Coffee, Country, Café

I think we have already established that there are few things I enjoy more than being on set, so it was really fun to film a short a few weekends ago.

On the Saturday, we met at a farm about an hour North of Montreal, where I roasted coffee beans, climbed a tree and filmed some scenes. We had a general idea of what we needed for each shot, but the dialogue was completely improvised. The story was a living thing, changing and growing as the day went on. I also had to repeatedly drive into the shot, which is definitely not on my list of things I love to do. The short itself is sort of a passion project, put together by a bunch of non-union actors who wanted to get some on-set experience, and to put some nice footage on their demo reels.

On the Sunday, we met at a cafe that graciously allowed us to take over for the morning. We were using about half of it for our table and the filming set up around it, not to mention restricting the conversations of the patrons every time we were filming. It was definitely interesting to film in a location that was full of people who were in no way involved in the shoot. I also got to meet a woman who used to be the artistic director of a theater company a friend of mine took over.

After we were done filming, I drove off to an audition, that I had tried to do as a self tape, but as soon as I got there I understood why he wanted me to come in person. You see, things happen to the woman, and it is more her reaction and her physicality that matter over how she says the dialogue. I showed up in the dress I wore for filming, completely unprepared to be rolling around on the ground, which was an experience in itself. I am not surprised that I didn’t get the part, because my brain was probably equal parts dedication to making it real, and self-consciousness over possible wardrobe malfunctions and how ridiculous I must look. Well, probably not equal parts, but there was enough self-doubt to take away from the truthful performance I was trying to give. It was not the first audition to take me by surpise, and will most likely not be the last, so I need to get better at fully committing!

“Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.”

-Roger Staubach