Finished my two-day acting workshop with Steve Yeager at the Creative Alliance on Saturday, and I am happy to say I'm pretty sure I rocked it out. The thing I was most nervous about was the monologue that I was assigned. It was a long piece, probably a good four minutes, and to be honest I wasn't crazy about it at first. But after I read it over about 10 times, the subtleties of it began to surface and I could finally see the meat on it, and the opportunity to show a range.
The great part was that the character started off as being very nervous, as did I! So I OWNED my nervousness. :) By the time I was halfway through the piece, at about the time the character calmed down, I hadn't stumbled once and I knew the rest, so I, too, calmed down, and was able to pull the rest off without a hitch. As soon as Steve yelled, "Cut!" he was laughing, and a few comments from my classmates let me know I had done a good job.
I was talking to my brother, Ted, on the phone last night about it. I told him it was really scary for me to do this, and he said, as most people who know me would, that he would never have guessed that about me. But it is true nonetheless. Through the entire process of making this film, through writing, receiving critique from colleagues and friends, putting myself out there to meet new people and make new contacts, negotiating contracts with crew, locations, etc, auditioning and casting actors, rehearsing with the actors, the whole circus of production, including directing the whole thing, NOT ONCE did my heart beat as hard and fast as it did whenever I had to get up in front of that camera for these past two Saturdays. I can honestly say I have never pushed myself so far outside my comfort zone on purpose.
But I am very glad I did. And by the time we were doing more scenes and exercises after lunch on the second Saturday, I was fine and my heart was only fluttering a bit, not the big, pounding bass drum it had been up until that point whenever Steve would say, "Action!"
My brother asked me if I walked away from the class with whatever it was I had been looking for. I said, absolutely. I pushed my own limits and allowed myself to be vulnerable at the same time. I got to spend some time with Steve Yeager, an award-winning Director and professor at Towson University. I put myself in the actor's shoes, and for that I will be a better director. And of course, I have even more respect for actors than I did before. I certainly wouldn't want to make MY living doing that. It's exhausting. I was emotionally drained by the time I got home, and compared to a regular day on the set for an actor, that class was chump change.
Tonight I am heading over to Charlie's for some more editing instruction. I have about 25 scenes edited, and it is going quite well, though I still have SO much to do, and I am trying to make a deadline now of December 19th to submit Charm City for entry in the Maryland Film Festival. It's going to be TIGHT. But I think I can do it.
Yesterday I didn't get any editing done. But I think I'll go to the Poconos this week and I can do double the work up there, cuz there is NOTHING else to distract me, until Mikey shows up with a box of wine. Yesterday I went instead to Harper's Ferry for the day with Eric, where he tricked me into climbing a mountain, a charge he vehemently denies. But, my blog, so that's the story I am sticking to. He needed some establishing shots there to use in his film, and it was a beautiful, crisp fall day, so why not? I minimized my guilt by listening to CDs of local Baltimore bands to see if I could find additional music for the soundtrack. I found a few things, too, so see, I was productive after all! Hurray for multi-tasking! My car is the only place I can listen attentively to music, and since I live in the building I work in, sometimes I will go for days without getting in my car.
So on top of all of the above, I am trying to schedule two more days of pick-up shots next week so I can close this thing out. Except for one scene I still need with my favorite skinny poet, Al Letson (www.alletson.com). If I don't see him in Baltimore by then, I may be road-tripping to Florida in February to see my brother, and I'll stop in Jacksonville on the way there or back and get the footage I need of Al. The things we do for art!
Gotta get ready for my meeting with Charlie...
Showing posts with label yeager. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yeager. Show all posts
Monday, November 10, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
Continuing Education
As much as I like learning new things, it is also very frustrating to me, because when I am interested in something I want to know all there is to know and I want to know it RIGHT NOW. Never works that way, though.
I am well into the editing process now, though I only know the very basics. But as far as splicing the scenes together, I am getting the hang of that pretty quickly, and for the most part I really enjoy editing. Mostly because it doesn't involve scheduling a bunch of people whose schedules never match. I can roll out of bed and edit a scene or two in my pajamas, walk away from my computer whenever I am getting agitated and go right back to it whenever the mood strikes me. I have about 25 scenes edited so far (out of maybe 120), and ya know, I just keep on learning lessons along the way that will be oh-so-helpful if I ever put myself through the sweet, sweet hell of making a movie again. Which I am certain I will.
Such as, if ya gotta skimp somewhere (which you always gotta, unless you have an unlimited budget), skimp on the wide shots and NOT the coverage (singles/close-ups of individual actors). I did not know this. Wish I had. I kind of thought the opposite, that the whole, complete, wide shot was the most important piece of the puzzle, but it is really not. Watch any TV show or movie and dissect the scene and you will figure this out. You usually only see the wide shot for a few seconds at the very beginning, and then it is all coverage of the people speaking. Yet another lesson learned.
And a very, very, very important lesson -when the last second of the scene has ended, count to at least 3, if not 5, before yelling "cut". It helps enormously during the editing process.
And another thing, anyone who tells you, "Oh, you can do that in post," (a) usually isn't the person that would have to do that in post, (b) definitely isn't the person who will have to PAY for whatever-it-is being done in post, and (c) if they are the person who would be doing it in post, is just padding their paycheck. Your movie, ANY movie, will look better the LESS you have to do "in post". To see what I am talking about, rent a movie called (I think) "Duane Roane: First-Time Director". This stars Andy Dick (who normally, I hate). Having been through the process, every time he says, "We'll just do it in post," I about hit the floor laughing.
Lesson #381: Cutaways.
You can never have too many cutaways. You have, say, a scene where a guy is making breakfast for a woman who has spent the night. Say, this is the last scene you are shooting that day and you are behind schedule and don't want to go into overtime, and it is not a long scene so you do it, say, all in one take in a wide shot, maybe three times. When you go to edit that scene, say you see that in two of the three takes you can CLEARLY see the big fat light shining through the glass door to make it look like morning sunlight. So you are stuck with that one and only take that you can't see the big fat light in, which, say, wasn't even the best take that the actors did. But (a) you have no coverage and (b) you have no cutaways, that could have possibly covered the few seconds that you see the big fat light. The CORRECT answer would have been, instead of three takes of the wide shot, one take of the wide, and one coverage of each of the two actors, and a few extra minutes to film close-up cutaways of pouring a glass of juice, scrambling eggs in a pan, a fork moving eggs around on a plate, ANYTHING so you have something to cut to when an actor stutters for a split second or a BIG FAT LIGHT is in the shot.
Another thing that I don't think I have mentioned so far but have thought about/dealt with a LOT, between "Charm City" and "Juju" - make sure you have an Assistant Director. Now, I think that job title is extremely misleading, which is why I didn't have one on Charm City. An Assistant Director does not direct. If an Assistant Director (AD) starts directing, that person is overstepping his or her bounds. That is not their job. An AD keeps things moving, and if they are doing their job well, is often not very popular among the cast and crew. The AD's job is to make sure EVERYONE is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, if not 5 minutes ago. They are on the crew's asses to get the lights set up and camera ready, they are on props to have the set dressed, they are on the actors to be in makeup and wardrobe, and they are the one to "lock down" the set (i.e., to tell everyone to shut the hell up when the camera is about to roll).
I tried to do this all myself on Charm City, and it was extremely difficult. To this day I don't know if it was Michelle's idea or if her film crew took it upon themselves, but after the first 4 or 5 days, someone from the crew would pick up the slack and lock down the set, for which I was very grateful. I was so sick of hearing my own voice, and I am sure everyone else on the set felt the same way. As I am editing, I am especially aware of how stressed out I was at the time (which, thank goodness, I wasn't TOTALLY aware of in the middle of it all). It is apparent in my voice, and sometimes when the camera would catch me (Michelle likes to turn the camera on to the crew when we are running room tone), I looked so stressed, and to me, several years older than I am, and older than I look now when the weight of production is no longer on my shoulders.
Lesson, say it with me, learned.
I gotta roll now. Have to finish learning my lines for two scenes I have to do in Steve Yeager's acting class tomorrow. Plus Eric is showing up soon to set some things up to film at my place over the weekend. I used to have so much FREE time in my life before I got into all this. What the hell was I thinking?!? But, I kid... I've never been busier. But I've never been happier. I am finally doing what I believe I was really, truly cut out for, though just 2 or 3 years ago I could never have imagined doing this. It is a pretty awesome feeling.
I am well into the editing process now, though I only know the very basics. But as far as splicing the scenes together, I am getting the hang of that pretty quickly, and for the most part I really enjoy editing. Mostly because it doesn't involve scheduling a bunch of people whose schedules never match. I can roll out of bed and edit a scene or two in my pajamas, walk away from my computer whenever I am getting agitated and go right back to it whenever the mood strikes me. I have about 25 scenes edited so far (out of maybe 120), and ya know, I just keep on learning lessons along the way that will be oh-so-helpful if I ever put myself through the sweet, sweet hell of making a movie again. Which I am certain I will.
Such as, if ya gotta skimp somewhere (which you always gotta, unless you have an unlimited budget), skimp on the wide shots and NOT the coverage (singles/close-ups of individual actors). I did not know this. Wish I had. I kind of thought the opposite, that the whole, complete, wide shot was the most important piece of the puzzle, but it is really not. Watch any TV show or movie and dissect the scene and you will figure this out. You usually only see the wide shot for a few seconds at the very beginning, and then it is all coverage of the people speaking. Yet another lesson learned.
And a very, very, very important lesson -when the last second of the scene has ended, count to at least 3, if not 5, before yelling "cut". It helps enormously during the editing process.
And another thing, anyone who tells you, "Oh, you can do that in post," (a) usually isn't the person that would have to do that in post, (b) definitely isn't the person who will have to PAY for whatever-it-is being done in post, and (c) if they are the person who would be doing it in post, is just padding their paycheck. Your movie, ANY movie, will look better the LESS you have to do "in post". To see what I am talking about, rent a movie called (I think) "Duane Roane: First-Time Director". This stars Andy Dick (who normally, I hate). Having been through the process, every time he says, "We'll just do it in post," I about hit the floor laughing.
Lesson #381: Cutaways.
You can never have too many cutaways. You have, say, a scene where a guy is making breakfast for a woman who has spent the night. Say, this is the last scene you are shooting that day and you are behind schedule and don't want to go into overtime, and it is not a long scene so you do it, say, all in one take in a wide shot, maybe three times. When you go to edit that scene, say you see that in two of the three takes you can CLEARLY see the big fat light shining through the glass door to make it look like morning sunlight. So you are stuck with that one and only take that you can't see the big fat light in, which, say, wasn't even the best take that the actors did. But (a) you have no coverage and (b) you have no cutaways, that could have possibly covered the few seconds that you see the big fat light. The CORRECT answer would have been, instead of three takes of the wide shot, one take of the wide, and one coverage of each of the two actors, and a few extra minutes to film close-up cutaways of pouring a glass of juice, scrambling eggs in a pan, a fork moving eggs around on a plate, ANYTHING so you have something to cut to when an actor stutters for a split second or a BIG FAT LIGHT is in the shot.
Another thing that I don't think I have mentioned so far but have thought about/dealt with a LOT, between "Charm City" and "Juju" - make sure you have an Assistant Director. Now, I think that job title is extremely misleading, which is why I didn't have one on Charm City. An Assistant Director does not direct. If an Assistant Director (AD) starts directing, that person is overstepping his or her bounds. That is not their job. An AD keeps things moving, and if they are doing their job well, is often not very popular among the cast and crew. The AD's job is to make sure EVERYONE is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, if not 5 minutes ago. They are on the crew's asses to get the lights set up and camera ready, they are on props to have the set dressed, they are on the actors to be in makeup and wardrobe, and they are the one to "lock down" the set (i.e., to tell everyone to shut the hell up when the camera is about to roll).
I tried to do this all myself on Charm City, and it was extremely difficult. To this day I don't know if it was Michelle's idea or if her film crew took it upon themselves, but after the first 4 or 5 days, someone from the crew would pick up the slack and lock down the set, for which I was very grateful. I was so sick of hearing my own voice, and I am sure everyone else on the set felt the same way. As I am editing, I am especially aware of how stressed out I was at the time (which, thank goodness, I wasn't TOTALLY aware of in the middle of it all). It is apparent in my voice, and sometimes when the camera would catch me (Michelle likes to turn the camera on to the crew when we are running room tone), I looked so stressed, and to me, several years older than I am, and older than I look now when the weight of production is no longer on my shoulders.
Lesson, say it with me, learned.
I gotta roll now. Have to finish learning my lines for two scenes I have to do in Steve Yeager's acting class tomorrow. Plus Eric is showing up soon to set some things up to film at my place over the weekend. I used to have so much FREE time in my life before I got into all this. What the hell was I thinking?!? But, I kid... I've never been busier. But I've never been happier. I am finally doing what I believe I was really, truly cut out for, though just 2 or 3 years ago I could never have imagined doing this. It is a pretty awesome feeling.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Zone Issues
Today was very scary. It was the first day of a 2-part "Acting for the Camera" workshop I decided to take at the Creative Alliance. The only acting I have ever done, ever, was in my initial trailer for Charm City. That experience wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, and was kinda fun, but that is largely due to Sean being such a great director, and also I had been writing and rewriting all the dialogue for the last 2 years, so I knew the material inside-out. Today was nothing like that.
The class is taught by Steve Yeager, and one of the reasons I signed up for it is because I have heard his name a lot in certain circles, and I always see him attending or speaking at film festivals and such. Wednesday evening I got an email from him saying I needed to prepare a 2-minute monologue for class on Saturday. I couldn't get anywhere near that on Thursday because we were filming our last (if there is a God) day of pick-ups for Juju. I was meeting up with friends late afternoon on Friday, so that gave me only a couple hours to find or write something and commit it to memory.
At first I was going to do a bit from the movie "Beautiful Girls", when Rosie O'Donnell's character reads her guy friends the riot act about fantasizing about silicone-filled Playboy models and not giving "real" women a chance. It's a good little speech, funny but true, and a movie moment that sticks in my head, so why not? I found the monologue of it online very easily and had it down pretty quickly. Something was bugging me about it, though.
I ran it by Eric via email, he thought it was okay but used the word "feminist". Hmm. Nothing wrong with being a feminist, but those sorts of rants do turn off a lot of people, and I didn't want anyone tuning out due to the content, even if the context was funny.
So I dug a little deeper in my video collection, much of which is old Silver Screen stuff, and I wanted something more contemporary so it would feel more natural. I saw my VHS tape of "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." I love this movie, so much so that I also at some point bought the play script of it. I dug that up, too, and started flipping through it to see if there was anything I could use. I found the part where Sissy (played by Cher), the busty and boisterous sexpot of the group, comes clean about a secret that she has managed to keep for three years - she had to have a double-masectomy, and her husband that she liked to brag on so much left her in the aftermath.
I liked this one better for a lot of reasons. Once I started thinking about delivering my monologue from the side of the Director or Casting Agent, the "Beautiful Girls" piece just wasn't good enough. First off, I found it too easily, which to me says it is used a lot. When I attended the Stonehenge auditions (searching for cast for Charm City) in May, there were some monologues that I saw 5 or 6 times that day! When you do that, to me at least it says that you didn't put a lot of thought into your choice, you chose something safe, and you only end up having the casting agent (consciously or subconsciously) compare you against the other people who had the same monologue. And if you weren't the one who did it best, sianora.
Secondly, it didn't have much depth, and no range. Just straight up sarcastic comedy. While the "Jimmy Dean" piece started off with Sissy being very strong, a little angry even, then dissolving in her own vulnerability, but finally coming out on top and being able to laugh about it. It is really hard to find something that packs all that into 2 or 3 minutes! I ran it by Eric, and he liked this one better, too. "People like stories about boobs," he said. "Even when they're sad."
I searched online and couldn't find it anywhere, so I copied the text from the script myself and got to work on it. I got it down in time for Happy Hour, and woke up this morning reciting it before I got out of bed, and over and over in the shower. I was as set as I was going to be.
So of course we didn't do monologues today. Seemed only one other person in the class got the memo. Oh, well. No biggie. Good practice for memorization.
There are several reasons why I decided to take this class. First off was the opportunity to work with Steve Yeager. Secondly, I felt it would help me with my directing to get the actors point of view (POV, for those of you looking to pick up the movie lingo :) ). Thirdly, I wanted just another taste of the acting thing for kicks, but mostly I took this class to push myself out of my comfort zone, which it surely did.
In almost any situation I am as cool as a cucumber, and in general I feel there's "nothing I can't handle". But my Achilles Heel has always been and continues to be public speaking, and I am determined to get over that.
Day One did push me, a lot. The first exercise we did is what Steve referred to as a "personalization". Just talking directly to the camera for 2 minutes, telling a personal (true) story about something that affected or changed your life. My classmates had some compelling stories, from drug addiction to first loves to near-death experiences. I talked about my father's death. I'll tell you what I told the camera.
My Dad died five years ago, of pancreatic cancer, at the ripe old age of 56. I was able to spend the last five weeks of his life with him. I was often trapped in his little two-room house in Florida, alone, for much of that time. I didn't have a car and relied on my brother to drive me back and forth to the hospice after he got off work every day. The house wasn't walking distance from anywhere, so all I could do all day was eat spaghetti and watch movies and football until my brother came to get me . I got so bored that I cleaned every square inch of the house. And in every drawer, in the closets and cupboards, manila envelopes in his filing cabinets and shoeboxes in his closet, I found Camel Cash - little "dollars" they used to put in every pack of Camel cigarettes. My Dad was a 2-pack a day guy.
I organized and counted them - eight THOUSAND dollars of Camel Cash. That is 160,000 cigarettes. At the hospice I asked, "Daddy, why do you have all this Camel Cash? Why haven't you traded it in?" Dad had gotten things like pool cues, leather jackets, ashtrays over the years by saving up these things. He said, "They started giving bigger prizes. I almost have enough saved for a trip to Vegas."
Of course, Dad never got to take that trip, because the cigarettes killed him first.
At this point in my personalization, both my voice and I were shaking and it was touch and go as to whether or not I would actually cry. But I wrapped it up.
I can't tell you how angry that makes me. But it made me more determined to live my life, the way I had already been living it, the way I will always live it: I don't wait for rainy days. I make things happen. I don't wait for things to happen to me. I make them happen.
That sentiment has everything to do with filmmaking.
Through the whole process of making Charm City, even when I was winging it, I was still in the driver's seat, and I had some great people around me as my safety net, so I was never completely at a loss. Outside of my comfort zone now and then, but nothing like today, standing alone in front of that camera. My voice was not just shaking because I was telling a sad story. I was just a big bundle of nerves.
When I finished my story, Steve stepped from behind the camera to put an arm around me and ask me if I was okay. So I think I did a decent job of being vulnerable. That is not the hard part to me, though. I'll talk about my Dad all day long and I don't care if I cry in front of people when I do. What is really hard for me is to do something in front of people, something that I don't know, and am not good at. THAT, to me, is being vulnerable. We did another exercise where we had to memorize a sort of "public service announcement". That was SO much harder, to me, than just telling a story that I knew. Mine was a "Vote Pro-Choice" commercial, and instead of saying "Hundreds of thousands of women have suffered the dangers of back alley abortions," I kept saying, "Hundreds of thousands of women have suffered the dangers of back YARD abortions." Like it's something you'd do at the neighborhood barbeque. Sheesh.
I felt very hot, like my face was turning very red, and my voice, to me, sounded as shaky as it had on the first test. But when Steve played back our bits to us, I was surprised to see that it didn't look nearly as bad as it FELT. I can't say that it was fun (though I am hoping that by next week it will be), but it served its purpose. I'm determined to conquer this thing.
The class is taught by Steve Yeager, and one of the reasons I signed up for it is because I have heard his name a lot in certain circles, and I always see him attending or speaking at film festivals and such. Wednesday evening I got an email from him saying I needed to prepare a 2-minute monologue for class on Saturday. I couldn't get anywhere near that on Thursday because we were filming our last (if there is a God) day of pick-ups for Juju. I was meeting up with friends late afternoon on Friday, so that gave me only a couple hours to find or write something and commit it to memory.
At first I was going to do a bit from the movie "Beautiful Girls", when Rosie O'Donnell's character reads her guy friends the riot act about fantasizing about silicone-filled Playboy models and not giving "real" women a chance. It's a good little speech, funny but true, and a movie moment that sticks in my head, so why not? I found the monologue of it online very easily and had it down pretty quickly. Something was bugging me about it, though.
I ran it by Eric via email, he thought it was okay but used the word "feminist". Hmm. Nothing wrong with being a feminist, but those sorts of rants do turn off a lot of people, and I didn't want anyone tuning out due to the content, even if the context was funny.
So I dug a little deeper in my video collection, much of which is old Silver Screen stuff, and I wanted something more contemporary so it would feel more natural. I saw my VHS tape of "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." I love this movie, so much so that I also at some point bought the play script of it. I dug that up, too, and started flipping through it to see if there was anything I could use. I found the part where Sissy (played by Cher), the busty and boisterous sexpot of the group, comes clean about a secret that she has managed to keep for three years - she had to have a double-masectomy, and her husband that she liked to brag on so much left her in the aftermath.
I liked this one better for a lot of reasons. Once I started thinking about delivering my monologue from the side of the Director or Casting Agent, the "Beautiful Girls" piece just wasn't good enough. First off, I found it too easily, which to me says it is used a lot. When I attended the Stonehenge auditions (searching for cast for Charm City) in May, there were some monologues that I saw 5 or 6 times that day! When you do that, to me at least it says that you didn't put a lot of thought into your choice, you chose something safe, and you only end up having the casting agent (consciously or subconsciously) compare you against the other people who had the same monologue. And if you weren't the one who did it best, sianora.
Secondly, it didn't have much depth, and no range. Just straight up sarcastic comedy. While the "Jimmy Dean" piece started off with Sissy being very strong, a little angry even, then dissolving in her own vulnerability, but finally coming out on top and being able to laugh about it. It is really hard to find something that packs all that into 2 or 3 minutes! I ran it by Eric, and he liked this one better, too. "People like stories about boobs," he said. "Even when they're sad
I searched online and couldn't find it anywhere, so I copied the text from the script myself and got to work on it. I got it down in time for Happy Hour, and woke up this morning reciting it before I got out of bed, and over and over in the shower. I was as set as I was going to be.
So of course we didn't do monologues today. Seemed only one other person in the class got the memo. Oh, well. No biggie. Good practice for memorization.
There are several reasons why I decided to take this class. First off was the opportunity to work with Steve Yeager. Secondly, I felt it would help me with my directing to get the actors point of view (POV, for those of you looking to pick up the movie lingo :) ). Thirdly, I wanted just another taste of the acting thing for kicks, but mostly I took this class to push myself out of my comfort zone, which it surely did.
In almost any situation I am as cool as a cucumber, and in general I feel there's "nothing I can't handle". But my Achilles Heel has always been and continues to be public speaking, and I am determined to get over that.
Day One did push me, a lot. The first exercise we did is what Steve referred to as a "personalization". Just talking directly to the camera for 2 minutes, telling a personal (true) story about something that affected or changed your life. My classmates had some compelling stories, from drug addiction to first loves to near-death experiences. I talked about my father's death. I'll tell you what I told the camera.
My Dad died five years ago, of pancreatic cancer, at the ripe old age of 56. I was able to spend the last five weeks of his life with him. I was often trapped in his little two-room house in Florida, alone, for much of that time. I didn't have a car and relied on my brother to drive me back and forth to the hospice after he got off work every day. The house wasn't walking distance from anywhere, so all I could do all day was eat spaghetti and watch movies and football until my brother came to get me . I got so bored that I cleaned every square inch of the house. And in every drawer, in the closets and cupboards, manila envelopes in his filing cabinets and shoeboxes in his closet, I found Camel Cash - little "dollars" they used to put in every pack of Camel cigarettes. My Dad was a 2-pack a day guy.
I organized and counted them - eight THOUSAND dollars of Camel Cash. That is 160,000 cigarettes. At the hospice I asked, "Daddy, why do you have all this Camel Cash? Why haven't you traded it in?" Dad had gotten things like pool cues, leather jackets, ashtrays over the years by saving up these things. He said, "They started giving bigger prizes. I almost have enough saved for a trip to Vegas."
Of course, Dad never got to take that trip, because the cigarettes killed him first.
At this point in my personalization, both my voice and I were shaking and it was touch and go as to whether or not I would actually cry. But I wrapped it up.
I can't tell you how angry that makes me. But it made me more determined to live my life, the way I had already been living it, the way I will always live it: I don't wait for rainy days. I make things happen. I don't wait for things to happen to me. I make them happen.
That sentiment has everything to do with filmmaking.
Through the whole process of making Charm City, even when I was winging it, I was still in the driver's seat, and I had some great people around me as my safety net, so I was never completely at a loss. Outside of my comfort zone now and then, but nothing like today, standing alone in front of that camera. My voice was not just shaking because I was telling a sad story. I was just a big bundle of nerves.
When I finished my story, Steve stepped from behind the camera to put an arm around me and ask me if I was okay. So I think I did a decent job of being vulnerable. That is not the hard part to me, though. I'll talk about my Dad all day long and I don't care if I cry in front of people when I do. What is really hard for me is to do something in front of people, something that I don't know, and am not good at. THAT, to me, is being vulnerable. We did another exercise where we had to memorize a sort of "public service announcement". That was SO much harder, to me, than just telling a story that I knew. Mine was a "Vote Pro-Choice" commercial, and instead of saying "Hundreds of thousands of women have suffered the dangers of back alley abortions," I kept saying, "Hundreds of thousands of women have suffered the dangers of back YARD abortions." Like it's something you'd do at the neighborhood barbeque. Sheesh.
I felt very hot, like my face was turning very red, and my voice, to me, sounded as shaky as it had on the first test. But when Steve played back our bits to us, I was surprised to see that it didn't look nearly as bad as it FELT. I can't say that it was fun (though I am hoping that by next week it will be), but it served its purpose. I'm determined to conquer this thing.
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