. But, being the type to never turn down an opportunity to get airwave attention, I eagerly agreed when my MTV intern friend asked if I was interested.

The shoot was supposed to take place from 11:30 - 1:30. We hopped boroughs around 11, and, being new to this part of Brooklyn, had about twenty minutes to decode the streets and find our way to a diner named "Relish".

The only experience I had had with Brooklyn was Coney Island's hot dog eating mayhem back on July 4th. Let me say it's a lot different on a late Thursday night. The weird part is that it feels like a bizarro version of Manhattan -- a knockoff, a Knockturn doppleganger of Diagon Alley. There are still plenty of people wandering around, and a couple NYPD here and there. But something about Brooklyn just feels off. Compared to Midtown or East Village, everything is three or four shades grungier. The people's teeth are a little more crooked. The bar music is all in minor keys. It's very difficult to describe, but think of being caught in an unpleasant dream. Not a nightmare, but a kind of wobbly, unsettled world that feels like it's crazy glued together.

So there we were, all four of us, walking around looking for Relish. One girl mentioned that she brought a can of Mace and a switchblade just in case. I felt my own pockets -- all I had was ten bucks and a stick of Tide To Go. Hopefully there wouldn't be trouble, because as far as fights are concerned, the most I can take on is a messy stain.

Thankfully, as the start of this post indicates, we arrived safely around 11:30. At least we thought we did. We'd found a small diner on Berry St. but there was no signage anywhere. No camera crews, no producers. So we sort of just hung around outside and took pictures for a while.

A few more minutes passed... still nothing.

Then it clicked. Hidden cameras were already filming us. It was a brand new reality show -- I could hear the promo voice:

Five interns are trapped in Brooklyn and must party their way back to Manhattan. But since that only takes, like, a couple hours, they'll probably just make-out for the other eight episodes.

Yep. Sounds like an MTV show to me.

Once we ran out of jokes about the whole hidden camera thing, we decided to check inside the diner... and it turned out that the film crew was already getting set up. A Production Assistant led us into a dank little ante-room and handed out contracts. It was so dark I couldn't really read anything, so I just signed where I thought the dotted line was.

...yeah... MTV might own my kidneys right now. Guess we'll wait and see.

The next hour was spent chilling around on set, meeting more extras, and watching the crew film their scenes. Finally it came time for the big diner shot. My group must've been the most attractive (no surprise there), because we got seated right by the lead actress' table. We were told that a waitress would come up and take our plates away, and that right after we should get up and leave.

Oh, and all our movement had to be in slow-motion because they were doing some sort of visual effect.

HD cameras mounted the dollies. Prop food was brought out. The lights were adjusted.

ACTION!

Now, honestly, there's not an ounce of performance pressure as an extra. No one is paying attention to you but you. I do admit, however, that there's some anxious energy that bubbles up when you hear "rolling!". Being pros, of course, we tamed the nerves and aced the takes (adding slightly different subtext each time for variety -- in take one we pretended I had just proposed to my fiance; in take two, I asked for a divorce).

Needless to say, the whole thing was loads of fun.

And guess what?

We got cash.

Ten. Dollars.

Impressed? You should be -- I'm a legitimately paid, professional actor now. They also offered us the cold prop food after shooting, which we grabbed and scarfed down in a heartbeat (actors can't be choosers). Can you believe it? In one night, my three years of business school were eschewed for sketchy film sets, slave pay, and cold sandwiches. If Murray Edwards could see me now...

But you know what? I loved it. This site is called Bohemian Businesskid for a reason. I can't wear a white collar all the time because it's too boring, and I can't do the starving artist thing because I happen to really like expensive things. So if I had to pass on a piece of advice, I would suggest striking a good balance between practicality and passion in life.

Oh, and don't sign contracts in the dark.