My First Film

Well, I certainly had an interesting experience this weekend. I was featured in my first film....a MOST interesting piece. It is amazing to me me that SO much work and so much time is spent creating a piece of film that will last only 5-6 minutes. It took a crew of about 20, another 20 or so actors and 2 twelve hour days to accomplish the goal. This doesn't include any of the hours and hours of pre-production work.

I started out on Thursday by driving to ABC costume studios where I tried on several outfits, until they found the one that thought was right for me....I was playing the role of the grandmother.

I arrived on location at 9:30 AM on Saturday, where they immediately had the make-up artist add her touches to the basics that I had applied. I felt GORGEOUS!... Shooting had started at 7:30, so during the times when they were actually shooting, they would call "rolling," and we would all have to be quiet.

They got a little behind so my 'big' scene was skipped (postponed to Sunday), so I actually didn't shoot my first scene until about 4 in the afternoon. Fortunately, they served us a delicious Greek lunch at 1PM, and there were snacks and drinks all day long. And after all that time, they touched up my make-up again.

It was nearly 100 degrees and the group shot was in the sun in the backyard at the peak of the afternoon heat. We were all dying.... Of course every scene is shot a minimum of 3-4 times, just to make sure they have what they want. By the time that shot was over (an hour in the sun) we all thought we were going to have heat stroke.

WE were finally dismissed at 7:30 that night, and I was told to return at noon the next morning for my 'big scene.' When I say big scene, it means that I was the only one in the shot. As the grandmother, I was doing food prep in the kitchen, and I turned around at one point and greeted my granddaughter. I was then shown (hand only) turning on the stove. I had no real dialogue. All the voices in this 'weird' film are being done out of sync...sort of surreal. (Did I spell that right?) There were only 5 lines of actual diaglogue in the entire film and all but the final one are being tweaked with out of sync/slowmo sound.

Then we had HOURS of sitting, waiting for the other daylight scenes to be shot. Around 8PM they began shooting the dinner scene, which was held outdoors. I was finally dismissed at 1215 AM....We had Baja Fresh for dinner and Pizza after we finished, so at least we ate.

I must say the plot of this film, which is being made to be entered into film festivals all over the world, is really weird...with a cult feeling. The idea occurred to the author/director, after she had seen some documentaries on different cultures and their coming of age rituals. Had I known the plot, I probably would not have done the film, but the positives outweighed the negatives in the long run. I met some of the most wonderful people. And I got to see how they work with fake arms and hands and how blood squirts....VERY interesting and totally believable. I saw the out-takes (I think that is what they are called) on the gory scene, and they were WOW!

BUT, now I is an actor! On film! If they sell the film I will even get paid...about $400. I DO hope someone wants to buy it..tee hee.