On Thursday and Friday we had rehearsals at the Uni.\u00a0 On Thursday, we had Jaffa (Narcissus), Hannah (Echo) and Ryan (Amenius) and on Friday, everyone, except\u00a0Ryan who had to work and\u00a0Lynne (Hera), who is caught up in bad weather on Caldy Island.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Thursday’s rehearsals started with lots of coffee and hanging around, and a bit of going through the blocking for Hannah when she interacts with the Gods.\u00a0 Then when Jaffa arrived, we started properly.\u00a0 Getting to know each other, the normal process of introducing ourselves and saying something about ourselves.\u00a0 I moved this into talking about “our first kiss”, which I’d read only this week in the Guardian\u00a0as a process that a director had used when dealing with intimacy in a script.\u00a0 We then went through all the scenes with the\u00a0 various young lovers.\u00a0 This process really did work – it broke the ice, and enabled the actors and myself to know a bit about each other and see each others vulnerabilities and strengths.\u00a0 It also made the snogging easier! We rehearsed the scenes, which are mostly fairly straightforward drama scenes, and I asked for various different readings and motivations, which everyone did extremely willingly and well.\u00a0 I was so happy at the end of the day, because we had performances which are already convincing, we were getting more detailed,\u00a0and I could also see how the shots would fit in with this.\u00a0 Being in the performance studio did not get in the way of imagining the scenes and starting to make them real, and I felt the process of directing becoming much more artistic and responsive.\u00a0 My instinct kicked in and I was able to react on the spot to what actors were doing, and, almost like sculpting or drawing (or playing the piano), use what was happening in order to find out what I wanted and get it.<\/p>\n
Friday was slightly more\u00a0technical because the whole cast wasn’t there. Jaffa and Bethan (female Tiresias) heroically\u00a0stood in for Hera, and I stood in for Amenius and a nymph (you see, type casting, I’m so nymph like and light on my feet – not!).\u00a0 As you’ll see from Coral W’s pictures we had Brendan up a ladder playing Zeus, and\u00a0all the screens represented by chairs at right angles around the space.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This rather produced the effect of “Echo and Narcissus as pantomime”, which wasn’t in itself bad, but means that when we’re on location, our job will also be to some extent to re-imagine and forget some aspects of the rehearsal as well as remember them.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0advantages of the rehearsal and run through\u00a0as it stands are the following:<\/p>\n
It was lovely hearing Hannah sing the songs to playback, she’s got a lovely voice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Possible drawbacks<\/p>\n
Anyway, tomorrow we start.\u00a0 How exciting!\u00a0 At the moment it’s sunny, so let’s hope.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I did\u00a0some production running for Ed, getting lots of shopping, and this was quite relaxing because it took my mind off things.\u00a0 Ed is being heroic working through the weekend on schedules and stuff.\u00a0 We’re going to have to face the trauma of the weather and the short shooting time performatively.\u00a0\u00a0 We definitely don’t have enough money or time, but this is super low budget filmmaking.\u00a0 Perhaps our problems don’t happen in the “professional” film world, but they must\u00a0have other difficulties.\u00a0We’ll just have to surmount the hurdles.<\/p>\n
Signing off<\/p>\n
Coral<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Thursday and Friday we had rehearsals at the Uni.\u00a0 On Thursday, we had Jaffa (Narcissus), Hannah (Echo) and Ryan (Amenius) and on Friday, everyone, except\u00a0Ryan who had to work and\u00a0Lynne (Hera), who is caught up in bad weather on Caldy Island. \u00a0Thursday’s rehearsals started with lots of coffee and hanging around, and a bit … <\/p>\n