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Class Lessons
It has been over a month since I shared what I have been learning in my acting class, so today I will go through the scenes I have worked on recently, as well as what I learnt from each one. First is the Break Up, a scene I did with Nick. I hadn’t worked on it as much as I should have, and he had a cold when we did it, so I was slightly worried, but through running the lines a bit before class, I was reassured. He even went all out and got a doorbell sound effect on his phone for the end of the scene. If you…
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Some recent filming
This past month or so, in addition to wrapping the Cohort and filming a short that I wrote, I also got to live a multitude of lives in other people’s projects. I am clearly very behind on the blog, but they still felt worth mentioning, so here is a little bit on each of them. Another 10 Minutes This was an interesting project, where I had so many lines, but am never on camera. Except for maybe a glimpse of my legs as I walk by. The film concentrates more on someone’s reactions to everything that I am saying, which is really a lot. Normally, when I am not on…
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Filming my Short – Production
I want to start by saying that I am so grateful and appreciative of everyone involved in all stages of production on my short. The actors, the extras, the crew, the advisors…everyone who helped in any way, you have my undying gratitude, and I know that I owe you, big time. Feel free to collect at any time. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Two weeks ago at this time, a bunch of kind-hearted strangers (and friends) came to my house to film a short story that I wrote. Seven scenes and seventeen and a half hours later, we wrapped and I had accomplished what I set out to do years ago. Without giving away…
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The Cohort – A Wrap on Season One
Back in September 2014, I auditioned for two separate roles on a webseries set in a university. I didn’t get either of those roles, even though I felt the audition went really well. Instead, a new character was written into the series for me. I am not sure how I inspired a selfie-obsessed instagram queen, but two and a half years later, I have taken more selfies than I ever could have expected to, and have absolutely loved the experience, from start to finish. A very bittersweet finish, because it is exciting to finally be done our first season, but I will also miss having a semi-consistent acting job. I…
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Bring on the Emotion
This month I worked on the drama. In class, all of my scenes had hurt and sadness, and there were lots of them. I got to be in class for the first two Mondays, and my scene was from This Is Us, a show I love to watch. My scene partner wasn’t there the first week, so I did a cold read with someone else. I loved the scene, but had to concentrate on not imitating Mandy Moore. We do share a first name, but we are not the same person. On Tuesdays, my scene is from a new show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, that I have never seen. This…
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Catching Up On Class
I am a bit behind on sharing my class breakthroughs, so this post will cover 4 of them. This month, Mondays were my official class day, but I also had a lot of days at Mcgill, filming things on weekends, self tapes…my brain was basically full of back stories and conversations that were not my own. Which I loved, but it also led to me trying to learn my lines for Nocturnal Animals between scenarios on Monday afternoon, and while driving across town to class (trying to repeat them to myself while driving, then waiting for a red light to glance down and see the script if I needed it,…
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Snow sets and Meisner
It started out with a simple facebook message: Actress meet director. Director meet actress. I thought my friend was telling me he had started directing until I realized there was someone else in the conversation. Fast forward to this weekend, where I spent Saturday afternoon climbing up snow banks and walking around in the snow. It probably wasn’t the most organized shoot I have been on, since it was a bit of a seize-the-moment-now-or-never affair, but it was a lot of fun. A passion project, as they say. I learnt a lot about humidity and fog, and the fact that as long as you have the beginnings of the emotion,…
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The Power of Mantras
A while back I mentioned that I started using mantras. I have always been pretty skeptical about them, partially because I was afraid of focusing on a mantra that wouldn’t come true and thus prove the theory wrong. You might not see the issue there, since not trying it would get the same effect, but part of me believes very strongly in the power of thought. So if my skepticism or setting my sights too high made the thing I visualized not come true, it would have reaffirmed my fears and that mantras don’t work…so I was afraid of sabotaging myself? It makes sense in my head. In that post…
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Through the Snow
One thing you can almost always count on in Suzanna’s classes is that if you are less people than expected, you will be finishing late. The class is 2 hours, but once we are less than 6 people, we convince ourselves we have the time to talk and catch up between takes, or to try more things and then we run late. Which is kind of like a double bonus when you think about it. The first Tuesday of this month, we were only 3, so I got to play Lily Tomlin in a scene from Grace and Frankie. Not something I would get cast for otherwise, but it was…
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The Normal Heart
So far, the Monday classes with Suzanna this month have been pretty sad. We are doing two comedies and a drama, but two out of three still focus on death or dying so we very much look forward to the cute scene from Accidentally on Purpose. The first week is cold reads, so Nick and I went through our scene from the Normal Heart. As soon as I saw the title, I knew exactly what was going on, and although I couldn’t picture the scene in my head, I remembered the scenes surrounding it, and all of the people that are mentioned. My scene partner, however, had no idea what…