Tuesday January 31, 2012
"Audition"
I had submitted for the CSUN student film The Impossible Dream and received word from the project's writer/director Michael Simpson, that he liked my look and wanted me to play the role of Manny, a stage custodian who is the talent a director and assistant seek, but miss out on each others' needs.
Michael and I spoke a few times on the phone, and I wouldn't learn until meeting him that this was his Very First Project Ever, and his being so green, he's yet to learn how to interact with actors. He even called me back to "warn" me that other people might be auditioning for the same role, as though such a thing was unheard of.
The "audition" time window was 2:45pm to 4:00pm, at CSUN, the shoot being the following Tuesday in the late afternoon. Having been to the campus before, working on the indie feature How Hard Can It Be?, I remembered the fever-dream designed layout of the campus, but thankfully in advance was able to deduce where was the Music Department building at the north end of campus (How Hard Can It Be? was mostly at center and the south end of campus).
I arrived an hour early anyway, giving myself enough time to find the building, have a snack, then find the room.
Michael arrived at 2:50, a couple of minutes after I'd texted him to make sure I was in the right place. The room (a TV sound studio), he thought he'd had reserved had a class inside, but an empty classroom nearby was available. Along with Peter Frederiksen and Thomas Callahan who'd be playing Jack and Joe, we read through the script a couple of times, and Michael revealed his inexperience not only in film maker but in working with actors. We knew we'd have to go easy on him. Similar to a few previous student films on which I've worked, this assignment is to get done the four minute movie within a specific time frame, and apparently... this one gives us forty minutes. This eliminates any fancy camera moves that might work on Glee, and would work here, but we'll just be running it until we get it. Most likely Thomas and Peter's bit/s could be filmed quickly first, leaving my solitary aspect
Thomas was gracious enough to drive me home, and we discussed not only our impressions of the project but previous student-film experiences as well.

Tuesday February 07, 2012
Shoot, in and out and painless
Since the recent Move, my internet connection tended to be unreliable except for the wee hours of the morning, and even then it sporadically would not open site pages no matter how "good" the signal being received claimed to be. I could not recall which buses would get me to campus; I texted Michael to no avail before, oddly enough from "over sleeping," I suddenly remembered and using my Not-Smart phone, was able to deduce how to return to the campus on time.
At first I thought our time window was 4-6pm, but that was the class time. They were shooting three projects back to back; each with a 40-minute-only time window.
The first was of a guy playing guitar in front of a brick-wall facade, then came our scene. Thomas and Peter did their lines, I came out and lip sync'ed the song, and we ran it through five maybe six times. It was shot as a three camera mega-studio TV-camera shoot, and the last final take Thomas's scene-closing line was cut off by the announcement, "And that's a wrap!" I didn't notice the time our scene aspect began (e.g., when our 40-Minute countdown began), but it was night on 6pm when we were done.
Amusingly, after the first take, Michael was so impressed with how it went he almost felt he didn't need another; that he could stop right there, but the other takes apparently were comprised of different coverage, some close-ups, et al. The teacher was pleased with how it went as well. At first I though Michael would send us each of the takes (considering I'd seen nothing: Thomas and Peter were able to view my performance on in-studio monitors), and while Michael plans to edit them together and had planned on sending is The Final Version, understandably, he did indicate he would see if he could send me the five Raw Footage takes as well. The teacher commented the project would be submitted by the third week of March, so it'd be around then that copies should make their way into our hands.
Thomas scooted me home, evading the threatening rain that had negated an outdoor scheduled paranormal investigation planned with my friend Sally Richards.