In the mid-1980s, I did some work as a film extra -- or ‘crowd artiste’ -- on a number of projects, big and small, filmed in and around London. I was not at all interested in acting. I wanted to be on movie sets for the worst possible reason: I really only wanted to get on set

to watch how filming was done.

That’s the last thing any assistant director wants from someone who is paid to mingle as an obedient body in the background. “Don’t look at the camera!” is order number one. But that is what I did while I was applying to film schools, seeking employment as a runner in Soho’s film community and, meanwhile, making my short films on Super 8 and 16mm and doing a lot of daydreaming while working in Dad’s high street shop.

Films that I worked on included the opening Fourth of July Picnic in The Razor’s Edge

starring Bill Murray and Stacey Keach; a slave parade in a TV miniseries, The Last Days of Pompeii; below decks as a salty sea-dog in the belly of the HMS Bounty on the Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ remake, The Bounty; and a very strange TV movie made for Channel Four, where I was typecast as a corpse.

For the corpse gig, I did not know I was to be dead until I turned up on location at a farmhouse in South London. They dressed me in rustic farmer gear, the director gave me a once-over and they sat me down in a makeup chair to receive my mortal head wound.

A pretty young blonde makeup artist then proceeded to apply wax, collodion and Kensington Gore to my forehead, and I chatted with her enthusiastically about my friend Nigel who made the rubber monsters for my Super 8s. Perhaps to shut me up, she gave me her phone number to give to Nigel. Years later, I met that lady again at a BAFTA/LA event, where she was part of a Q&A panel speaking about her BAFTA-nominated makeup for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. I’m not sure if she remembered me, but she’s still just as nice. That’s Lois Burwell.

But my abiding memory of that South London shoot, in 1984, was laying face-down in a barnyard, where the set dressing team had sprinkled dendritic salt as snow. My ‘wife,’ played by Caroline Embling, wept over me while stormtroopers in trench-coats roared at her and pulled her away. The A.D. told me not to move, no matter what, as the camera was going to start on my face and then pull slowly away. Meanwhile, special

effects supervisor Nobby Clarke ignited the thatched roof of the barn, which continued to burn as the camera boomed up.

On ‘action’ I held my breath. Caroline pawed me emotionally. The stormtrooper delivered his speech, flipped me with his boot and I flopped onto my back. After the soldiers marched away, the scene felt like it went on for an eternity as the camera pulled back and the barn continued burning furiously. I was a little worried as a huge piece of burning thatch collapsed and it was getting pretty toasty. When the director yelled ‘cut!’ the corpse leapt up and ran out of shot.

It was a dramatic scene, and we got the crane shot in one take. I gave Lois’ details to Nigel, and if I recall correctly that connection somehow ended up getting Nigel an introduction to Nick Maley’s creature effects crew on The Keep. Nigel enthusiastically quit

art school to join that entourage. He went on to work on Highlander, Hellraiser and Aliens, and became a BAFTA-nominated member of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop crew. He now owns a makeup effects studio of his own in London. I’m proud of him.

I forgot all about that film. It had a boring title, The House, and I remember sitting through it uncomfortably when it aired on Channel Four in September of that year. It was very surreal, and I did not understand all of its significance. A random Google search led me to, miraculously,

discover the film on YouTube, by the looks of it ripped illegally from a VHS recording. Stephen Rea is the star, and there I am, with a hole in my head.

What was even more surprising, I have now discovered this was the first feature film of filmmaker Mike Figgis, who went on to direct Leaving Las Vegas; and the lighting cameraman was none other than Roger Deakins, which explains why The House looked so good. Roger is, in my opinion, one of the greatest cinematographers working today, and I wrote about his work for Cinefex when I covered the Bond movie Skyfall.

You never know where a hole in the head will land you.