Mercifully there's been no exteriors on this film - that last thing you would want in February is to be outside in the snow on, say, Worlebury encampment in Weston-Super-Mare. You know who you are...
Instead we've been variously shooting in toilets (better than it sounds), hospital wards and corridors and now, for the domestic scenes, in a very plush converted barn. Very nice.
What's setting this apart from the films I've done lately is that it's actually film. And that makes a big difference.
The stakes are always higher as ideally you work on a ratio of 2:1 or at worst 3:1. Ideally, of course, it should be one take but well, that's the Holy Grail. There's also the incomparable experience of actually hearing money being spent as the film stock runs through the camera, coupled with the audible groans from the crew when a plane goes over or you muff a line.
On the flipside there's an amazing focus that you don't seem to get when you're shooting digital, coupled with all the cool paraphernalia that goes with film, too. Exciting.
Friday, 19 February 2010
The Way I Like It...
...was the original title for the film, and in its first incarnation it was a very different movie indeed. It might have been called "Georgia, Peter, Mrs Perry and ummm, John" for all the impact my character had on the story. But by the time the casting happened it was quite different, and it's had several drafts since. Amin, the writer-director, hasn't been an English speaker all that long but he has a very singular turn of phrase which I really like.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Doctor in the House
It was the holy trinity of castings - a corporate, a theatre job (understudy - boo) and a film. And I got the film. Exit Steve Dineen, unemployed actor and handyman bitch...enter John (surname to be decided), consultant heart specialist, breezy charmer and control freak.
Come to think of it. it's all film at the moment. I've just been sent a script for a completely top secret feature that I'm not even allowed to speak about, or discuss the plot of, or speculate about which names might be in the frame for which part.
Luckily I'm a discreet sort of a chap. Unlike someone I did a sabbatical year with, who was contacted by a certain government department and invited in for a cosy chat with some gentlemen who were known only by their initials. He instantly told all of us about it, of course. Sure enough, next day, he had a second, steelier phone call cancelling the appointment
Come to think of it. it's all film at the moment. I've just been sent a script for a completely top secret feature that I'm not even allowed to speak about, or discuss the plot of, or speculate about which names might be in the frame for which part.
Luckily I'm a discreet sort of a chap. Unlike someone I did a sabbatical year with, who was contacted by a certain government department and invited in for a cosy chat with some gentlemen who were known only by their initials. He instantly told all of us about it, of course. Sure enough, next day, he had a second, steelier phone call cancelling the appointment
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Casting Diversions
Last week my agent got me three castings.
I just want to let that sentence hang delightfully in the air for a moment...
My everyday opinion of Andy and Tod is that of one who flings himself under Shiva's juggernaut; on weeks like this, though, I truly wish to immolate myself on their flaming pyres. The death of all three of us would halt my career pretty sharpish, though, so I'll just confine myself to ardent gratitude. Cheers boys.
I just want to let that sentence hang delightfully in the air for a moment...
My everyday opinion of Andy and Tod is that of one who flings himself under Shiva's juggernaut; on weeks like this, though, I truly wish to immolate myself on their flaming pyres. The death of all three of us would halt my career pretty sharpish, though, so I'll just confine myself to ardent gratitude. Cheers boys.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Opus Day
The Work - as Christopher Wren modestly called St Paul's - is a workshop on Voice which I've been asked to run with a local AmDram group in Wantage; and I have committed about the same time and effort to this enterprise as I did to both my degrees combined.
I ran one of these puppies last year for the Oxfordshire Drama Network - a sort of support group for AmDram companies throughout the county - and that time I tackled it by thinking of a really funky title and then writing something around it. I used to do this a lot for my MA, like "Was Aristophanes' Comedy Just For the Birds?" and so on.
But a whole workshop on one topic? And voice? The most nebulous, subjective, contentious subject of all?
Too late now - I'm off to nail jelly to the wall. Fingers crossed no-one's read Cicely Berry too closely or the game's up...
I ran one of these puppies last year for the Oxfordshire Drama Network - a sort of support group for AmDram companies throughout the county - and that time I tackled it by thinking of a really funky title and then writing something around it. I used to do this a lot for my MA, like "Was Aristophanes' Comedy Just For the Birds?" and so on.
But a whole workshop on one topic? And voice? The most nebulous, subjective, contentious subject of all?
Too late now - I'm off to nail jelly to the wall. Fingers crossed no-one's read Cicely Berry too closely or the game's up...
Thursday, 14 January 2010
A Possible Explanation for the Difficulty I am Experiencing in Writing my Grand Opus
"There is no more sombre obstacle to great art than the pram in the hallway"
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Audition, Schmaudition
In the pantheon of auditions, it was somewhere in the middle. No-one said "Wow, you just blew the others AWAY! That's it! I've found my Hamlet!!", but then no-one stopped the audition to call security or Equity.
It was certainly not in the same ball park as the one where I was invited to "...express yourself physically, like a...well, just...express yourself physically, you know?" or the one where I had to show up in my dressing gown because the CD was incapable of just picturing people in dressing gowns.
Sometimes they're special for other reasons, like schaudenfreude - I did a workshop audition once where I watched someone (infinitely more suitable for the part than I was, too) gradually talk himself out of a job. Extraordinary. And once in a commercial casting, I left the room, realised I'd forgotten my water and re-entered just as someone said "Well, I just LOVED him!".
This was one of the ones when you close the door, put your papers in the bag and chalk it up to experience. This position is becoming ever less tenable the older I get.
It was certainly not in the same ball park as the one where I was invited to "...express yourself physically, like a...well, just...express yourself physically, you know?" or the one where I had to show up in my dressing gown because the CD was incapable of just picturing people in dressing gowns.
Sometimes they're special for other reasons, like schaudenfreude - I did a workshop audition once where I watched someone (infinitely more suitable for the part than I was, too) gradually talk himself out of a job. Extraordinary. And once in a commercial casting, I left the room, realised I'd forgotten my water and re-entered just as someone said "Well, I just LOVED him!".
This was one of the ones when you close the door, put your papers in the bag and chalk it up to experience. This position is becoming ever less tenable the older I get.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Down in Town
I've just laid down the script to "A Village Life", a show I'm being seen for tomorrow. I wouldn't normally dream of posting before the event (out of superstition, I suppose) and the puritan in me has guilt about not staying up late to read, re-read and make notes on the script, but I'm not twenty any more. Suffice to say that I've read it plenty, researched the company and the director and I'm probably as right for it as thirty or forty other actors my age - some of whom I'll run into at Spotlight tomorrow, no doubt. Wish me luck.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Next Big Thing
I see that Toby Stephens is playing Henry in The Real Thing next year at the Donmar. Normally the vicissitudes of who-gets-cast-in-what don't bother me too much, but I confess this news fills my head with scorpions - and not cuddly scorpions, either.
You see, Henry is the role in which I first acted - I mean properly acted. There's a line in the play where he talks about something responding "...like a raised blind" and that's exactly how it felt to do that part. I'd never seriously considered acting as a career before that show; afterwards I knew I'd never be really happy doing anything else. The experience has, I suppose, committed me to a working life of shocking uncertainty and wildly oscillating mood.
This isn't a coherent post. I'm not saying that I could be a serious contender to star in a Stoppard revival at the Donmar, I'm neither egotistical nor deluded enough for that. But being the right age for that part when it's being revived is a watershed moment for me.
That's enough now.
You see, Henry is the role in which I first acted - I mean properly acted. There's a line in the play where he talks about something responding "...like a raised blind" and that's exactly how it felt to do that part. I'd never seriously considered acting as a career before that show; afterwards I knew I'd never be really happy doing anything else. The experience has, I suppose, committed me to a working life of shocking uncertainty and wildly oscillating mood.
This isn't a coherent post. I'm not saying that I could be a serious contender to star in a Stoppard revival at the Donmar, I'm neither egotistical nor deluded enough for that. But being the right age for that part when it's being revived is a watershed moment for me.
That's enough now.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Brum Fun
To Birmingham to see my chum Alex - who's also also Jake's godfather - in "The Gruffalo", which I think he's been touring on and off for about three years. He and I worked together on Midnight in 2005 and found a mutual love of Daily Mail Quizwords and sabotaging stage props - which he would then have to find or repair in time for the show. Only fun for me really, then.
I saw this show before in Milton Keynes, where it somehow managed not to be swamped by the size of the theatre, but at Birmingham Town Hall they're up against it. It's a cavernous and soulless place with no raked seating and poor acoustics. In fact you could put "Miss Saigon" in there and it would still feel tinny. They're a great company, though - here on temporary posting from Australia (cheaper to fly them over than rehearse UK actors) and due to return in early January where, bizarrely, my nephew will see the exact same show with the same actors.
Alex is great as the predators - he's not my casting age or type so I don't mind him being good - and Jake and his friend Sam love it. Although they love flipping their seats up and down more...
I saw this show before in Milton Keynes, where it somehow managed not to be swamped by the size of the theatre, but at Birmingham Town Hall they're up against it. It's a cavernous and soulless place with no raked seating and poor acoustics. In fact you could put "Miss Saigon" in there and it would still feel tinny. They're a great company, though - here on temporary posting from Australia (cheaper to fly them over than rehearse UK actors) and due to return in early January where, bizarrely, my nephew will see the exact same show with the same actors.
Alex is great as the predators - he's not my casting age or type so I don't mind him being good - and Jake and his friend Sam love it. Although they love flipping their seats up and down more...
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Off Tour
The vexing thing about a touring blog is that you don't tend to write much when you're at home - it feels a touch meretricious, I suppose. And there's the niggling voice of Noel Coward, who famously asserted that you were only an actor when actually acting - he didn't favour us with what you were supposed to be the rest of the time, but as a raconteur, playwright, diarist, librettist, composer and all round Renaissance man that probably didn't bother him much.
For mortals like me, the end of a job - even one as unexpected as Beauty Queen - heralds the powerful suspicion that one will never act again. Hitherto an irrational fear, but one with teeth nonetheless.
Vexing, too, is the matter of How To Actually Get Another Job. I wonder how much of a formula others have for this - mine is casual at best, slapdash sometimes and seat-of-the-pants at worst. You wonder how often people need to be reminded you exist, too. Every six months? More? I mean, I forget where my specs are after twenty minutes or so, but I'm not a great benchmarker for memory.
My agent, of course, is beavering away in the background, but one of the negatives of being on tour is that I have been largely unavailable during our partnership. And as I have observed before, I am not as high-temperature as some of his other clients.
And so it goes on. Sending out CV's and 10x8's to local companies, checking the Equity website, bugging ex-employers with a cheery email every now and then. And wondering if there really is a critical shortage of plumbers and electricians...
For mortals like me, the end of a job - even one as unexpected as Beauty Queen - heralds the powerful suspicion that one will never act again. Hitherto an irrational fear, but one with teeth nonetheless.
Vexing, too, is the matter of How To Actually Get Another Job. I wonder how much of a formula others have for this - mine is casual at best, slapdash sometimes and seat-of-the-pants at worst. You wonder how often people need to be reminded you exist, too. Every six months? More? I mean, I forget where my specs are after twenty minutes or so, but I'm not a great benchmarker for memory.
My agent, of course, is beavering away in the background, but one of the negatives of being on tour is that I have been largely unavailable during our partnership. And as I have observed before, I am not as high-temperature as some of his other clients.
And so it goes on. Sending out CV's and 10x8's to local companies, checking the Equity website, bugging ex-employers with a cheery email every now and then. And wondering if there really is a critical shortage of plumbers and electricians...
Winter
My bit of Oxfordshire has finally succumbed to the weather, and we have a sprinkling of snow on the ground. This is in contrast to most other places, which seem to have a mini ice-age - Facebook is littered with stories of 6-mile journeys taking 6 hours and the like.
Touring is an odd experience for many reasons, but the changing seasons is one of the oddest because it's the backdrop for a largely unchanging universe, i.e. the show. Looking back at my Midnight photos there's everything from floods to punting.
Snow, though, being rare, is more memorable. Touring Abs Party in Northern Ireland in Spring 2008, we were caught in a proper blizzard driving back from Enniskillen, and passed stranded and abandoned cars all the way. It's the only time I remember the car being silent - I imagine because we were all praying. In Hamburg earlier this year, the weather changed enormously and quickly over three months, and inevitably it meant that jumpers too thin for severe winter conditions were far too thick once the sun came out the following day.
The coldest I've ever been, though, was picking my way across a snow-filled courtyard in sandals for some Roman farce in King's Cross. Either those Romans were a seriously hardy breed or they wore thermals, because the wind-chill protection offered by a toga is zero.
Touring is an odd experience for many reasons, but the changing seasons is one of the oddest because it's the backdrop for a largely unchanging universe, i.e. the show. Looking back at my Midnight photos there's everything from floods to punting.
Snow, though, being rare, is more memorable. Touring Abs Party in Northern Ireland in Spring 2008, we were caught in a proper blizzard driving back from Enniskillen, and passed stranded and abandoned cars all the way. It's the only time I remember the car being silent - I imagine because we were all praying. In Hamburg earlier this year, the weather changed enormously and quickly over three months, and inevitably it meant that jumpers too thin for severe winter conditions were far too thick once the sun came out the following day.
The coldest I've ever been, though, was picking my way across a snow-filled courtyard in sandals for some Roman farce in King's Cross. Either those Romans were a seriously hardy breed or they wore thermals, because the wind-chill protection offered by a toga is zero.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Small World
I mentioned tangled webs a while ago. I've been sorting out my study (and the Dineen Archive - the sort of thing you can get down to when you're not in gainful employ) and I came up with the following Odd Coincidences:
- Paul Fields (emergency replacement for Michael Magnet in Wolverhampton Rep 2008) was in a graduate show I saw at the Jermyn St Theatre in 2002. The actor I was actually there to see came originally from...Wolverhampton.
- Janette Owen (Midnight DSM in 2005) was ASM on "Life's a Monkey" in 2002 - a show I workshopped and was offered a part in, but had to turn down because I was visiting Australia during the rehearsal period. This would have been my West End debut three years earlier than - oddly enough - Midnight.
- In June 2008 Abigail's Party began it's final week at Basingstoke's Haymarket Theatre, exactly 29 years after I opened Every Good Boy Deserves Favour there with Oxford Playhouse Company in June 1979 . It was the first venue on the EGBDF tour.
More spook stories as I find them.
Chalk it Up!
Ever since "Chop" wrapped (and post-production finished, and the premiere happened, which I'm shocked to realise I didn't post about) I've been cast in their next short. In fact, I was asked to do it on the night of the press showing by Barrie, who wrote the script.
The "Beauty Queen" situation knackered the original shoot schedule, and it's been rescheduled for January, which is what I thought he was calling about yesterday. But it seems he's been even busier than me - he's got probable serious funding for his feature about women's rugby, likely shoot next summer. And guess what? Small cameo for me if it can be managed. Love his chops.
The "Beauty Queen" situation knackered the original shoot schedule, and it's been rescheduled for January, which is what I thought he was calling about yesterday. But it seems he's been even busier than me - he's got probable serious funding for his feature about women's rugby, likely shoot next summer. And guess what? Small cameo for me if it can be managed. Love his chops.
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