Do you know the terms used over walkie? Have you ever heard this term used?
Bogie.
Why is this term so important? Well…
It’s a fast shorthand to say that someone is coming into a shot that’s not part of the scene.
It’s the PA job to make sure no one walks into a scene when we’re rolling. That’s why when shooting on a busy street, PA do crowd control (so people don’t walk through the shot).
Everybody who is in the shot is a paid actor either doing background work or is a principal actor.
Sometimes a bogie can be a person in a car, that they realize is in the shot. And then the PA kindly asks the person to leave because they are in the shot. A bogie can be a pedestrian walking their dog down the street or it can be a person that exits their house when we are shooting a wide shot of the entire street.
You are always nice to everybody because although everybody on set is making a living working on that shot, the rest of the world is not. It’s very important to keep people in the neighborhood happy so they don’t start playing loud music or revving up their chainsaw. Once when I was downtown, somebody poured pee out the window on top of everybody.
Any uninvited person that enters the stage could be a bogie… but it’s rare that you’ll get people just walking onto set and not understanding the film drill.
At the end of the video, Andrew shares a tip when you’re working on a feature film (not so applicable to commercials). Watch the video and learn about bogies and Andrew’s tip!
