There is a fine line between suffering for your art and being as crazy as a rat in a tin outhouse. I enjoy being an extra in movies. I caught the bug years ago on the set of “Legends of the Fall.”
I’m one of the guys getting shot in the brief First World War battle scene which was shot just outside of Calgary in the summer of 1993— I remember it going all night and it raining non-stop. Good times.
I also have been in a couple other movies since. In a nutshell, being an extra includes doing a lot of standing around and waiting punctuated by brief moments of adrenaline pumping, stomach churning action, braced by complete and utter exhaustion as fake blood mingles with mosquito bites and real blood from assorted rocks, branches and brambles.
Especially on the set of the Medic, a locally produced alien invasion/ zombie attack film being shot by over the summer by local film makers Rambunxious Entertainment.
They are the same group who brought you popular short film “High School Brawl,” and their first full length action/ comedy “Hoodoo Voodoo,” which was released back in October.
So if you see blood stains and scraps of skin while wandering about the Cottonwood Park Nature Reserve west of Lethbridge, or in and around the city, fear not, it is just the remnants of “the Medic.”
“It’s like a suicide mission to save the world,” described writer/ producer Kevin Johnson who also plays the title character. The whole film is shot through a helmet camera he wears to tell the story of this rag tag bag of Canadian commandos through his eyes as they try to destroy “the node,” which broadcasts a radio signal that controls the infected — hapless victims infected by aliens who are trying to destroy humanity.
They are shooting the film in and around Lethbridge as well as a few out of town locations as far away as Cardston and Vulcan, and in the case of the weekend’s scene, deep in the middle of the west side coulee through rocks, trees and brambles and down an immense, heart-stopping cliff (in the case of an extra like me who is pretty out of shape.) A variety of extras were transformed from pre-teens, parents, students and everybody in between into vicious alien zombies sporting a variety of vivid flesh wounds, bullet holes backbones sticking out, infected back skin, disemboweled bellies and even tentacles.