No go Chris

Oh dear, after telling Grahame not to come along, Chris has been unable to make it. So I've decided not to offend Grahame any more and just try to find someone else.

I've called johnson & laird, background talent and odd to get an extra person to play the role. Sarah from background talent was really helpful and has got Caroline to do the part. Woo hoo. Pretty stressful right now.

Props - The Knife

Went to First Scene early this afternoon to get some knives.



Needs to be for fishing, don't want actors cutting up their hands.



$11.50 later and I have 3 to choose from!

Location - Unitec

I went to see Jonathan today at Unitec to confirm the rooms that I will need available over the weekend. It all went well, I've signed the agreement and he needs to get someone to sign it at his end. It's cutting it a bit fine, but I'm sure it will be alright. He will send me a copy of the agreement once it's signed today.

Location - flat

I've spent the morning at my Kingsland flat sorting and clearing out the living room so we can use it for the Samoan family's home.

I've taken one car load to my room at nana's place, and maybe take another car load tonight after the second rehearsal. I need to start thinking about how to make the room look Samoan.

I've pissed off my flatmate Becks because I threw out a few flyers that were on the wall, I didn't think they were hers, I thought they were the previous flatmates'. But anyway, hmm, I probably should have at least kept them for a few days. oh well I'll know for next time.

Hopefully everyone will keep it clean and tidy over the next few days!

Dramas with the lead role + others

I got a call at 8 yesterday morning, from Colin (Cory's uncle) saying that he can now play the lead role because the funeral is on Monday.

So now I have to make a decision whether to keep Jonah on, who I'd already mucked around by saying he couldn't have it, then falling back to him when the others didn't want it. Or to muck him around even more and let him go, getting Cory - the original actor, to do it. I'd already dreamt - after having a few too many shots in my coffee before bedtime - about making him cry in front of his family that night and him stressing about learning lines in so little time. So I wasn't in a very good headspace. I called Katya, director, to ask her advice. She was really helpful and explained that because Colin and Cory are related, they will have much better natural dialogue. She helped me through how to diplomatically let Jonah go.

I called and left a message for Jonah at home at 4:30pm, then called again around 5:30pm. To my relief, he was told that he'd be kicked off the rugby team if he played the part on Saturday. I didn't want to affect his life like that.

In other news, the board of trustees member who had wanted to change the script won't be playing the part anymore, I had to explain diplomatically that because he has had experience as a BOT member rather than an actor, he couldn't as accurately portray the emotion and expressions I needed. He was too much of a nice guy, I needed an asshole! I've got Chris Molloy to do it instead. Yay.

First rehearsal

The first rehearsal went well last night. Iggy who I had found by calling St Peters College and his Dad arrived 45 minutes early, which was awesome but I was caught unaware and unprepared.

The director, Katya came and we went through the script.

It was good to meet some people who I hadn't met before, who had been recruited from YouthLaw contacts.

We ran through the script 3 times. The actor for the chair person is a professional actor and had real talent, as did the teacher.

We had dramas with the lead actor, who was going to be played by Cory, but his uncle recently passed away. Instead I asked Iggy to play the lead. He was good, but not as confident.

Jonah arrived late and so I didn't get him to read many lines. At the end, I told Jonah that I wouldn't need him and asked Iggy to play the role. But Iggy didn't want it anymore, so I gave the part to Jonah, having not heard him speak much.

Some of the actors were opinionated about how the script should be changed, saying that they had been to suspension hearings, and that was not how they worked. Which is fair enough to be an opinion, but I had written the script based on input from lawyers who had been to hundreds of hearings and had checked to make sure it was realistic.

e.g. they were saying that the principal had a voting right in this situation, but in actual fact, they don't.

We finished up around 8:30pm, hopefully I'll be able to get a picture up of the students.

No blog posts, lots of work

I haven't been keeping up to date with the blog posts lately, but I'll put up some photos and videos that I've taken in the last month to track my progress. I'll also write up some stuff that I've been putting into my diary about events retrospectively.

Things are going good, I've decided to can the second film and concentrate on the first one.

The time of the film has gone up to approx 10 mins.

Last Friday I met with Max who helped me polish the script. Then Saturday morning I met with Gabor who will be editing the film - he's got a good site at http://www.outlinestudio.co.nz

Yesterday I ran into some location problems, I still don't have Unitec confirmed, but I've been in touch with Jonathan, Timetabling who I'm confident will pull through with something. If he doesn't it could be serious problem, it is quite hard to get schools involved because we need to use a principals office and board room, they need to have someone supervising us...

Cast is difficult, I still haven't had confirmation that Colin's nephew will do it (main role), so I called St Peters College and Patrick (a Dean) has helped me find another student to play the part. It might be hard if they both turn up wanting to do it.

First rehersal tonight, can't wait!