Life as a Movie Extra

    Ordinary people have always been attracted to the world of movies and movie stars. One way to get closer to this world is to become a movie extra. Although you have seen movie extras, you may not have paid attention to them. Extras are the people seated at tables in a restaurant while the two main actors are in conversation. They are the guests at the wedding of the main characters. They are the people crossing the street while "the bad guy" is being chased by the police. Extras don"t normally speak any lines, but they help make the scenes look real. ¹

    Being a movie extra might seem like a lot of fun. You get to see what life is like behind the scenes. But don"t forget that being an extra is really a job, and it"s mostly about doing nothing. First-time extras are often shocked to learn how slow the process of movie making is. In a finished movie, the action may move quickly. But it can sometimes take a whole day to shoot a scene that appears for just a few minutes on the screen.

    The main requirement for being an extra is the ability to wait. You may report to work at 5 or 6 a. m. , and then you wait until the director is ready for your scene. This could take several hours. Then there may be technical problems, and you have to wait some more. After the director says "action" and you do the first "take", you may have to do it again if he or she is not satisfied with the scene. In fact, you may have to do the same scene over and over again. You could be on the set for hours, sometimes waiting outdoors in very hot or cold weather. ²You may not be finished until 11 p. m. or midnight. The pay isn"t good, either often only a little bit above minimum wage. And you must pay the agent who gets you the job a commission of about 10 percent.

    So who would want to be a movie extra? In spite of the long hours and low pay, many people still apply for the job. Some people truly enjoy the work. They like being on a movie set, and they enjoy the companionship of their fellow extras. Most of them have flexible schedules, which allow them to be available, ³ They may be students, waiters, homemakers, retired people, or unemployed actors. Some unemployed actors hope the work will help them get real acting jobs, but it doesn"t happen often. Most people in the movie industry make a sharp distinction between extras and actors, so extras are not usually considered for large parts.

    The next time you see a movie, don"t just watch the stars. Take a closer look at the people in the background, and ask yourself: Who are they? Why are they there? What else do they do in life?Maybe there is someone in the crowd who is just like you.

 

词汇：

movie extra   群众演员            

chase [tʃeɪs]   vt．追捕            

shoot [ʃu:t]  vt． 拍摄

action ["ækʃn]  n． （导演指令）开拍     

commission [kə"mɪʃn]  n． 佣金

　　

注释：

1.Extras don’t normally speak any lines，but tlley help make me seenes look real．：虽然群众演员通常没有台词，但他们的存在使整个场景更加逼真。

2.You could be on me set for hours，sometimes waiting outdoors in very hot or cold weatller．：在拍摄现场，你可能一演就是几个小时，有时还要一直待在很热或很冷的环境中。on the set：在拍摄现场。

3.Most of them have flexible schedules，which allow them to be available．：这些人中大部分都是时间比较灵活的人，这样他们就能腾出时间来演戏。

You must start working very early

A:being a movie extra can be boring B:movie extras need acting experience C:movie extras can play larger parts D:movie actors are quite different from actors

Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love. There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn’t work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.
Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It’s part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it’s simply distraction and infatuation. One consequence is that when we hit real love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do not fit the cultural ideal.
Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn’t always evolve into love.
Love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will. " If you don’t learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough, but because you will have many failure experiences.
There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don’t distance you or kill the relationship. You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.
Erich Fromm called love "an act of will" because______.

A:you have to wait to get love B:love is something you can get when you want C:love is a skill you have to learn D:you can only get love after many failures

You must have finished it yesterday, ______

A:didn't you B:did you C:haven't you D:have you

You must be going to work tomorrow, ______

A:must you B:mustn't you C:will you D:won't you

Eating in space is different from eating on earth. The food that astronauts carry with them does not look like the food you eat. Some food is carried in closed bags. It is cooked and frozen before the astronauts get it. All the water is removed from the food. In the spaceship the astronaut puts the water back. He "shoots" hot or cold water into the food bag with a special gun. He eats the food through a small hole in the bag.
Other foods come in bite sizes. The astronaut puts a whole piece in his mouth at once. There can be no crumbs. Crumbs would float around the spaceship and get in the way. Meat and cake often come in bite-sized pieces. Astronauts can’t drink water from open cups. The water would float in drops in the air. The water is put in the special gun. The astronaut shoots the water into his mouth. Eating in space is not easy. Astronauts must learn to eat this way.
The story does not say this, but from what we have read, we can tell that ______.

A:you get much hungrier in space than you do B:you can’t have water to drink in a spaceship C:astronauts must learn many new and different things D:you can’t eat anything in a spaceship

Passage 4
Eating in space is different from eating on earth. The food that astronauts carry with them does not look like the food you eat. Some food is carried in closed bags. It is cooked and frozen before the astronauts get it. All the water is removed from the food. In the spaceship the astronaut puts the water back. He "shoots" hot or cold water into the food bag with a special gun. He eats the food through a small hole in the bag.
Other foods come in bite size. The astronaut puts a whole piece in his mouth at once. There can be no crumbs. Crumbs would float around the spaceship and get in the way. Meat and cake often come in bite-sixed pieces. Astronauts can’ t drink water from open cups. The water would float in drops in the air. The water is put in the special gun. The astronaut shoots the water into his mouth. Eating in space is not easy. Astronauts must learn this way.

The story does not say this, but from what we have read, we can tell that （）

A:you get much hungrier in space than you do on the earth B:you can't have water to drink in a spaceship C:astronauts must learn many new and different things D:you can't eat anything in a spaceship

Eating in space is different from eating on earth. The food that astronauts carry with them does not look like the food you eat. Some food is carried in closed bags. It is cooked and frozen before the astronauts get it. All the water is removed from the food. In the spaceship the astronaut puts the water back. He "shoots" hot or cold water into the food bag with a special gun. He eats the food through a small hole in the bag.
Other foods come in bite sizes. The astronaut puts a whole piece in his mouth at once. There can be no crumbs. Crumbs would float around the spaceship and get in the way. Meat and cake often come in bite-sized pieces. Astronauts can’t drink water from open cups. The water would float in drops in the air. The water is put in the special gun. The astronaut shoots the water into his mouth. Eating in space is not easy. Astronauts must learn to eat this way.
The story does not say this, but from what we have read, we can tell that ______.

A:you get much hungrier in space than you do B:you can’t have water to drink in a spaceship C:astronauts must learn many new and different things D:you can’t eat anything in a spaceship

? ?Remember when a trip to the supermarket was nothing more than a boring thing requiring little or no specialized knowledge? You could send your kinds into a cart while you did shopping. You always bought the same brands, usually the brands your mother bought. You didn’t know about unit pricing, and furthermore, you didn’t care. It never occurred to you to read the labels on anything. After all, you’d bought these things a hundred times.
? ?But now, I really look on those days with a feeling of yearn. How innocent we were! How carefree were those trips to the supermarket. No worries. Today a trip to the supermarket is filled with social implication. Every time I buy pork chops I think about the years I’m shaving from my life. I keep a wary eye on the freshness date and examine the tamper-proof packaging. I am victim of that most dangerous social disease: shoppers’ panic.
? ?I didn’t realize how serious my condition had become until the last time I needed laundry soap. It seemed simple enough. Just run into the market, grab a box of the old reliable and pay for it. Can’t get less complicated than that, right? I hadn’t planned on discovering Ecover, a new brand of laundry soap. It sat quietly on the shelf right next to my old reliable. "Healthy, gentle but effective." My respect for it deepened with each new claim as I read the entire package. Then I looked at the price: $5.69 for 2 pound. $5.69! I cast a quick glance at the old reliable, still on sale for $1.39.
? ?Six bucks for laundry soap! These people must be crazy! Who’s going to pay six bucks for laundry soap?
? ?It’s not as though I can’t afford it. See, it’s concentrated-use less, get more. BUT SIX BUCKS! And the box is made from recycled materials...
? ?This act went on for a solid half hour, after which I left the shelf without any soap at all.
? ?Disagreement extends every self. Even the cushion poses a multitude of burning questions. Healthy? Dust free? Or natural? Surely the meat department is most threatening place. Remember what protein was good for you? That’s all over, Every bite you take kills you. I won’t even mention meat’s moral implications.
? ?When all is said and done, we still must eat. I gather up my healthy cooking oil and my recycled paper towels and head to the checkout counter. The cashier smiles across that strange and possible hazardous bar code reader and asks, "Paper or plastic?"
According to the author, eating pork chops will mean that ______.

A:you must have a shave after that B:you must go on diet after that C:you are killing yourself slowly D:you should think of the old days