This past weekend, I acted in my first short film. I am taking a screenwriting class this semester, and I'm not sure how it all came to pass, but I joined the student film group at Washburn, Tribods, and then I was the lead in this student written and student produced short film.
I have never acted for film before. Prior to this experience, I had only ever acted for the stage, but I knew that they were both different types of acting. I cannot describe how nervous I was, and still kind of am. We shot the short film over the course of three days. We shot Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning. Even before we had started shooting, I was nervous. This is an entirely different ball game. I didn't want to let people down, and I wanted to make sure I performed at my very best.
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Before shooting, we had a few rehearsals to run through the lines and roughly outline blocking. Then, I had to memorize and learn my lines, my motivations, and the expressions I needed to convey non-verbally onscreen. We were given call sheets with the information for each day outlined on it. Many of the students in my screenwriting class helped out with a lot of the crew positions. It was a very eye-opening experience. Not only was I learning what it was to be an actor on a set, but I was also observing what people did in specific crew roles. I tried to absorb as much knowledge and information as I could throughout the entire experience.
On Friday night, we filmed two scenes. The crew was called at 6 p.m. and the cast was called at 7:30 p.m. We finished filming those scenes around 11 p.m., with pack-up ensuing afterwards. That night was my first time diving into film acting and I still hope that I did well enough for the crew and director, giving them good material to work with.
With theatre, you can build to emotion and grow from a starting point. With film, you have to have it in that moment. You have to be able to be there, out of order and sequence, and in a much more intimate fashion than in the theatre. It commands a lot of the actor. For the emotional scenes I had, I had to have a place I could go back to before each take that would emotionally get me to the place I needed to be as my character. It was difficult. And the depressing thought I went back to was very real for me.
On our second day of shooting, the crew was called at 10 a.m. and the cast was called at noon. I went from working at Starbucks from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and went straight to set to get ready. We then worked until approximately 6:30 p.m. and then packed up.
On Sunday, the crew was called at 6 a.m. (yes, that says a.m.) and the cast was called at 7:30 a.m. We also had extras for the scenes we did that day and they were called around 8:45 a.m. We had to be completely packed up from our location by 10:45 a.m. They filmed everything just in time.
It was an absolutely amazing learning experience. I know now a lot of the things I need to work on and what I can do from this point to improve myself. I am excited and rather nervous to see the finished product, as I have never seen myself acting in video before. I am incredibly grateful that Tribods and my professor asked me to take part and I have gotten to know some of my film classmates a lot more from this, which makes me very happy. (If you guys are reading this, thank you so much for all of your work! You guys are absolutely fantastic.)
This is my first step into acting for film, and I certainly hope that I continue to grow and hone my craft as I go through college. I am eager, a tad nervous, but wholly up to meet the challenges and obstacles I will encounter.
