containstracesofnut

I'm losing my mind. Literally....

I honestly dont know the day number. I have lost all track of time and space.

I've had a huge amount to film in the last few days, I have quite a big part in the production so its been pretty hectic on set. I thought it would be 8 episodes of 10 minutes each but actually they are about 15 minutes each so in total its about the length of a decent film. There are 220 scenes in it and I'm in about 35 of them.

Shooting scenes is intensive. Its hard work as an actor. The lines are easily learned but the focus and concentration to play the part with the camera so close it hard.  Lights and camera set up takes time to do right, and then everything has to be hit on the mark for the scene to be "wrapped". Worse is that every scene is re-shot  several times from several different angles and needs to be re-acted as a result. It means late nights and a lot of sitting around sometimes but its been a blast and I've loved every minute of it.

Some of the stuff I have been doing these last few days has been physical comedy. I've been slapped (hard!) in one scene which provoked guffaws from the crew when I went flying practically over a desk. Then of course we had to reshoot it from three angles! Ow.
After that I was to be hit with a frying pan, which was great fun. We managed to pull it off such that the crew actually thought I HAD been hit! I let them rush on set while I lay motionless on the ground for giggles...

I've been tied to a chair for a fantasy scene (see the photo) and been up to my elbows rummaging in a bin. So, glamourous it aint, but fun... yeah, a lot of fun!

Westport is a great place, the locals are mad as brushes but very friendly. I've been treated like royalty by them and housed in the sumptuous Castle Court Hotel. It has a lovely spa/sauna, (which we used for a shot, see pic) and rooms with WIFI. Thats plenty for me to be happy with but the staff and the food have been superb too. Suffice it to say, if you are thinking of coming to the west of Ireland, let me recommend Westport and the Castle Court Hotel. I've stayed in top hotels from Vegas to Malaysia and this is every bit as good.

     

There are two promo's done already and you can find them here:

Not a bad aul day...

Shooting a drama is a lot like tournament poker. Hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.

Due to scheduling alterations I had most of thursday off with a call at 5, so I pampered myself with a sauna, jacuzzi and swim. I thought to myself, if the lads could see me now in a jacuzzi waiting for a Hair&Makeup call I'd never live it down.

  

Then I wandered Westport in the sunshine looking for a nice photo or two with my Canon. Westport has grown as a town impressively since the last time I was here. The Covies (the nickname of the people who live here and coincidentally the name of the drama) can be rightly proud of the place. The support we have had from the locals has been astounding, really overwhelming. Its big news here that we are filming and everyone wants to help. Its an incredible community feeling, from the Gardai loaning us a uniform to the hotels putting up the cast (i'm in the 5-star Castle Court Hotel... its lush). All the costumes have been provided by local shops on loan and the locations have all been loaned as well.

Part of the project has been funded by local councils of various kinds in order to show that Westport is a viable option for production companies to come and shoot and I have to tell you that it most definitely is that. Its beautifully scenic, the locals businesses and politicians are thoroughly supportive and people couldn't be nicer. I really hope they like the final outcome because parts of the drama are quite dark and other parts (like mine) are comic. I wouldn't like them to think we were mocking them.

So on to the shoot. We have a scene where my family are all seeing/hallucinating/imagining other characters unbeknown to each other. The scene is long, it involves the entrance and exit of 4 characters plus it has to be shot from 4 different angles, and each time it has to be shot with and without the imaginary characters (but we still have to act to empty places they were) so its 8 shots in total. Its a technical nightmare. Its also hard on the actors who have to play this long scene over and over and over again, each time exactly as they had been doing it before sometimes without the other actor to play back at you. The crew went to work setting up while we sat around waiting for our turn in the makeup chair.

By the way, here's a "pro tip", if you are sat at a breakfast scene on a long shoot and you are hungry, DON'T make yourself breakfast with the props. It really annoys the director and the continuity guy :)
I had mouthful of (absolutely *foul*) Tesco Special Flakes in my gob and another spoonful halfway to the target when they looked back at me, cheerily tucking in. Suffice it to say, its really not a good idea to move props. Thankfully everyone saw the funny side of it... :)

We move to the lounge for this tough shoot and the actors huddle to sort out cues and lines and blocking. The crew are still debating how they want to shoot this and the costume and makeup ladies are fussing over everyone. We're all dreading this scene because we know how hard this is going to be to shoot but its also comedy gold and we if we can nail it it will really be a great scene. The crew are stifling laughs at it already.

Its a testament to the professionalism of everyone on the set that even though we were well into the evening everyone went to work and did their jobs and we got it on tape pretty damned quickly. Its 1am and we're all chilling with a beer and breaking down lights and cameras and I walked out into the Mayo night. Clew bay is speckled with bungalow lights and the slightest moonlight on the waves. How do I get myself into these mad situations, but you know what... there are worse places to be right now. Many of them.

I know Kung Fu.

First day over and ok... that was hard. Not like The Times crossword hard. Harder. Yesterday we did a full days shooting of the "family" scenes and boy, I learned a barrel-load about filming and acting on camera. I now know what a "wild track" is, how to "cheat to camera", what "rushes" are and an inkling of the vast vast difference between stage and screen acting. My brain hurts from being stretched to accommodate all this new information.

The day started with message from the director saying I had a wardrobe call at 2. Me. A wardrobe call. Next I'll have a trailer! Wardrobe consisted of trying on my increasingly embarrassing costumes to ensure they all fit. Unfortunately, they do.

Hair and makeup are next and for spoiler reasons I cant explain why I look like i've been on a No-Drama all night bender...

 

I met some of my co-actors, Aoife (who quite coincidentally plays my wife, Aoife) and Paul who plays my goth son, Cahill. We also met Chris who plays Father Leonard. Introductions over, and getting past the ridiculousness of our respective makeups and costumes, we started rehearsing in earnest. Len has done a great job of casting I must say.

 

Paul transformed from a pleasant affable 20-something into goth teenager with ease and he really has a talent for acting. I cant wait to see him in the other scenes. Aoife is more then a match for me and I had to up my game considerably to avoid being the weak link.

Ok, so the first thing I learned is: this isn't stage acting. Its simultaneously both easier and harder than stage work... lines are learned almost on the set, rehearsals are practically non existent compared to the mountain of work you do for a play. But you have a million more things going on while you are trying to act and a billion more things to think of and consider. On stage its you, your fellow actors (and because of rehearsals you almost know their lines and actions as well as you know your own) and the audience. That's its, its absolutely pure. No distractions.

On set you have several cameramen, a lighting guy, a props person, a sound boom guy and the director. At least. And most of these people are doing things while you are acting the scene. That's distracting enough but the golden rule is YOU MUST IGNORE THEM. You can so much as flick an eye over to the boom that is hovering just above your forehead. You cant look directly at the camera regardless of how much the camera man is stuffing it in your mug and don't look at the director when he's giving you off camera cues. 

Your movements on stage have to be expansive, lingering, dynamic. You have a big stage and people expect to see you fill it. Subtle doesn't work on stage, everyone is too far away to see "subtle" so you learn to be subtle, writ large. On camera its the opposite, movements have to be definite, small, short. A slight lift of an eyebrow, the narrowing of eyes in the beginning of a wince, the pursing of lips can all convey a huge amount. Too many and you start to look like William Shatner.

 

This is where I confess to feeling out of my depth. Now, i'm not exactly easily intimidate. I've done a lot of odd, strange or downright weird stuff. But yesterday was very close to my limit. We shot the first scene over and over and over, changing little things, correcting things, reviewing things for stray reflections and errant noises. Anything can blow a shot and force a reset. Once we had bagged it, I felt a huge relief and got up to get changed for the next scene. Oh no... my idea that "scene = shot" was quickly corrected while we did about 5 more shots of the same scene from different angles and close ups, all of which have to be acted in exactly the same way as before in order to make the editing and splicing of them seamless. The realisation dawns on me... we are in for a long night...

A word about the crew... They are legends. This isn't an easy shoot, that's clear. The budget isn't there and everyone is double and triple jobbing. The days are long (they had been shooting since early morning yesterday before we arrived) and things are being pulled together by the seat of Len's pants. But they are brilliant. No complaints, no bitching or moaning, setups are done fast and they work well with each other the way people who really understand their jobs work well together. Its awesome to watch.

Its also intimidating because, quite frankly, I'm a greenhorn at this game. I've done a little bit of stage work and training and some radio experience. At first I felt like a fraud, a shyster. I thought at any moment one of the crew is just going to stand up and point at me and say "hey, this schmuck doesn't know what he's doing" "Len, I cant work with this idiot", and I would be forced to admit they were right and leave, shunned by people who were correct to expel me from their clique of expertise.

But they didn't, in fact they simply worked harder to accommodate me. Little directions and tips here and there. A word of advice slipped in between coffee's. I lapped it up like a starved pup. At the end of the shoot, just after midnight I sat in my chair elated that we had completed the first day and Len was happy. I was shattered though. Mentally exhausted, and decompressing from the extended period of focus on every little thing you have to remember and consider. The cameraman was packing his stuff away beside me...

"sorry we over-ran, I'm way out of my depth, still getting the hang of this", I grinned, weakly.
"you joking?" he says earnestly.  "You knocked it out of the park."
"Ah, that's very kind of you to say."
"Mate, we got some great footage today. I'm well impressed with you." With that he hoist his bag onto his shoulder and left.

Christ, I needed to hear that.