When Love Walked In

About this time 21 years ago I was basking in the afterglow of a wonderful exciting experience. It all began when I was doing a show at Dogwood Dell called City of Angels. I met a talented actress named Katie McCall, and we became fast friends. She told me that she was involved in an independent filming project. A friend of hers was shooting his first feature film, and he was looking for someone to play her quirky mother, was I interested? Of course I was! One Saturday she and I drove up to Charlottesville to read through the screenplay. I was in. I was so excited! I had never done any camera work, let alone a film. Before it was all said and done we went through several cast changes before our first day of shooting. Because of conflicts Katie was not able to play my daughter, but a cast was assembled, and in a mild week in the spring of 1998 I traveled up Route 64 to a suburb of Charlottesville to start shooting. If you don't know anything about making a film, it's very expensive! As I said, this was an independent film. The filmmakers were spending all of their own money to make the film. No big studio budget to spend. Everyone involved was working for free, including me. It was a real family operation. The producer was also starring in the film. He and his brother were co-directing. His 3 year old daughter was playing his daughter, and he and his wife put me up in their home for the week of shooting. His Mom and Dad and wife were Kraft services and provided all the cast and crew's meals. They didn't really know me at all, but they welcomed me and made me feel like one of the family too. I learned so much in that week! And they were incredibly patient with this Stage actress. I'm pretty sure I deafened the sound guy with my projection and my over the top style kept moving out of the shot, but by the end of the week I learned to be subtle and act for the camera. We finished the week, and knew we would all be back in July to wrap it up. The week in July actually ended up being a lifesaving distraction for me as my marriage of 15+ years had just ended weeks before. We wrapped on a humid July night. I would not even see the film until 10 years later. Remember, I said it was independent. A whirlwind of activity surrounded my 10 year reunion with the film. It had been accepted to the Bare Bones International Independent Film Festival, and it was nominated for several awards including a nod for me as Best Actress. I flew out to Muskogee,OK to screen the film and attend the awards with the brothers. I ended up winning. It was a dream realized for this actress. I got to experience all of this because of one man, Kent Williamson. I found out quite by accident last night through Facebook that Kent was tragically killed in a car accident last Friday along with 3 of his family members. A drunk driver ran a stop sign, and Kent and his family all died at the scene. He reached so many with his films. The film I was lucky enough to be in was called When Love Walks In. Ironically, the film deals with a man, Kent, who loses his wife to a car accident, and it follows his journey through grief as he tries to raise his 3 year old daughter alone. I have been told that grief counselors use the film to illustrate all the stages of grief to their clients. My heart aches for this family whose amazing love and faith will sustain them through this terrible, terrible tragedy. Their love walked into my life at just the time I needed it, and I will never forget that experience for the rest of my days. Rest in Peace, Kent Williamson. You have left a legacy for generations to come. You are not truly gone as you will live on in your art and in the hearts of everyone you touched.

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.

From Stage to Screen

Christmas day hosted the premier of one of the most anticipated films of the year, Les Miserables. I have to say that I was a little afraid to see this film as I adore the stage production. I saw the show on tour more than 20 years ago, and I immediately went out and bought the Broadway soundtrack. I have listened to the music over and over again. Clips that had been prematurely released on Youtube had not impressed me, and I wanted to love this movie as much as I loved the stage production. My girls and I went to the 10:30 PM showing on Christmas night. I LOVED IT! I was totally wrapped up the entire 2 1/2 hours. I wept several times. I have to say, even though I love the stage show, I have never been as moved as I was by the film, and there's a reason for that. That reason is stage and film are different, and that is what people are failing to see. You cannot watch this film and try to compare it to the stage show. There is no comparison because they are two totally different animals.
Back in 1998 I was given the opportunity to play a co-starring role in an independent feature film called When Love Walks In. I had never acted on camera before. All of my acting experience was on the stage. The first day of shooting was like learning to act all over again. I blew the sound man's eardrums with my projection. I was constantly moving out of the shot with my larger than life gestures. Luckily the director and producers were extremely patient with me, and by the end of shooting, I learned how to be a film actress. I also ended up winning an award for my acting. I shared that story to point out the fact that if I had judged film acting after my first day on set, I would have hated it because I was comparing it to acting on stage. Again, there is no comparison. They are two different breeds. There are qualities I appreciate in both.  And that is the same way I feel about Les Miserables. To be sure, there is nothing like sitting in the theater as the house lights go down and hearing the opening strains of the overture. The power, the energy that charges the room as you hear the prisoners sing, "Look down. Look down. Don't look 'em in the eye..." and you are swept into the production. The music is beautiful! The voices are amazing, but there is still a distance. By the very nature of most theatrical productions, especially epic ones like Les Miserables, there is no intimacy. There can't be. Many times you are so far away from the stage you can barely make out the actor's facial expressions let alone see a tear fall slowly down their cheek, but that is the nature of the stage.
Make no mistake, the film is different. It is epic! But it is film. I get the feeling from reading posts on Facebook and some reviews that people expected to see the play on film. That's impossible! You have to watch the film and appreciate it for the art form it is. I defy anyone to watch Anne Hathaway sing "I Dreamed a Dream" and see the desperation in her eyes and how defeated she is and not be moved, and if you can keep a dry eye after you watch Eddie Redmayne sing "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" in tribute to his friends who "meet no more", you are stronger than I. Ironically, "Empty Chairs and Empty Tables" has never been one of my favorite songs from the musical, but I could watch the film version over and over again.     This post is not a review of the film. I just got sick of seeing people trashing the film because it's not the play. It can't be, and if you can grasp that concept, I think you can enjoy the film and embrace the differences. I loved it, and I want to see it again, and for this hypercritical person, that's saying something.