Read 'New World Extra' (2009) book by Joe David Bellamy..an extra speaks
October 9, 2012
The New World (2005) book is the subject of a very good book by Joe David Bellamy, available for purchase from Amazon.Com It is titled "New World Extra" (2009). It is truly one of the only good books available anywhere about background actor work (aka "extra" work) in movie production.
It was written by an experienced book writer of fame who acted in New World Extra (2005 New Line Cinema). Joe David Bellamy's book about his life during work he did on this movie is worth reading.
Writer (and retired university professor) Joe David Bellamy describes his "New World Extra" (2009) book in these words:
"This is the story of my summer gig working as an extra in the film The New World, which was Terrence Malick's dramatic re-creation of the Jamestown experience and the life of Pocahontas, released in 2006 by New Line Cinema. I saw a story in the newspaper about auditions.
I had very little acting experience, but I had had ancestors at Jamestown in the 1600s and was writing a book about some of them. So I thought it might help me to feel the ambience of Jamestown if I was "lucky" enough to make the cut. In the first scene on the first day,
I had to perform next to Colin Farrell and Christopher Plummer. Everyone seemed to think I should know what to do!
Overall, I think the book will give readers a new appreciation of the talent, hard work, and sheer craziness that go into the making of a big budget Hollywood film."
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I (Tex Allen, aka "David R. Allen," author of this "message board" writing about the New World movie) obtained and reviewed Bellamy's very good book in May of 2011, and wrote the following:
"New World Extra (2009 Bellamy House Books) by Joe David Bellamy is a good book about the movies, and what it's like to do "background actor" (or "extra") work in a big time, expensive, major Hollywood studio movies with famous movie stars.
Joe David Bellamy is an important fiction and literture commentator writer and also a college teacher of fame (creative writing courses at good higher ed. schools for three decades), and also ran the Lit. Program for the National Endowment For The Arts (1990-3).
He was awarded degrees at Antioch College in Ohio, and also from the University Of Iowa.
Before he retired with his wife to Florida, his last teacher job was in Virginia, and in 2004 got an offer to do several weeks of minimum wage background actor work on The New World (2004 New Line Cinema/ Warner Bros.) starring Christopher Plummer and Colin Farrell, directed by Terrance Mallick.
Expensive on-location movie about the first English settlers in Virginia in 1607, and also about the romance between Pocohantas and both Capt. John Smith and John Rolfe, the latter whom she married and went to England with briefly (she met the king of England, James I, and died shortly after in England in 1616...the same year William Shakespeare died).
Bellamy writes about his background actor work with honesty and humility both touching and poignant. He's a good writer (read his Suzi Sinzinnati [1993] book and Literary Luxuries [1995] book...and many others).
Movie actor location work is very, very hard work. Very physical, often dangerous. Many have died over the history of feature movie production.
News about that doesn't get out much, and detailed writing of the sort Bellamy provides almost never is written by an actual background actor who endured the battles and emerged alive to tell the tale.
Anyone who likes and is interested in "the movies," and the hidden parts of feature movie making should read this book.
Two silent movie classics were made about "Hollywood extras" and what they faced, almost 100 years ago (The Last Command [1928] and also The Life And Death Of 9413: A Hollywood Extra {1927]).
The story conclusion is always the same. It's grim at the bottom, regardless of the glamour and interesting times.
Bellamy tells his movie actor work story in good humor, but "tells it like it was," which included parts most people would never return to, and want to forget about.
I recommend this book."
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Tex Allen is a SAG union Middle Atlantic States movie actor.
Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for actor credits, biography background, interests of Tex Allen
Email: [email protected].