Working on "Boundaries"

The Great News: I got an email from one of the student directors I worked with recently, that was totally awesome! The last couple of lines of the e-mail: "I'm sure we'll work together again. Who knows, maybe one day I'll have a budget and can actually pay you!" WOO-HOO!! That just totally makes my day!! =)

The Good News: Tuesday night, we finally started shooting the scene from Good Will Hunting I adpated, and have titled Boundaries of Love & Fear. (I adapted the scene by re-writing the dialog in my own words, so it is not a breach of copyright.)

First of all, I think working on a new scene was exactly what I needed, because even though I had promised myself that after the in-class performance, I would let go of all the baggage I re-connected with to play Cathy in On The Wire, I was still struggling with low self-esteem and poor self-image for the week that followed. At least I didn't feel lonely anymore, though.

I feel much better now, after having worked on Boundaries..., thank goodness. I'm glad I've truly been able to let all that crap go again, and not hold on to it anymore. I hate being there.

Anyhow, we worked from 8pm until almost midnight, and only got somewhere between a third and half of the footage shot. (One & a half pages of the script.) Unfortunately, we're only using one camera. But we got about 50 minutes of footage, which I have watched, and most of it looks really good. There are only 3 things we need to go back and fix before we move forward and shoot the rest. We've scheduled to shoot again Monday night, we're gonna have to be very disciplined to pull it off, I think, finish shooting, I mean.

I was so tired by the time we decided to stop on Tuesday night. We had pretty much all agreed to stop and continue another night, but the guys weren't making any motion as if they were going to leave. In my head I was thinking, "You can leave now. Why aren't you leaving?" Then a realization finally made it's way through the haze of my sleepy, non-functioning brain. "Ohhh. I'm the director, aren't I? I haven't actually wrapped them yet." So I said the official words, "Okay, we're wrapped for tonight."

Wednesday after work, I hooked up my camcorder to my computer, and told Windows Movie Maker to automatically capture the whole tape. After the 50 minutes of footage was downloaded and had somehow become 42 minutes, it took another hour and a half to convert the footage to a computer file. When it was finally done with this process, it turns out the automatic capture process had completely screwed up the footage. All of the clips were out of sync with visual and audio, and some were playing twice as fast as they should be... Note Bene: Windows Movie Maker automatic capture sucks! So now I have to go back and capture the footage manually, in smaller chunks.

A couple of weeks ago, I also started taking an on-camera cold reading class on Saturday mornings. All of our cold readings are filmed extreme close-up on split screen, so we can observe ourselves listening and reacting to the other actor. We're not really cold reading the scenes, though. We'll read through it, the instructor gives us feedback about what we're doing well, and discusses the character and circumstances of the scene to help us understand and connect to those on a deeper level. After the second or third read-through we'll actually film it. I think it's really helping me learn what I am able to accomplish as an actor, how strong my skills are, what my limits are, what it feels like on the inside when it looks good to an audience or to the camera. I am also beginning to know what I really look like on camera, I can see for myself what I'm bringing and what I'm lacking instead of relying on other people's feedback. Although the instructor gives wonderful feedback and constructive critism.

It's interesting because two weeks ago, we read a scene from Amadeus. (The movie version.) At first, I felt like I wasn't connecting to the character of Constanze at all, even though I love that movie and practically have it memorized. Then so quietly I didn't even really notice it, I was connected to her. Watching that footage back however, I thought my performance was empty and boring. Yes I got her essence, but I lacked objective and action.

Then last week, we did a scene from The American President, and for whatever reason, that was the easiest scene ever for me to connect to. I got right away what her purpose in the scene was, and how to convey that through my actions. My only difficulty was in making her a stronger character, making her Hillary Clinton instead of Meg Ryan. But I started to get there.

So the benefit of this class for me is working with many different types of materials, and trying out different character types, and really seeing what I'm capable of as an actor.