Greetings over your interweb devices
“There’s a party goin’ on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you
Come on now, celebration
Let’s all celebrate and have a good time
Celebration
We gonna celebrate and have a good time.”
It’s the wrap party for the first season of Fuller House. Despite many odds throughout the year, the cast and crew mounted a very successful reboot of this classic series. The young lady in the picture is Katina who worked as one of the stand-ins on the show. She and all her cohorts on the show earned every right to blow off some collective steam that night and party hearty.
Being a stand-in (also known as a member of the second team) can be a very thankless job fraught with criticisms and impatience that you are not actually the person you are shadowing.
Stand-ins came to be because in the single camera world, every angle (wide shot, single, two shot, etc.) required its own individual setup, with constant adjustments for lighting. As this very technical part of the process did not involve much in the way of rehearsal or acting, stand-ins who approximated the general height and size of the actor, were hired to take the place of that thespian who could be otherwise occupied in make-up and hair or in studying their lines.
The multi-camera approach is more akin to a play wherein all the angles in a scene are captured at the same time so, at least during the early part of my career, stand-ins were rarely used. Technical precision being very important, most actors found it quite useful to do their own rehearsals, directly incorporating any blocking adjustments which were made.
As the two approaches started to hybridize, and shows with more youthful casts (with highly limited hours allowed on set) grew in popularity, stand-ins became much more common to both the settings. The skillset that was being required of second team members now required a bit more than just being the same body type — they had to keep closer track of the blocking and that included where on the stage the actors spoke the different parts of their lines so that the audio booms would know where and how to follow them and not cast shadows on the actors or into the set. High definition video has introduced even more challenges. For instance small tape marks laid down on the stage floor to indicate optimal positions for camera angle and lighting started to get minimized more and more to the point where they were almost invisible to first or second team members searching to find the marks, but not, unfortunately, to the all-seeing lens. On some shows they had to be eliminated all together making the task even more challenging for the stand-ins to keep close check on where the actors originally chose to stand — and to relay any changes to their counterparts after the camera pass.
Lately, as the demand on the actor’s time and obligations have grown (such as a publicity appearances or previous movie obligations), the stand-ins have been called on more and more to step up and act in rehearsals — particularly in the world of multi-cam kids shows. The demands may continue to increase, but as the fun begins when the audience arrives and the taping starts –– the stand-ins are cut loose and sent home . . . can’t run the risk of incurring overtime.
So here’s to the stand-ins — may you all have the chance to let your hair down and enjoy a job well done.
To one and all, Be Safe-Stay Healthy