Hello one and all! I do hope you are all well and survived the apocalypse, otherwise this blog post seems quite pointless!
So it's now 21st December which means there are only 3 days of 'The Wild Things' left and I'm feeling quite saddened! I've had such a lovely time doing this show. I'm not going to get all weepy about it, don't worry!
It seems forever ago that it was first mentioned to me, and it's all going to be over in the blink of an eye.
Thinking back on it, the first day of rehearsal seems like months ago, but now we're at the end, I wish I was back at the start again.
I've been so lucky to have been able to work with such lovely and talented people again this Christmas, and thankfully it prevented me from having to trawl up and down the country to endless panto auditions this year!
We've had quite a busy schedule over the past few days and despite my tiredness, I've had the best time!
2012 has been a year of ups and downs, but thankfully there have been more ups, and this has definitely been one of the best ones. I was speaking on the phone to one of my uni friends the other day who was in the Olympic Opening Ceremony along with her mum and sister, and she was telling me how much more confident her mum had become after taking part.
I didn't think too much about it at the time, but afterwards, I realised the effect that it has had on me too. I thought that the only things I'd take away from my Paralympics Opening Ceremony journey would be my fantastic new friendships, my costume(!) fantastic memories, and the bragging rights of being shown on TV and performing with Sir Ian McKellan, but I was wrong.
I realised that since the ceremony I too have become more confident. Acting is a tough profession, but I've come away being a stronger person and feel that I can actually achieve what I want to do. I always feel terrified on the first day of any acting job, but since the ceremony, I haven't cared, I've started to believe in myself. My fellow Wild Things have also been an inspiration to me without even knowing it. They're so ridiculously talented that it makes me want to up my game and work harder for what I want. I've already planned out my January and it's looking busy!
So, as I said before, there are only 3 days of shows left, five performances, three of which are completely sold out, with the others not far off. I'm definitely going to make the most of them and let 2012 go out with a bang!
(*so much for getting weepy, I'm crying!!)
I may be the poorest financially that I've ever been in my life right now, but I've had a pretty good year. Five short films, a music video, my first taste of outdoor Shakespeare, performing in the West End twice, several murder mysteries, appearing on 'The Chase' the Paralympics Opening Ceremony, and of course, The Wild Things. I also found a man who I will be spending Christmas with! I never thought that I could fit so much into such a short space of time. I can't wait to beat it in 2013, I've already got my first job of the year sorted!
I don't know how many of these people will be reading this, but I just want to thank Cally, John, Stefanie, Tanya, Lynsay and Chris. You've made me the happiest girl on the planet, thank you. And to my fellow Wild Things, let's get this rumpus started!
I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and New Year. Eat, drink, be merry, and let's party like the world is going to end... oh, wait! :/
Nxxx
Friday 21 December 2012
Monday 10 December 2012
Cold films, hot chocolate and lukewarm laughter...
Back for more you lovely readers? Well it’s a good job I have more to share! Let’s go…
So, last Monday I found myself in Stoke-on-Trent for another short film. Well, I didn’t just find myself there, I woke up at a semi-reasonable hour for a Monday and drove myself up there, facing my biggest enemy, the M6.I have spent many an hour on that dastardly motorway and I had to reach Stoke by a certain time so I didn’t want to be thwarted that day. I eventually managed to drag myself from my bed, and thankfully as I would be having my hair and make-up done once I arrived, I didn’t have to make much of an effort in the looks department. I had been told to dress in lots of warm clothes as it wasn’t the hottest of locations, so I donned two pairs of tights under my normal attire and hoped for the best.
Despite a small hold-up on the motorway around the Birmingham area, the journey up was quite smooth, if a little dirty, and with the help of my trusty sat-nav, I ended up in the right place at the right time. Hoorah! The location was an old abandoned pottery factory called Spode. I guess that means something to pottery fans or Stoke locals, but I had never been there before and it looked like every other general factory that I have encountered. All I knew was, it was cold.
After a quick hello to the crew, I was ushered over to another building that had electricity(!) to have my hair and make-up done, 1940’s style! I was slightly startled by my appearance at first, too much make-up tends to make me look like a drag queen, but I trusted the girl who made me up, and it looked pretty awesome on camera! I donned my office wear and waited to be called over to do my thing! I wasn’t called for a while, as another girl who was supposed to be there dropped out right at the last minute, leaving them no option but for me to play both roles, meaning they had to work out the logistics of filming me so that two of me could appear on screen at the same time.
We made our way over to the room where we would be shooting and I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in all of my life! As I was playing office girls, I was clad in only a blouse and a pencil skirt. Thankfully I had chosen a padded bra that day! Even the lighting didn’t warm up the room. It was actually warmer outside than it was in any of the buildings. Yep, another film in arctic conditions, why do I agree to these things??
Once I got started I had lots of fun. I had an old-school typewriter to play with, files to sort and write in, I felt like I was a real office worker! At one point during the shoot I really felt that it was my job and that it was incredibly important! Haha! I won’t give anything away about the film as hopefully I can post links on here when it’s all finished, but I had so much fun and again, thanks to everyone involved.
I was saddened that I didn’t get to play with the other Wild Things that day but it was another credit on my CV and a fabulous day. The only thing that ruined it was getting diverted 20 minutes from home and driving extra miles for nothing! Anger!!
I know that acting isn’t the most tiring of professions but I think that my body was working extra hard to stay warm on Monday, and with the added driving for hours, I was stupidly tired at the end of it all. I was so grateful to have a late start on Tuesday. I rocked up in Bedford at about 11.10, and did some work with Theo on our mother-son bonding!! Only one more Wild Thing turned up that day as one was doing some other work that he couldn’t get out of, and our final Wild one was poorly, so we ended up finishing early too. The director had thrust some flyers in our hands so that we could do something productive with our day, but we decided to go into Bedford town first to have a little wander about and have a hot chocolate before we tackled the task!
We had a lovely time getting to know each other a bit better over our hot beverages, and went for a little walk around the shops to see what bargains we could find. I had remembered that Matt, the very clever prop making man, had found a Wild Things bobble head toy in Poundland so I wondered if they would still have any in stock… we went in! We didn’t emerge for at least half an hour! We got so excited by all of the cheap products! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to Poundland before, there’s nothing new about it, but the Christmas delights were just too tempting! We all spent a few pounds in there and were very chuffed with our purchases, none more than me- I found a Christmas film, ‘The Christmas Shoes’. A few years ago while on tour, I bought a Christmas film from Tesco entitled ‘The Town That Cancelled Christmas’ and it was the worst film ever. I looked at the case of ‘The Christmas Shoes’ and though that it would be of the same level. I bought it for a laugh.
The rest of the week was pretty much spent running the show. We did as best as we could on Wednesday, as we were still missing Wild Thing Tom, but we muddled through, and he was back on Thursday so that we could play properly.
Before our final run on Friday, I attempted a line run with Theo for the opening scene of Max with his mum. Every time we play the scene we both end up laughing and we don’t know why. We spent about ten minutes going over the same lines with the same result, constant laughter. At this rate we were going to be sacked. But something happened to us during the final run and we nailed it, not even a smirk! Finally! Actors doing their jobs properly!
We had an early finish, and I made it back to Kettering just in time for Fame rehearsals, attempting our first full run of the show… it went surprisingly well! I was absolutely shattered after the week though, and couldn’t wait for Saturday to begin… I was going to have a long weekend, not having to be back in Bedford until 10.45 on Tuesday, bliss! :)
I had a fabulous weekend of not doing much at all, (apart from watching 'The Christmas Shoes' which was not what I was expecting! I sobbed my heart out! Don't watch it!!) and my Sunday evening was made by the arrival of an email from Mutant Candy Films saying that the music video I did a few weeks ago is now online!
So here it is for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCSC3c68a4
Nxxx
So, last Monday I found myself in Stoke-on-Trent for another short film. Well, I didn’t just find myself there, I woke up at a semi-reasonable hour for a Monday and drove myself up there, facing my biggest enemy, the M6.I have spent many an hour on that dastardly motorway and I had to reach Stoke by a certain time so I didn’t want to be thwarted that day. I eventually managed to drag myself from my bed, and thankfully as I would be having my hair and make-up done once I arrived, I didn’t have to make much of an effort in the looks department. I had been told to dress in lots of warm clothes as it wasn’t the hottest of locations, so I donned two pairs of tights under my normal attire and hoped for the best.
Despite a small hold-up on the motorway around the Birmingham area, the journey up was quite smooth, if a little dirty, and with the help of my trusty sat-nav, I ended up in the right place at the right time. Hoorah! The location was an old abandoned pottery factory called Spode. I guess that means something to pottery fans or Stoke locals, but I had never been there before and it looked like every other general factory that I have encountered. All I knew was, it was cold.
After a quick hello to the crew, I was ushered over to another building that had electricity(!) to have my hair and make-up done, 1940’s style! I was slightly startled by my appearance at first, too much make-up tends to make me look like a drag queen, but I trusted the girl who made me up, and it looked pretty awesome on camera! I donned my office wear and waited to be called over to do my thing! I wasn’t called for a while, as another girl who was supposed to be there dropped out right at the last minute, leaving them no option but for me to play both roles, meaning they had to work out the logistics of filming me so that two of me could appear on screen at the same time.
We made our way over to the room where we would be shooting and I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in all of my life! As I was playing office girls, I was clad in only a blouse and a pencil skirt. Thankfully I had chosen a padded bra that day! Even the lighting didn’t warm up the room. It was actually warmer outside than it was in any of the buildings. Yep, another film in arctic conditions, why do I agree to these things??
Once I got started I had lots of fun. I had an old-school typewriter to play with, files to sort and write in, I felt like I was a real office worker! At one point during the shoot I really felt that it was my job and that it was incredibly important! Haha! I won’t give anything away about the film as hopefully I can post links on here when it’s all finished, but I had so much fun and again, thanks to everyone involved.
I was saddened that I didn’t get to play with the other Wild Things that day but it was another credit on my CV and a fabulous day. The only thing that ruined it was getting diverted 20 minutes from home and driving extra miles for nothing! Anger!!
I know that acting isn’t the most tiring of professions but I think that my body was working extra hard to stay warm on Monday, and with the added driving for hours, I was stupidly tired at the end of it all. I was so grateful to have a late start on Tuesday. I rocked up in Bedford at about 11.10, and did some work with Theo on our mother-son bonding!! Only one more Wild Thing turned up that day as one was doing some other work that he couldn’t get out of, and our final Wild one was poorly, so we ended up finishing early too. The director had thrust some flyers in our hands so that we could do something productive with our day, but we decided to go into Bedford town first to have a little wander about and have a hot chocolate before we tackled the task!
We had a lovely time getting to know each other a bit better over our hot beverages, and went for a little walk around the shops to see what bargains we could find. I had remembered that Matt, the very clever prop making man, had found a Wild Things bobble head toy in Poundland so I wondered if they would still have any in stock… we went in! We didn’t emerge for at least half an hour! We got so excited by all of the cheap products! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to Poundland before, there’s nothing new about it, but the Christmas delights were just too tempting! We all spent a few pounds in there and were very chuffed with our purchases, none more than me- I found a Christmas film, ‘The Christmas Shoes’. A few years ago while on tour, I bought a Christmas film from Tesco entitled ‘The Town That Cancelled Christmas’ and it was the worst film ever. I looked at the case of ‘The Christmas Shoes’ and though that it would be of the same level. I bought it for a laugh.
The rest of the week was pretty much spent running the show. We did as best as we could on Wednesday, as we were still missing Wild Thing Tom, but we muddled through, and he was back on Thursday so that we could play properly.
Before our final run on Friday, I attempted a line run with Theo for the opening scene of Max with his mum. Every time we play the scene we both end up laughing and we don’t know why. We spent about ten minutes going over the same lines with the same result, constant laughter. At this rate we were going to be sacked. But something happened to us during the final run and we nailed it, not even a smirk! Finally! Actors doing their jobs properly!
We had an early finish, and I made it back to Kettering just in time for Fame rehearsals, attempting our first full run of the show… it went surprisingly well! I was absolutely shattered after the week though, and couldn’t wait for Saturday to begin… I was going to have a long weekend, not having to be back in Bedford until 10.45 on Tuesday, bliss! :)
I had a fabulous weekend of not doing much at all, (apart from watching 'The Christmas Shoes' which was not what I was expecting! I sobbed my heart out! Don't watch it!!) and my Sunday evening was made by the arrival of an email from Mutant Candy Films saying that the music video I did a few weeks ago is now online!
So here it is for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbCSC3c68a4
Nxxx
Sunday 2 December 2012
Theatre, TV, Radio and Film...!
Hello once again dear blog readers. It’s now December, which can only mean one thing… it’s Christmas show time! Rehearsals are in full swing now, and it’s been quite an exciting couple of weeks! Let’s go…
So we began rehearsals last Monday, and I got to meet our final cast member Theo, who is playing Max. He’s lovely! We started the week off by doing a read-through of the script, tried on costumes and learned the songs that would make the show magical! Everyone has done a fantastic job on every aspect of the show, so even on day one it was so exciting that I couldn’t contain myself!!
We spent the afternoon working on act one of the show and I finally got to release my wild side! It was going to be a fun week!
It was my turn to step up on Tuesday. We started by running what we had worked on Monday, but then we moved on to routines!! It was time to see if my choreography was going to work, gulp! We started with the monster song. I felt like I had a bit of a battle to face with one cast member who said he would refuse to dance, but once he saw what was involved he was absolutely fine with it, and after a couple of run-throughs, he was almost a pro! I was so pleased that everyone could do it, and from what I could see, it all worked really well and looked good! Relief! The afternoon brought with it an attempt at act two, and we had pretty much bashed out the whole play by the end of the day! We were on fire! I went home happy and gave the casting websites a quick look. I found a short film that interested me, but I wasn’t suitable for it. They wanted someone ‘not caucasian’. No more details of what they did want, just not Caucasian. Descriptive! I found a job that sounded interesting, it was a 48 hour film challenge, making a music video. There wasn’t much detail, as the company wouldn’t find out what they would be doing until the competition started. I threw in my application and thought no more of it.
We ran through dance numbers again on Wednesday morning, making sure everyone was up to speed, and had a lovely early finish of 2pm. Before I left I received a message saying that the film people were interested in chatting to me about their project and that they would call me later. Sounded exciting! I got home just before 3pm and decided to settle down in bed to watch The Big Bang Theory. I felt I deserved it for working so hard! Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch it as I fell asleep! I woke up just in time for dinner, perfect! It was only me and Dad for dinner, and as quick eaters we finished just in time to watch ‘The Chase’. Bradley Walsh’s cheeky face popped up on screen with the four contestants behind him, and who was sitting there? Me!!! ITV hadn’t told me that I was going to be on! All of a sudden my phone went absolutely mental with people sending me text messages, Facebook notifications and Twitter updates. It was like every single person I knew happened to be watching and decided to let me know all at once. After the initial shock of seeing myself on the screen, I just settled myself down to watch properly when my phone rang. It was about the film project. Great timing!!
As much as I wanted to be part of the project, I was trying really hard to get through all of the lovely lady’s questions before I was due on screen. The tension was almost unbearable! I finished my conversation just in time! I raced back in the room and watched and cringed at myself. To be fair, I did quite well and people said I was good! Hoorah! I also gained several new Facebook friends and Twitter followers that night. The magic of television!
Thursday brought more routine work, we ran scenes of the show, and we staged the goodbye scene when Max leaves the Wild Things. I had been sent the music weeks before but hadn’t come up with a routine. But it worked out well as we came up with something as a group that is pretty emotional! If you’re coming to see the show, bring a tissue, it’s a weepie!
We did some more work on our wonderful singing on Friday, before facing the cold to appear on 3 counties radio! We went down to The Kiosk in Bedford where the radio station had been broadcasting from for their lunchtime show, with lots of local people showing off stuff and advertising. We wanted a bit of that! We wrapped our hands around some hot beverages and stood around waiting for our chance to chat to the presenter. He did a small chat with Cally, our director, and Theo, before we launched into an extract from the play to try and get some more ticket sales. Everyone at the kiosk stood in complete silence while we ‘performed’, it was fabulous! We headed back to the theatre for another afternoon of work, before I had Fame rehearsals back in Kettering. I was absolutely shattered but still had to make my way to my brothers flat as his girlfriend was having a Body Shop Party. I stuck my nose in for a few minutes, collected my mother (who had been sipping fizzy wine!) and finally got something to eat before collapsing into bed. What a week!
I still had to be up early on Saturday for the music video shoot. I received a text message on Friday night saying that we would be doing a video for a punk band. I was asked to bring office wear, ballgowns and tap shoes. I had absolutely no idea what I would be doing. It was exciting!
I eventually found the location, which was an old shoe factory (one of many in my shire). It honestly looked at as if was going to fall down. I was let in by a lady who lived there(!) and met a girl called Imogen who would also be in the video. She was a aerialist, and had brought a trapeze with her, as well as a fire hula hoop! I was immediately jealous of her. I met a few others, there was a stilt walker, a graffiti artist, and I also met the costume/make-up lady. Everyone seemed lovely, but we were still quite vague on what would be happening. It turned out that I would do a lot of sitting down that day. A couple of hours after I got there I was sat in the hair chair. After finding out that I would be a tap dancing punk, I set the lady free on my hair to do as she pleased. She decided to give me a Mohawk! A lot of pins and pain later I looked awesome!
The others got their hair wrangled into shape too and we all had brilliant individual looks. The crew kept mentioning tap dancing and panic started to set in. It looked like I would be alone. I couldn’t remember any tap moves and I hadn’t heard the song to begin thinking of what would fit. I hung around in the shadows for a bit and waited to see what would happen. Thankfully at 3pm, another girl arrived who I would be dancing with. We were given the track on CD and found a place to choreograph something. Well, I say ‘we’, I had frantically Googled tap moves to try and think of something, but Danielle, the lovely girl who I would dance with, runs her own dance school so I let her do most of the work! We came up with something pretty decent, so it was now time to wait for hair and make-up and costume. A couple of hours later I emerged from the make-up chair with a face that closely resembled David Bowie in Labyrinth. I loved it! I even had white lipstick! Amazing.
We eventually managed to wrangle some costumes together and we looked pretty cool. I wasn’t sure whether I looked entirely punk, but I could see me wearing it in the future, which slightly concerned me! We filmed our routine at about 7.15pm, and after a few takes where I forgot the routine, I managed to get a couple of good takes and I was headed back home with a Mohawk. I think I might have startled the other half with my strange look, but he didn’t mention how ridiculous it was so I think I got away with it! After a crazy week, I slept til noon on Sunday. Perfect!
Week two of rehearsals started in a jolly fashion. I had to come up with an extended routine for one piece of music on Sunday so that we could fit in something else, so I taught the new bits and it looked brilliant! We also recorded another radio segment which will be broadcast soon, I shall keep you informed! We also had my home made cakes as it was cast member Tom and producer Alex’s birthdays, and we attempted a run of the show wearing our monster heads and claws. Much hilarity ensued!
I had a late start on Tuesday which suited me just fine, I was still trying to catch up with my sleep from the weekend! We ran the show again, stopping occasionally to add in comedy spots of value that amused Cally greatly!
Cally wasn’t available to rehearse us on Wednesday so we were left in the wonderful hands of Lizzie, the assistant director. We did some butterfly work (if you come to the show you will understand!), and had lots of laughter. Almost everything that came out of anyone’s mouth turned into filthy innuendo! My poor ears were ruined! I was also incredibly hungry that day, and as I was eating so much, I became the target of a pregnancy rumour. Sigh. Actors!!
At lunch I checked my emails and had received a message from a man asking me to be in his short film. I had been recommended by Beth, the girl whose rabbit film I had done a couple of weeks previously. I jumped at the chance and was in! Acting jobs without auditions, how marvellous!
Myself and Wild Thing Beth donned our costumes later on in the day and we all made our way into town to hand out flyers. We were hoping for big crowds as Santa was turning on the Christmas tree lights, but there weren’t too many folks out, and I think we might have scared a few children instead of being nice friendly monsters. But I still had fun!
I had another late start on Thursday, and it was just me and Theo in the morning, working on our Mum/Max scenes together. The others joined us in the afternoon and we spent it working on smaller details of the show. We were also reminded that we would be leaving the rehearsal on Friday to record one of the songs to go onto a CD that will be available to buy when you come to see the show! How exciting indeed!
It was a lot of fun! It was in someone’s house, but we all did it properly, with the headphones and the big microphone, it was very good! We all recorded together before going in individually to record our solo lines. Apart from being completely flat on one note, I think I pulled it off quite well!
We headed back to the theatre for our first complete run of the show in costume and with props. We got through it, but we are awaiting feedback notes… Gulp!
I’ve had a pretty good weekend of making things, I am officially in the Christmas spirit, I have made Christmas bunting, and have my Christmas-scented candles burning! I’m just sad that I have to go to work this week, I’ve enjoyed my weekend, and who knows when I’ll get to watch Christmas films now?!?
Don’t eat all of your advent calendars at once! :)
Nxxx
So we began rehearsals last Monday, and I got to meet our final cast member Theo, who is playing Max. He’s lovely! We started the week off by doing a read-through of the script, tried on costumes and learned the songs that would make the show magical! Everyone has done a fantastic job on every aspect of the show, so even on day one it was so exciting that I couldn’t contain myself!!
We spent the afternoon working on act one of the show and I finally got to release my wild side! It was going to be a fun week!
It was my turn to step up on Tuesday. We started by running what we had worked on Monday, but then we moved on to routines!! It was time to see if my choreography was going to work, gulp! We started with the monster song. I felt like I had a bit of a battle to face with one cast member who said he would refuse to dance, but once he saw what was involved he was absolutely fine with it, and after a couple of run-throughs, he was almost a pro! I was so pleased that everyone could do it, and from what I could see, it all worked really well and looked good! Relief! The afternoon brought with it an attempt at act two, and we had pretty much bashed out the whole play by the end of the day! We were on fire! I went home happy and gave the casting websites a quick look. I found a short film that interested me, but I wasn’t suitable for it. They wanted someone ‘not caucasian’. No more details of what they did want, just not Caucasian. Descriptive! I found a job that sounded interesting, it was a 48 hour film challenge, making a music video. There wasn’t much detail, as the company wouldn’t find out what they would be doing until the competition started. I threw in my application and thought no more of it.
We ran through dance numbers again on Wednesday morning, making sure everyone was up to speed, and had a lovely early finish of 2pm. Before I left I received a message saying that the film people were interested in chatting to me about their project and that they would call me later. Sounded exciting! I got home just before 3pm and decided to settle down in bed to watch The Big Bang Theory. I felt I deserved it for working so hard! Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch it as I fell asleep! I woke up just in time for dinner, perfect! It was only me and Dad for dinner, and as quick eaters we finished just in time to watch ‘The Chase’. Bradley Walsh’s cheeky face popped up on screen with the four contestants behind him, and who was sitting there? Me!!! ITV hadn’t told me that I was going to be on! All of a sudden my phone went absolutely mental with people sending me text messages, Facebook notifications and Twitter updates. It was like every single person I knew happened to be watching and decided to let me know all at once. After the initial shock of seeing myself on the screen, I just settled myself down to watch properly when my phone rang. It was about the film project. Great timing!!
As much as I wanted to be part of the project, I was trying really hard to get through all of the lovely lady’s questions before I was due on screen. The tension was almost unbearable! I finished my conversation just in time! I raced back in the room and watched and cringed at myself. To be fair, I did quite well and people said I was good! Hoorah! I also gained several new Facebook friends and Twitter followers that night. The magic of television!
Thursday brought more routine work, we ran scenes of the show, and we staged the goodbye scene when Max leaves the Wild Things. I had been sent the music weeks before but hadn’t come up with a routine. But it worked out well as we came up with something as a group that is pretty emotional! If you’re coming to see the show, bring a tissue, it’s a weepie!
We did some more work on our wonderful singing on Friday, before facing the cold to appear on 3 counties radio! We went down to The Kiosk in Bedford where the radio station had been broadcasting from for their lunchtime show, with lots of local people showing off stuff and advertising. We wanted a bit of that! We wrapped our hands around some hot beverages and stood around waiting for our chance to chat to the presenter. He did a small chat with Cally, our director, and Theo, before we launched into an extract from the play to try and get some more ticket sales. Everyone at the kiosk stood in complete silence while we ‘performed’, it was fabulous! We headed back to the theatre for another afternoon of work, before I had Fame rehearsals back in Kettering. I was absolutely shattered but still had to make my way to my brothers flat as his girlfriend was having a Body Shop Party. I stuck my nose in for a few minutes, collected my mother (who had been sipping fizzy wine!) and finally got something to eat before collapsing into bed. What a week!
I still had to be up early on Saturday for the music video shoot. I received a text message on Friday night saying that we would be doing a video for a punk band. I was asked to bring office wear, ballgowns and tap shoes. I had absolutely no idea what I would be doing. It was exciting!
I eventually found the location, which was an old shoe factory (one of many in my shire). It honestly looked at as if was going to fall down. I was let in by a lady who lived there(!) and met a girl called Imogen who would also be in the video. She was a aerialist, and had brought a trapeze with her, as well as a fire hula hoop! I was immediately jealous of her. I met a few others, there was a stilt walker, a graffiti artist, and I also met the costume/make-up lady. Everyone seemed lovely, but we were still quite vague on what would be happening. It turned out that I would do a lot of sitting down that day. A couple of hours after I got there I was sat in the hair chair. After finding out that I would be a tap dancing punk, I set the lady free on my hair to do as she pleased. She decided to give me a Mohawk! A lot of pins and pain later I looked awesome!
The others got their hair wrangled into shape too and we all had brilliant individual looks. The crew kept mentioning tap dancing and panic started to set in. It looked like I would be alone. I couldn’t remember any tap moves and I hadn’t heard the song to begin thinking of what would fit. I hung around in the shadows for a bit and waited to see what would happen. Thankfully at 3pm, another girl arrived who I would be dancing with. We were given the track on CD and found a place to choreograph something. Well, I say ‘we’, I had frantically Googled tap moves to try and think of something, but Danielle, the lovely girl who I would dance with, runs her own dance school so I let her do most of the work! We came up with something pretty decent, so it was now time to wait for hair and make-up and costume. A couple of hours later I emerged from the make-up chair with a face that closely resembled David Bowie in Labyrinth. I loved it! I even had white lipstick! Amazing.
We eventually managed to wrangle some costumes together and we looked pretty cool. I wasn’t sure whether I looked entirely punk, but I could see me wearing it in the future, which slightly concerned me! We filmed our routine at about 7.15pm, and after a few takes where I forgot the routine, I managed to get a couple of good takes and I was headed back home with a Mohawk. I think I might have startled the other half with my strange look, but he didn’t mention how ridiculous it was so I think I got away with it! After a crazy week, I slept til noon on Sunday. Perfect!
Week two of rehearsals started in a jolly fashion. I had to come up with an extended routine for one piece of music on Sunday so that we could fit in something else, so I taught the new bits and it looked brilliant! We also recorded another radio segment which will be broadcast soon, I shall keep you informed! We also had my home made cakes as it was cast member Tom and producer Alex’s birthdays, and we attempted a run of the show wearing our monster heads and claws. Much hilarity ensued!
I had a late start on Tuesday which suited me just fine, I was still trying to catch up with my sleep from the weekend! We ran the show again, stopping occasionally to add in comedy spots of value that amused Cally greatly!
Cally wasn’t available to rehearse us on Wednesday so we were left in the wonderful hands of Lizzie, the assistant director. We did some butterfly work (if you come to the show you will understand!), and had lots of laughter. Almost everything that came out of anyone’s mouth turned into filthy innuendo! My poor ears were ruined! I was also incredibly hungry that day, and as I was eating so much, I became the target of a pregnancy rumour. Sigh. Actors!!
At lunch I checked my emails and had received a message from a man asking me to be in his short film. I had been recommended by Beth, the girl whose rabbit film I had done a couple of weeks previously. I jumped at the chance and was in! Acting jobs without auditions, how marvellous!
Myself and Wild Thing Beth donned our costumes later on in the day and we all made our way into town to hand out flyers. We were hoping for big crowds as Santa was turning on the Christmas tree lights, but there weren’t too many folks out, and I think we might have scared a few children instead of being nice friendly monsters. But I still had fun!
I had another late start on Thursday, and it was just me and Theo in the morning, working on our Mum/Max scenes together. The others joined us in the afternoon and we spent it working on smaller details of the show. We were also reminded that we would be leaving the rehearsal on Friday to record one of the songs to go onto a CD that will be available to buy when you come to see the show! How exciting indeed!
It was a lot of fun! It was in someone’s house, but we all did it properly, with the headphones and the big microphone, it was very good! We all recorded together before going in individually to record our solo lines. Apart from being completely flat on one note, I think I pulled it off quite well!
We headed back to the theatre for our first complete run of the show in costume and with props. We got through it, but we are awaiting feedback notes… Gulp!
I’ve had a pretty good weekend of making things, I am officially in the Christmas spirit, I have made Christmas bunting, and have my Christmas-scented candles burning! I’m just sad that I have to go to work this week, I’ve enjoyed my weekend, and who knows when I’ll get to watch Christmas films now?!?
Don’t eat all of your advent calendars at once! :)
Nxxx
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