Sunday, July 24, 2005

200 or so hours later …

The 72-Hour Film shoot went reasonably well. We drew classic film as our genre and we decided that meant Film Noir. There is a poll on the Filmerica Challenge website listing Classic as the genre least hoped for by far.
I was unable to stay clear of writing duties. The writing corps failed to produce anything coherent by hour seven, so the director asked me to take charge. Half an hour later we had a rough draft. And home I went to a puking child that kept me up for the few precious hours remaining of the night.
Our rehearsal process was nil and the head writer that had been shoved aside was now the AD. We clashed. It was ugly. Then we moved on. I liked the improvisational nature of the acting as I used takes to discover the writing and the character and story. Aislinn, my co-lead was great. I was supposed to seduce her, but her actual boyfreind had been cast in a supporting role, so I found myself tentative with that objective at times. I didn't feel much light in my eyes and the camera always seemed very distant. When I saw the film later on, it was as I feared. Wide. Way too wide.
They used two cameras. My theory on two camera shoots is it makes filmmakers lazy. As an actor I don't know which camera to play to. Likely why TV acting is so broad and general. Two cameras might be cool for closeups, but the lighting takes so long, might as well just turn around. As a director I like one camera closeups so I can give actors that need more time off-camera duty. As an actor I like to work in an up tempo rhythm, so I love to go first on the closeups.
There were some folks I really enjoyed working on the project. Some grew on me, some wore on me. One woman in particular still occupies a bit of space in my brain. Overall, it was a good experience. It could have gone a lot worse.
It's screening next Sunday at the Hollywood Theater at 6:30pm. I have a deadline Monday for something else I'm working on, but if I'm not pressed I'll probably go see my mug on the big screen.

We finished Pretty this week as well. Joey and Shari did a great job. I'm logging and capturing the footage right now. A lot of good stuff. There's a few things I'm not crazy about, but overall it's going to be a fine little film.
My children were in it. They were great. Henry had a couple of lines. He hit his mark and delivered his lines very consistently. I was quite proud and amazed. I allotted a lot of time for them, but they were in and out. Good thing too, because we had another unexpected problem that cost a fair bit of time.
Sometime in the first part of the day, Jack hurt his back and left me to finish the film by myself with the actors and the sound guy. It was very exhausting, but I set out to work with a small crew. A very small crew.
As we wrapped that schoolyard location, the police arrived. There had been a complaint that it seemed as if I was shooting scantily clad women in front of the school for the opening of a porn film. Shari was hardly scantily clad. I laughed it off with the cop and went on my way.

I have a small part in David Walker's feature, Uncle Tom's Apartment, this weekend. A racist cop.
Hey did I ever tell you the one about the …

A river dertch.
Signore Direttore

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