Sets and Scenes

Sometimes, I feel like absolutely nothing is going on for me career-wise, and then I look at my schedule and realize I have something every single day. That is what has happened to me since my last post. If this trend could keep up for the rest of the summer, and my life, that would be amazing 🙂

I spent two days on a French production pretending to be a high school student, which showed me that no matter how young people (including myself) still think I am, I am way older than actual high school students. Not that I have all the answers or have all these life experiences, but I am more like the American TV show’s version of a high school student 😉

After both days, I went out with friends, first for a birthday supper for my cousin, and the next time to see Ant Man with that same cousin and my brother. I didn’t have all that much prior knowledge on Ant Man, but I really like Paul Rudd and love my Marvel movies. It definitely impressed. We were laughing almost the whole time, and I loved all the appearances from other members of the Marvel universe. If you do go see it, wait for the 2 post-credit scenes, don’t just leave after the first 😉

Yesterday, I was also on set, as a civilian mourner at a military funeral, so not the happiest of fake situations, but I made a lot of friends and frequently pushed myself out of my comfort zone, initiating conversations and actually getting to know people.

Saturday, was another day on set, but one that was much smaller, and was actually an alley. We filmed a really short scene for the French webseries I am participating in. I was only there for an hour or so, but everyone seemed really nice, and I still have another couple of scenes to film for the project. If you’ve been counting, that makes 4 days on set in the span of a week. Definitely something I would love to get used to 🙂

On Friday, after some technical difficulties a few days before, I managed to have a skype meeting for a short I will be filming this summer. I only knew one person on the project, but my tech problems on Wednesday allowed me to get acquainted with the girl in charge of the project, so that on Friday I wasn’t so nervous when after discussing my character, we did a read through. I ended that skype call so much more confident and so excited to start filming. I don’t know if I mentioned that I now have a list of criteria in order to accept non-paying work, and this project meets every single one (I would do a project if at least one of them is met, so this is really good). It is a part that I love, with someone I know, in a really cool project I want to be a part of, that will be shown somewhere that might be able to advance my career, and on top of it all, I didn’t have to audition, the role was offered to me based on my previous work. Have I mentioned that I am soooo excited?

On Sunday I was busy with family, and got to do my absolute favorite arm workout, of carrying my niece around for a few hours. If you have no motivation for lifting weights and working out, I recommend you find yourself a baby, preferably one that is related to you, not one that you kidnap off the street. Bonus points if she is absolutely adorable and almost never cries 😉

Finally, on Tuesday, I had my acting class with Suzanna. I had a scene with Shiva, from Eat, Pray, Love again, but I wasn’t playing the main character this time. What I really loved was that I had the words so memorized that I didn’t have to think about them, and could actually try something different every take. I wouldn’t do that if we were on set filming, but I let my instincts guide me, interpreting a line differently than it was in the film, which brought us to play with the character until the last take was a combination of instinct and work that I might want to put in my demo. Carolyne was on camera for me, and she knew from watching that I would want to do this, so she purposely got me nice and close and well framed. I think it is really funny how in the first few takes, when I tell Shiva that she has friends here, I actually looked up at Carolyne. I fixed it in future takes, but the subconscious impulse was there.

After everyone else left, Carolyne and I redid our scene from Battle Creek for her demo reel, but she insisted on setting up two cameras in a way that I could get a good, clean shot of it as well, in case I wanted to use it. I watched all of the footage from class today, and I really love the scene. It is cute and funny and will definitely lighten up my demo 🙂

“Keep going. Start by starting.”

-Meryl Streep