Cut, Print, Moving on

Yesterday was an anniversary of mine that I did not realize until I got on Facebook in the afternoon. 15 years ago on July 30th, 1998, principal photography was completed on an independent feature film called "When Love Walks In". Why is that important to me, you ask? Because I was in that feature film. I can't believe for as long as I've had this blog that I've never written about this experience before. It all began, for me, in the summer of 1997. I was doing a production of "City of Angels" at Dogwood Dell, an amphitheater here in Richmond. I met a new actress in the cast named Katie, and we became friends. She was just getting in on the beginnings of an independent feature film with a friend she had worked with in the past. He was writing and producing the film, and his brother was directing. They were still looking for an actress to play the role of her mother, and Katie asked if I was interested, and so it began. After several meetings with producer and casting and re-casting the roles in the film, because of conflicts, we finally began shooting in the Spring of 1998. This was bare bones  film making at its finest. Kent Williamson, the producer/writer, had a full time job, and so did most of the crew and actors in the film, so we were shooting on vacation time, two weeks in the early spring, and then two weeks in the middle of July. It was definitely a family affair. The shoot was in Kent's hometown of Charlottesville, VA, just about an hour's drive from me, so housing was provided for me, and by housing, I mean I stayed in the spare bedroom of Kent's family home. Kent's mother and wife were craft services. In film and television production that is who provides your food while on set. We were fed VERY well. :) My costumes were all my own clothes coordinated with a costumer, and I did my own hair and make-up. Now, it may sound like I'm trying to paint a drab picture. I'm not! I just want you to get the Hollywood version of filming with star trailers and make-up chairs and wardrobe rooms, out of your head. Prior to filming, the cast had met for some read-thrus and discussion, so I had been to the Williamson house before, and when it came time to make the trip, I knew the drive well. I drove up the night before because shooting was supposed to begin very early the following day. Before embarking on this journey, the only experience I had had in film was standing in the background on my high school campus while a local show shot a promo. Saying I was nervous would be an extreme understatement. I rose early and went to the "set", a house of a friend of Kent's who agreed to let us use it for filming the exteriors and interiors of my character, Nora Machiavelli's house. At the time of filming I was 34 years old. I had spent the last 24 years as a stage actress. That may not mean a lot to most of you, but ask the crew what it meant to them the first day of shooting. The scene we were filming was one where Nora's ring had gotten caught on the garbage disposal blades as she was trying to unclog it. They set up the shot, a much longer process than I ever imagined, and we were doing our first take. I knew my lines, and I began. The crew was outside shooting through the kitchen window with sound and the boom (the big microphone they hold over the actor's heads) operator was inside the kitchen with me. It was just me, and all my lines were spoken into the phone as I was supposed to be talking to my daughter. "Cut!" the director yelled. Brad Williamson, Kent's brother was the director. Brad came over to me. "That was really great, but we need you to be a little quieter in the next take." Being on the stage, I was used to PROJECTING, not thinking about the fact that there's a very powerful microphone just over my head. Take 2. "Cut!" "That was really good, but you keep moving out of the shot." Again, my stage training had groomed me to be bigger than life, and we were shooting real life. When you watch a television show or a movie, you don't think about how small the space is the actors are working in. My space for this particular scene was as big as the window. We finally got the "garbage disposal" scene shot, and we were moving on. The afternoon we were shooting me forging my daughter's signature on a letter. Just a shot of my hands signing her name, Annelise Machiavelli. 17 takes. Don't ask! I spent most of my first night in that spare bedroom rethinking what I'd dreamed of being since I was 3, a movie star. This is not at all what I thought it would be. I don't like this, and worse yet, I'm bad at it. If you knew me, you'd know how much that last phrase was devastating to me, but I stuck with it, and thanks to the EXTREME patience of the director and crew, by the end of the Spring shoot, I had learned how to act for the camera, and better yet I learned to appreciate the differences from stage acting. You can't be subtle on the stage. You can't whisper. No one can see a tear rolling down your cheek. The spring shoot wrapped, and I would put "When Love Walks In" out of my mind until summer.
The shooting schedule was to begin in mid July. I was walking into the summer shoot a whole different person, emotionally and physically. I had lost about 50 lbs. The cause for the weight loss was also the cause for my emotional change. 2 weeks prior to shooting, I had come home from a trip to an empty house, and my husband of 15 years was gone, leaving me and our two small children with nothing. A lot of people in my life at the time could not believe that I was going to finish shooting the film. Well, those people don't know me very well. First of all, I would have never done that to Kent and Brad and the crew. It costs a huge amount of money to film, and to have to scrap all of my footage from the spring and recast would have been a huge setback to the production. Secondly, when I start something, I finish it. I wasn't walking out. Writing this just now, I realize the cruel irony in that. If you've heard anything about filming, you probably know that scenes are not shot chronologically. I'm pretty sure that at least one part of a scene we shot at dinner in the living room was the heavier me, and when I walk into the kitchen that in reality is supposed to be a split second later, I am 50 lbs. lighter. Needless to say, there was a lot of Spring footage of me that ended up on the cutting room floor. It is, however, preserved on the DVD as deleted scenes. The summer shoot meant more to me than I can tell you. As an actor many times you use tragedy in your life to fuel your performance. I had a tanker full. I was surrounded by supporting, loving people, and let's face it, it was a distraction from the reeling hell my life had just turned into. Thank you, Kent and Brad and Karen and all the crew for saving me that summer and letting me laugh and cry.
Fast forward to 2005. When actors make a film of any type, often times they never see their work, and certainly not immediately, unless they watch something called "dailies" where they see the raw footage shot during the day. I had never seen anything but a trailer that had been put together from different clips of the film. Because this was an independent film, shot and financed, post production took 7 years. I had never seen the finished product. Imagine my shock when Kent called me and told me that the film had been submitted to the Bare Bones International Independent Film Festival in Oklahoma and had received several nominations, including one for me for Best Actress in a Feature Film. This was an amazing moment for me. I decided, no matter what, I was going to that festival. I ended up winning, and in my acceptance speech I said that as actors we say it's about the love of what we do, and it is, but is sure is nice when someone recognizes the hard work you put into something and honors you for it. That summer of '98 brought a lot of things into my life, mostly bad, but filming When Love Walks In with Paladin Pictures, Kent's production company, was a bright spot that brought me more than I could have ever asked for in knowledge and experience, but mostly in making that 3 year old little girl's dream a reality.