Ten lovely girls, all dressed up to go clubbing, at midday on Saturday in Charing Cross railway station... all of them waiting for me. What was going on? The Goatee confesses all.

Some time ago, I casually mentioned to some friends of mine that I knew of a new British feature film being shot in London. Although the response was tepid from my UniS acquaintances, the word spread rather quickly around UCL and I suddenly found myself in the capacity of unofficial Extras Casting Agent. On Saturday of last week, I took the dubious decision to forego revision in favour of travelling up to London (with one other brave Surrey student... who shall remain nameless, in case the finished film is a complete dud) in order to introduce these young ladies to the production team and get them a slot in the film.

For a bloke, particularly an Electronic Engineer like myself, there is quite an emotional high to be gained from standing in a busy railway station in the middle of the day, surrounded by a crowd of, frankly, gorgeous women in tiny skirts. The jaws of the male passers-by uniformly dropped in jealous disbelief, believe me. Fortunately, nobody asked how much I was charging; but the plot of my own, rather self-indulgent, film was beginning to crystallise in my mind; hence the title of this essay.

The film in which we were getting involved, called Club Le Monde, was and is still being shot in a disused night-club beneath the Adelphi building, just off The Strand. Its presence was marked by the noise and pollution of a massive generator, whose cables snaked from the outside world into the murky depths of the club; it was a trivial matter to follow these to find the location of the shoot. I had not even had time to explain the plot when every one of the Angels were whisked from me; apparently, the morning's shooting had been postponed, due to a lack of female extras, and the production team were rather more than glad to see us.

I decided fairly early on in the day that I would not get involved in the filming myself; instead, I wandered about, got in the way, and tried not to laugh too much at some of the mistakes. The extras themselves, though, were thrown in at the deep end and had to start rehearsing straight away. In the scene in question, one of the leads strolls across a crowded dance-floor, approaches from behind one particular dancing girl, who was wearing a black bra and hotpants, before starting to caress her. To my surprise and delight, several of my Angels were in the immediate foreground of the shot as they were setting up and will undoubtedly be visible in the finished film.

The First Assistant Director, Gareth, was wired to a PA system and issued orders to the crew while the actual director, Simon Rumley, watched progress on a monitor in an adjacent room, giving him a better sense of the image that would eventually be presented to the audience. Simon's appearance has gone downhill somewhat in the last few weeks; he was dishevelled, unshaven and seemed very tired. He is used to making small-scale, personal films (The Truth Game is to be released in April 2001, while Strong Language premiered at the National Film Theatre this year and is out now on video and DVD). In a sense, the scale of this film probably surprised even him and it is small wonder that he looked quite bewildered at all the people.

Gareth instructed all the extras to dance and then ordered a tape playback of some early '90s dance music, the film being set in 1993. After each rehearsal, the director would pop out, speak to the leads and to the AD, then scuttled back to his monitor. The AD then passed on the comments. "Dancers were sadder in 1993," he claimed, in a successful attempt to get all the extras to put their hands in the air and wear a stoned expression.

Other members of the crew stood around the edge of the room in complete boredom. At one point, the Grip turned to me and said, "We've got some fit birds here today."

"They're mine," I growled back. "All of them." When he just grinned at me, I insisted, "No, really." His smile faded and he wandered off and did not actually talk to me again.

Eventually, the team decided that everything was ready for a proper take; cue the cliched but accurate shouts from the various departments, clapper-board and all.

The scene lasted fifteen seconds; the rehearsals and shooting took a couple of hours. They re-shot the scene from the opposite corner of the room which, to my satisfaction, put all the rest of my Angels right in the spotlight. Actually, they cheated somewhat; some of the extras were moved about slightly, in order to provide a clearer sight-line to the principals. "The audience will never know," Gareth claimed confidently, obviously unaware of the pedants who write into the Internet Movie Database.

Beneath the set, there was a rest-room for the extras who, already exhausted, were more than happy to relax while the next shot was prepared. Two dim bulbs, several dim actresses and small groups of Bohemians scattered, respectively, a little light, their collected wisdom and themselves across the ancient furniture and concrete floor. The Angels and I soaked up the artistic atmosphere - the tobacco smoke, suspicious music tastes and card games - and waited. Many of the other extras were also students, as it turned out: the producers had handed out fliers at University of London Union, which said, "Mr C (The Shamen), Brandon Block & Alex P will be performing exclusive live sets for the filming of a new British feature film..." The leaflets did not, however, make it clear that the live sets in question were limited to about thirty seconds each, before the AD would call "Cut!".

The extras and restroom were supervised by a guy called Andy who, for me at least, perpetuated two particular movie-making myths. The first is that most people on a film set look constantly stoned, even if they are not really. The second is that there is always a budding film-maker hanging about, who is only doing this job because he believes that it will give him a foot in the door.

By 3.30pm, boredom had set in like concrete amongst the extras and the promised 2pm lunch break had yet to materialise. Some of the Angels were shooting, but others were not needed for that scene and instead spent the time attempting to guess the purpose of a mysterious tower that a senior member of the technical crew was constructing in the middle of the greenroom. Eventually, filming finished, all the extras poured back downstairs and to everyone's relief, the word "lunch" finally became more than a whispered rumour and instead took on a real and quite urgent meaning.

Upstairs, the crew were provided with a fairly sizeable cooked meal. Downstairs, the extras were given bread and soup. I seized the opportunity of a quiet break to view some of the "rushes" (or previously-shot clips) and, despite my presumed bias, I am happy to report that they not only looked fantastic, they were absolutely hilarious.

By 5pm, the crew were ready to start shooting the "end-of-the-night" scene and the extras grudgingly made their way back onto set. Personally, I would have been exhausted by 3am and the expressions on their faces obviously reflected this for real, but the AD insisted that everyone should look euphoric. All the blokes were ordered to remove their shirts and were sprayed with water to appear hot and sweaty. Everyone danced, everyone clapped as the lights came up, and then they did it all again. And again. And again. Then they decided to shoot it, but due to a technical hitch, had to restart once more...

By this time, the executive producers had turned up on set. One was more than happy to cameo. The other positioned himself in the doorway. Concerned for the accuracy of having a middle-aged man in a sleazy club, I asked whether he really thought that it was his scene. "It is my scene," he countered with faultless logic; "It is my scene."

The last scene of the day was also one of the most complex: a long Steadicam tracking shot through several different rooms. By this time of night, many of the extras had returned home, leaving just the Angels and a handful of others. The AD was convinced that, by getting the extras to run behind the camera and stand in different positions, he could make it seem as if there were far more people in the room than there really were. After an hour and a half, even he was convinced that it was not possible.

David Abbott