Ready to geek out for the day, Junior Carly Loveland sports a knee-length plaid skirt, maroon cardigan and vintage glasses to finish off her look for “See Dad Run,” a television series on Nickelodeon. Along with other extras on Jan. 23, she spent painstaking hours on set at Paramount Studios filming for season three episode two as a member of the geek clique in the show’s school.
Before filming, Loveland had to attend three hours of school on set as is required by law for minors in the industry.
But she had already gotten to know the people she would be working with beforehand which made it a much more enjoyable experience. When cameras weren’t rolling, they played games, mouthed the words to their favorite songs and chatted about their lives back home.
“For any job, there’s always this sense of excitement, which is inevitably mixed with a bit of nervousness. Every new job is a new location with new people and new surroundings,” Loveland said. “I really love the fact that it’s never the same, and it’s definitely never mundane.”
Right now Loveland is fairly new to the industry so she has only been on one Disney Channel show that has yet to air, called “Bella and the Bullfrogs.” She has been contacted several times over the last couple months, but has had to decline the offers as it conflicted with school work.
“The biggest challenge with this is missing school. Although I am required to attend a school on set, it is still very easy for me to fall behind on my work,” Loveland said. “I’ve had to turn down jobs before because of tests, presentations and even finals.”
Like any show, there is a specific criterion that background actors must meet that is submitted to agencies. Afterwards, agencies contact actors to offer them the job. Calls for jobs can range from a few days in advance, to even 40 minutes prior notice.
Loveland started the application process for Kids! Management, her agency, at the end of last summer. Once she was recruited by an agency, her first call was in last November and has been getting more and more in the past couple of months since it’s pilot season.
“I’ve been interested in this for years. The person who really made me decide that I wanted to become a part of this was a friend of the family,” Loveland said. “She worked as an extra for a couple years as well, and she loved it. She knew I would too, so she encouraged me to get into the industry, and I’m really glad she did.”
Loveland has learned more about show-business as a whole and has started to look at little aspects of film-making as she’s watching TV, especially the background. She finds it amusing to see how the same people walk the same way they came from over and over again.
“Before I got into this, I had never really considered acting as a career,” Loveland said. “But now, after having the experiences that I’ve had, I can actually see myself doing this in the future.”