The Beijing Film Studio looks far less glamorous than its name suggests. In fact, the place couldn't be less inspiring. It's a nondescript collection of 1960s-era buildings adjacent to the busy and noisy Third Ring Road in the northwestern district of Haidian.
But every day around dawn, it draws a motley crowd of the desperate and the star-struck. Some 70 or 80 such people gather at the front gate hoping to be picked for a day's work as an extra on the TV shows and films that are made inside.
Sometimes, the middlemen who hire the extras emerge from the studio in search of people to stand silently in the background of Qing dynasty-set soaps while the stars emote frantically. Most of the time, though, a phone call is made to the gatekeeper, and the lucky few who are selected rush through the entrance. Those who aren't chosen are left to squat disconsolately outside with their newspapers and cigarettes.
Once inside, the extras will earn a mere 20 yuan for a 14-hour day. The middlemen charge the TV and film production companies 50 yuan for each extra, but keep 30 of that as their fee. The extras get one free box meal, but they have no means of redress should anything happen to them. When Du Zhanchun, a jovial 57-year-old in sunglasses, was hit by a horse while filming a street scene, he was left to fend for himself.
'No one cared,' he said. 'I had to make my own way to hospital, where they told me I had two broken ribs. It cost me over 1,000 yuan, but the production company refused to give me anything.' Mr Du, though, is one of the fortunate ones. He's been coming to the studio for five years, and picks up two or three days of work a week. 'I've been in lots of TV series and have met many famous actors, like Du Yulu and Liu Wei.'
Most in the crowd are lucky if they get a single day's work a week. Some have no homes and sleep rough in a nearby park. They are driven not by dreams of stardom, but by desperation. 'I can't find any other work,' shrugs one woman from Hebei province . Du, who was a salesman for a glass factory in his home town of Jilin until he was laid off, boosts his income by working as a model for art students and by collecting rubbish. He earns around 500 yuan a month.
