Alfonsina

I went to see Alfonsina on Saturday night - and absolutely loved it!

Pedro spends so much time talking about masks and clowning - it was fantastic to finally see his work in action and get a proper feel for what he was talking about! Not that the play actually used masks, but I know they were used a lot in development.

The play was thoroughly enjoyable and the actors did a great job. The actors were very fit and particularly in tune with one another - timing was fantastic! The play had many physical gags that relied on synchronicity and time, and I was so impressed with the way not one of these was mistimed or lacking energy. The actors always seemed to be so aware of what each other was doing, without having to look.

The other great thing was the way the material was so contemporary; so relevant, of-the-moment and urgent. Because it was devised by people living in the same context as me it really found it's mark by talking about issues that are current, going on even as the play was being performed. I think it's a really great thing when a play can make you aware of social justice issues close to home, and this one certainly did that. Without making any accusations or demands, the play simply said, 'this is how it is, and this is how it affects people'. Beautiful work!!!

A low day

My motivation for making my short film is very low at the moment. I don't really know why that is, because things are going pretty well - we have locations and actors sorted and I still like the script and the story. I'm just struggling to find the motivation to do the work that needs to be done between now and the shoot days - namely, planning and organising and conducting rehearsals, organising costumes, re-assessing my shot list, and having final meetings with HODs.

My primary problem is that I just don't feel like dealing with people at the moment. I think I just need twenty-four hours on my own. I don't want to speak to people, I don't want to email or text people or call people. Sometimes I just need some space, and this is one of those times. I don't have the energy to be a director today; a director should inspire and lead their team, make decisions and have ideas and answers, and instill confidence in the people they work with. These things take a lot of energy. Normally I am a very energetic person, but today I have no energy. Hence I find myself here, writing this blog because at least I'm still getting something done, but it doesn't involve other people. The problem is that it really is urgent that I get on top of all those tasks above - primarily the ones that involve other people.

Maybe it's a health thing. My tummy has been feeling a bit queasy today. And I have a mouth ulcer which probably means my body is currently trying to fend off a cold. That being said, I had a very good sleep last night and there have been plenty of times when I have been very sick but still managed to be tough and vivacious.

Whatever the reason for my low, slow, antisocial feelings, I need to find a cure - and fast.

I realised yesterday afternoon that I have done something foolish. I have left having rehearsals until this weekend, which wouldn't be a problem except that it also means that I have left seeing my actors clothes (which I want to sue as costumes) until this weekend too. That could be a big problem, because if the actors don't have good clothes then I am left with only normal stores as a back-up - which is very expensive. Being Labour weekend, school and op shops will be closed for three days. Eep!

I don't even want to think about it.

In other news, I am having computer troubles. It crashed three times yesterday, in a way that I have never seen it do before. It appears to be a hardware problem rather than a software problem too, which means that I have no idea how to fix it, and suspect it will be very expensive to fix as well. Then today the computer was working fine - but the computer charger would not work. I tried it in many different power sockets but the little green light would not come one. Now I have one hour of computer battery left. I have copied the files that are currently most important to me onto the Unitec computers, but I've only got a few megabytes left on the server now and there are a lot more things I want to be able to back up. It looks like I'm going to have to get a new charger ($60), an external hard-drive ($200), and possibly even a new computer ($1000). On top of having my bike stolen a couple of weeks ago ($600) and breaking my camera ($350), no wonder I am depressed!!!

The good news is, I am gradually getting on top of my theatre research journal - finally! I'm still a fair way behind on it, but I have now gotten into a kind of rhythm and habit of working on it, and no longer find it so incredibly difficult, so therefore being a bit behind is far less daunting as I am confident I can catch up.

Speaking of catching up, the last two weeks:

8th October: We found a great location. One of the art direction students, Andrea, volunteered her house, so Jesse and I went along to have a look. It does have a lot of stuff in it, but it is a god-send. The front yard and facade are great, you can easily see the driveway from the lounge and the lounge from the kitchen, and it's not too difficult to cheat a bedroom window as the kitchen window in order to be able to see the backyard and the neighbour's washing line. It also has a nice big window in the lounge room, and a fairly dark little hallway, both of which I was looking for. As for the bedroom and bathroom, we are going to use a house in Waterview for those things. The great thing is that our main location is Andrea's house, and since she does art direction she will be really patient and understanding of our needs. On the other hand, we're not using her bathroom or bedroom, so at least we're not encroaching too badly on her personal spaces, yet the house where we are using the bedroom and bathroom we won't be there for too long. Sounds good to me!

10th/11th October: On the last weekend of the holidays, one of the second year editing students, Carsten, had the shoot for the short film he has been working on for a while. I had volunteered to do the unit for him, and did so. Unfortunately this meant I was very separated from the set and didn't really get to observe him at work much, but it was good to be able to use my skills (I've worked in hospitality for years) to help someone out. It was also great as I got the chance to work with my boyfriend, Rayner, for the first time. Rayner is actually a camera operator (he was a student at South Seas and now works on Shortland Street) and although I wasn't working with him in a director/DP capacity on this occasion, I was nevertheless under some stress (not much time, not much money, not much equipment, many hungry mouths to feed quickly) and I got a feel for the kind of personality he has in a working environment. I also observed him for a little bit camera operating for the Dramarama shoot on the same day. I'm stoked to say that I can tell we will be a really good team. He is patient, takes initiative, quick-thinking, and has fantastic people skills. I can't wait to make a film together!

13th October: Our shot lists, storyboards and marked up scripts were due, and I think I was one of the few who actually got it done. I started out with the attitude, "Just get it done; revise it later when there's more time", but of course my nature took over and I had to make it "perfect". I'll still revise it later though; these things are never right the first time around. Plus, my shot list is 84 shots long. That does sound excessive for a short film to be shot in three days, and it is - but having said that, I really don't think this script was written to be shot in 3 days. After all, once broken down, it's 30 scenes long!!! So 84 shots is actually less than three shots per scene on average, and eight of those shots are alternative takes of existing shots anyway, so it's really 76.

Milton is horrified at the length of my shot list, understandably, and insists that I need to "really sit down" and look at the absolute essentials to make sure I don't miss the point of the story. And although I haven't actually changed my shot list yet, I have gone back over the film to find the essentials, and I have discovered that a whole dialogue scene can (and should) be taken out. One of my problems though is that it's some of the cutest dialogue in the whole film, and I don't see how I'm going to convince the writer to let me remove the whole scene. I don't particularly want to, but I have to accept that it merely slows the story down. It adds things to the characters, but they're things that we can do without in this particular story. I suspect this will lead to a particularly challenging writer-director discussion.

15th October: We had a pre-production meeting, led by the production manager. I felt that we did very well. We had had some luck, because our lead actor emailed me that morning confirming that he was definitely available on the dates that we needed him for. If he had not confirmed I think it would have been a very different production meeting! We really didn't get in trouble for anything significant, which was a relief as we had heard that meetings on the previous day had not gone very well.

One thing that happened afterwards though was that Dan approached me and said that he had noticed I was a bit defensive when tutors offered suggestions or asked questions, and that they were only trying to help. I think he was right; I was constantly on guard, thinking that we were going to get into trouble for something, and there were a couple of times when I got slightly (but quietly) irritated as sometimes tutors didn't seem to listen to the answers we gave to the questions. Mostly I think it was just nervousness, but I'm also worried that there was a touch of arrogance too. I don't know where it comes from but occasionally I have to give myself a stern reminder to be humble. I guess I can be relieved knowing that at least I am capable of self-assessing and realising when I might be getting too big for my boots.

16th October: We went on a tech recce to our locations, to introduce the DP and Art Deptmt to the locations for the first time. Time really flew! There was so much I needed to do. I am realising that some of my shots may not work. I really need to be in the location to work out the shots, but it's just not possible. So much still to do!

Another catch up

I complained about my theatre journal on Facebook, and when someone misinterpretted me as meaning this journal, I remembered that I have to catch up on this one too. So here I am, using this journal as a productive means of procrastination from my other journal!

The final performance of New York have long been and gone, and to my great satisfaction, the two actors I had been working with, Gypsy and Chloe, really peaked and nailed it in the final performance. We each did some one on one work during the day, and the difference and improvement was astounding. I was very very proud of the play in the end! It's just quite disappointing sometimes having no one there just to see my work; it makes me miss my family in Australia as I wish I could have them in the audience.

Work on my short film, "Fraser and Gareth", is well and truly underway. I was SO wrong in my last post when I said:

"The thing that makes me most nervous though is the fact that I might not get the ideal crew, as it doesn't hold much excitement from their perspective as far as I can see. It doesn't lend itself to a whacky, distinctive visual style, the editing will be fairly straight-forward, and it won't be particularly exciting to go location scouting for as the only location is a single house with a front yard."

My pitch was a hit, thank god! After some work on the script I discovered that yes, in fact it did lend itself to a distinctive visual style, the editing will not be straight forward (I want to use some animation, which we have not done before) and the location scouting is extremely challenging (which is a nice way of saying extremely difficult)!

My worries about not interesting a good crew were unfounded; after the pitch a number of people approached me and said that they were really interested in my script. I didn't get all of my first preferences however I did get all people who are passionate about the script - which is all that really matters to me.

At the moment we are fighting our way through pre-production. I have handed in my script analysis - which turned out to be absolutely epic, and yet still feels incomplete! I've worked on the script with Sophie - it's now supposedly in its final draft, however given the complications we are having with locations, some rewriting may be necessary. I hope not. I have also been casting.

Casting has been quite a challenge - and not one that we have had to face before. I had to cast for Short Cuts, but I struck pretty lucky there in finding good actors, and I was also lucky that they didn't have to be a specific age, as they were playing characters that were inevitably not their own age anyway. This time I had to start from scratch, writing and disseminating a casting notice. Fortunately Elizabeth had a moment of inspiration and put us in touch with a kids' acting school in Western Springs, and we had lots of responses from mothers eager for their child to be a star. We then set up audition times, I organised for one of the third year actors to help us, and off we went.

I've never had to audition anybody before, and I was very nervous at first. I didn't quite know how to go about it, as I have not had to audition for parts myself either. I started off quite shakey, but soon found a couple of methods that could help me get what I wanted to see from the kids. At first I thought we had struck gold with the second child we auditioned, and I wanted to cast him straight away, however we had so many other kids lined up to audition we had to give them their chance too, and I ended up choosing another child, who was even better than the first.

As for the adults, at first we only got two adult responses from the website StarNow. Both were fairly bad, although I realise now that that was partly because I was not running the auditions very well. So after the first round of auditions we had to keep looking. I contacted a number of different casting agencies, all of whom agreed to help us, however in the end the only one we got responses through was Talent Banque, from whom we got four responses. We also got one more from StarNow.

So today we had another round of auditions... and I think we've found our guy! In fact I know we've found our guy, because I'm going to call him tomorrow and let him know. He looks great for the part - right size and colouring - and he has a really great energy about him. He asked questions about the part and seemed to have prepared and had a very good understanding of it. His acting was very good - he played the key moments very well. The only problem will be his very slight English accent and his acting is a little bit stagey. We might have to get him to tone it down very slightly, but that's all!

I do have one worry though. I approached someone last night and offered him the part! He was an actor I had seen on one of the talent websites and by a fluke I found out that he was doing stand-up comedy with Joe last night, so I checked him out on Youtube and rushed into the city to give him the script and a letter asking him to play the role. He hasn't contacted me at all yet... but if he contacts me tonight and says yes he can do it I'm going to have a very awkward situation! Hopefully he'll just say no.

Anyway, apart from one non-speaking role, which I anticipate will be quite easy to fill, my casting is done! Hurrah! Now for locations...

How could I possibly think this would be an easy or boring location to find?

We need a house... for 3 days...

It needs to be close to Unitec.

It needs to be clean and neat and tidy. Inside and outside.

We need to be able to use the loungeroom. The kitchen. A bedroom. A bathroom. A hallway. The front door. And the front yard.

We need to be able to see the front yard from the lounge. We need to be able to see the neighbour's washing line from the lounge. We need to be able to see the yard from the kitchen. We need to be able to see the lounge from the kitchen.
And we can only pay $50 per day.

That's next to impossible!!!

We have advertised around the campus and are hoping to get lots of reponses to the headline "Want to make an easy $50?" So far we have only had two responses - it is "holidays" at the moment after all - but neither has met our requirements. The first house had a good master bedroom, and the en suite attached was quite good as well. Nothing else was usable though, in my opinion. The second house we went to today had a better layout - but the amount of stuff they had strewn through the place was epic!!! We would have needed a week just to pack their stuff into boxes, and another week to get it out again. Clearly not going to work. We might pass on their contact details to another team though - today's house might be suitable for Ian's film.

We will just have to keep on looking and hoping.

In another news, I have been catching a bit of theatre.

Chicken or Fish? was the devised piece from the year 2 actors, and I quite enjoyed it. I liked the layout of the set - it was stretched lengthways across the theatre, with two levels. I also really liked the risque treatment of various racial stereotypes in order to expose them. Some moments were very funny and some of the acting was very good - other parts less so. I liked the way that most of the actors played multiple roles, and the way the play was very fast moving, however I probably would have prefered to see slightly fewer characters and a stronger core storyline.

Killer Joe was the first time I have seen a play at The Basement, but I'm sure won't be the last. The play featured some well-known New Zealand actors, and for the most part the performances were excellent. The son needed to tidy up his accent a bit I felt, and the man playing Joe needed a bit more strength in his walk, but all the actors did a great job really. It was a very intense play, plot-wise and theme-wise, and I felt a very strong physical reaction in some parts that were quite difficult to handle. It's not pleasant, yet I love the way a play can do that to you. The set designer did a great job too; the set gets pretty much trashed at the end of the play, and they managed to create a set that really does look trashed and very effective, yet can be put back together for the next show.

The play was set in Texas, USA. Talking about it afterwards with my boyfriend I suggested that maybe they should have set it in New Zealand. I thought maybe having it close to home would have hit the audience harder and driven the themes through more strongly, but he felt that it would no longer have been a black comedy. It would have been too heavy, and people would have reacted against it, calling it unrealistic. He's probably right. I don't necessarily think it would be unrealistic to set it in New Zealand, but I can see how people might find it so heavy that their defences would label it so.

Harlequin: Servant of Two Masters was a much-anticipated commedia dell'arte style performance by an Italian theatre company at the ASB Theatre, The Edge.

I have wanted to see a commedia dell'arte performance since a drama teacher first told me about the style as a 15 year old. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but it didn't disappoint. I only wish I spoke Italian! The show had surtitles, which was fine, but you don't get all the information, just the essentials of the story. I have a feeling we missed out on quite a lot of jokes. That being said, I think I still could have enjoyed it well enough without any surtitles at all, because by far the greatest part of it was the physicality of the actors. Everything was so clearly expressed with their whole bodies - it was fantastic to see such total immersion in the action of the play and their energy was extraordinary. It was full of physical jokes, large and small, and they constantly projected strongly to the large auditorium - yet they never once seemed tired or out of breath! The energy they gave was 100% all the way through. It was a marvellous feat of sheer fitness. Very enjoyable theatre.

As for films, the only movie I have seen at the theatre lately was Up, which I saw in 3D. I felt the three-dimensionality aspect of it was a little bit disappointing in that it didn't add as much to it as I felt it could have. It was beautiful - there's no doubt about that - but it wasn't really used. The only other occasion I have seen something in 3D it was at Imax and it was about dinosaurs and it was most definitely used to full advantage. Apart from that though, I really enjoyed the film Up. I enjoyed it for its sentimentality and its total abandonment at any pretense of realism. No aspect of the film was remotely possible, yet every aspect was thoroughly enjoyable, particularly if you like dogs, which I most certainly do!

I watched another film recently too; Old Boy, a Korean film. This was a great example of an exceptionally well-devised plot (although it was particularly disturbing), and also a great example of why I need to expose myself to non-English-speaking films more often!