When The Big Picture Feels Too Big
Taking on a production of any scale can be overwhelming, be it film or theatre, especially when you are at the beginning stages of development and fundraising. Things can feel even more daunting if you are also juggling other jobs, auditions, rehearsals, family and the demands of everyday life. I have learned a few skills to keep me from getting too anxious and help me stay focused.
Process Makes Perfect
“Great scripts are not written, they are rewritten, and rewritten and rewritten” is a statement Robert Downey Jr. made at a Q&A after a screening of Sherlock Holmes at the Director’s Guild of America a while back. He was responding to the question ‘how long in advance do you start memorizing your lines’. He emphatically retorted something to the effect of “why would I memorize lines that I’m not going to say?” and continued on about the process of rewriting a script and how for Holmes lines were still changing the morning before the scene was going to be shot.
When Things Go Wrong...It's Usually Right!
Over the past decade the shoot for my short film Details fell through at least six times with six different teams, with different directors, different actors and different visions. I knew I had a solid script because initially each director and actor I sent it to was immediately on board and then let's just say 'life got in the way.' By the timed I decided to make the film in 2018 the piece had been showcased on stage (it was originally a one act play) several times both as a heterosexual piece and as a lesbian piece. It was exciting to play with the script through the lens of sexual fluidity of the characters. Over the years of failed attempts to get the film going I kept flip flopping between making the film with a male and female or two females, since the piece was quite universal in the way it depicted a relationship and could work with any couple regardless of gender or sexual identity.
Ep #46 "INTIW...Get Married" With Cannabis Attorney, Actor, Author and Filmmaker Russell Bennett
Canadian Cannabis Attorney, Author, Actor and Filmmaker Russell Bennett talks about how he never dreamed he'd get hitched and how his love for performance and theatre took him from Toronto to New York to Vancouver and led him to the love of his life. Russell wrote the book on Canadian Cannabis Law and we discuss the racist roots of why the Canadian government began legislating against substances thanks to Makenzie King and the first female judge in the British Empire Emily Murphy.