Frequently Asked Questions

We are often asked to describe exactly what is required of an extra. The answer is simple. Whatever is needed to make a scene real.

Many people become extras because of the sheer thrill of involvement in the world of film and television, and are pleasantly surprised to discover that the remuneration is often surprisingly good.

Production companies usually pay on a monthly basis, so you will generally receive payment within 28 days of work that you undertake.

We hope this website will provide solutions for the needs of production companies, but we are always more than happy to talk in person about particular requirements.

There is no charge to register on this site. We will deduct a £25 management fee from your first hiring in any given year- so you'll pay nothing until you actually get work. We then only take 20% commission from your future gross earnings

Definitely! Being able to contact you at short notice is often vital. You've probably got one anyhow, but the employable extra always has their phone switched on!

Not lots- but having a suit or a skirt in your wardrobe rather than just jeans and a t-shirt will be pretty vital! The costume department will phone you and tell you what to bring with you, and it's always helpful if you bring a few changes as the colour might be wrong for the camera. If it is a period drama obviously they will supply the necessary costumes.

Some productions require extras to work after office hours so a willingness to do so is an advantage.

Not at this stage of your career. You will be expected to make your own way to and from the set.

Extraspecials prefers you upload your photos in jpg format at a resolution of 140 pixels wide by 187 pixels high. This is the same ratio as a portrait shot taken with most digital cameras (3:4 aspect ratio). File sizes should not exceed 2 MB- if they do you will receive an error message asking you to resize the image.

You can resize your photos using any number of software packages- most digital cameras and scanners will come with some sort of photo editing software, and Mac users will have iPhoto. Free downloadable software with image resizing includes Google's image organiser Picasa or the open source graphics editor GIMP.

However, if you do not have any other program available, here's how to resize a portrait shot taken with a digital camera in Microsoft Paint, which comes with every Windows PC.

1. Open Paint, which you'll find at Start Menu / Programs / Accessories / Paint.
2. Open your image. File / Open, under Files of Type select All Files. Navigate to your choosen photo and open it.
3. Find your current image dimensions. Image / Attributes. Note these down.
4. Calculate the percentage of the current size the new image will be.
   • Divide 140 by the current width, multiply the answer by 100. Round up to the nearest whole number.
   • Divide 187 by the current height, multiply the answer by 100. Round up to nearest whole number.
   • Compare these two numbers they should be the same or very similar. If very similar take the larger of the two.
5. Resize your image. (Image / Stretch / Skew.) Enter the figure you calculated above into both the Horizontal and Vertical Stretch boxes.
6. Check the new dimensions of your image. Image / Attributes. If your image isn't exactly 140 wide by 187 high, you can alter the dimensions here. This will crop from the right and bottom, so you may want to first move your image using the select tool.
7. Save your photo. File / Save As. Give a new name to your photo and ensure you save it as type JPEG.
8. You can then upload your photo.

In order to preserve the quality of the Extraspecials database we require each member to have a unique email address.

This prevents duplicate accounts and ensures we can correspond with each member confidentially.

There are many free email providers, try Google Mail - Gmail.com for over 2.5gb (and counting) of free storage.