Kids and Snails

For me, this year has been the year of the short film, and last Monday I got to be involved in another one. And you know its going to be interesting when the director can only send you a hand drawn map to the location because she cannot find it on google maps. I was thankful for the high suspension on my car as I drove the rocky dirt roads to the stunning home of an artist which was serving as our location for the short film. And a brand new challenge which was awaiting myself, and our young director, Rita-Mari Ludike.

Setting up the shot, and getting the lighting just right.

I was playing the young mother of a five year old child, which meant shooting with a five year old child. Also an integral character of the short film was a snail ('Shelly'). Apparently while shooting the day before our cute five year old actress had no issues with carrying the snail around (well, three different sized versions of the snail). But when I had to work with her she started being difficult, and when asked to held the snail she plainly refused:

“The snail is spitting on my hand”

After which she dropped the unfortunate snail. One of the ‘extra’ snails was brought back to finish the shot so that the dropped snail could heal. For the sake of the camera different sizes of snails were used during the shooting. Which then became a family for our young actress, and a challenge for her mother and our director to remember which snail was the mom, the dad, the child, etc. And don’t you dare get it wrong!

Working with such a young child made me truly appreciate the gravity of parenthood, and that I am still greatly ill-prepared for such responsibilities. One incident specifically brought this into focus. During a break in shooting our five-year-old ran past me to the bathroom. A few seconds later her voice rang across our set:

“I need my real mom”

In other words, not me, her mother in the film.

“I made a big poo and I need my real mom to help me wipe”

As I said. Not ready for such responsibilities.

Rehearsing a scene

Through the two day-shoot Rita learned different ways in which to motivate the five-year-old, and to help her understand shot lists, and different camera angles. Our unfortunate Director of Photography was often ‘blamed’ for “not putting on his camera” in order to coax her into doing another take. A concept she could not understand if she had done it correctly the first time. And shot cards were used so that she could understand when a scene was wrapped. Lines also tended to become freer as if she happened to be in the right mood, you would carry on the shot no matter what, or attempt to coax her into giving the right reaction for the camera.

The short film revolves around three generations of women, and it was fantastic to do a film with only female characters, all brought together by our female writer and director, and supported by amazing male crew members. As my own studies focus on gender it was really special for me to be involved in a female driven story. And as always working with and meeting new and interesting people. Now, we wait for the post-production phase before we can see the final product.

Myself, our director Rita-Mari Ludike and the amazing Rosemare Errenrich Visser who played my mother.

Lights, camera, sound, primp...action!

Above and Behind Stage

A friend of mine and I have kind of a tradition. Since my first year every single November come exams or high water we do technical work for a local ballet studio’s end of year show. Even though its physically quite hard work, lifting large set pieces and carrying props around, the studio's teacher uses us girls to help the dancers  with quick changes, or to tie ballet shoes and such. Unfortunately last year I was working and could not do it, but this year I was awaiting the summons. Just before November started I asked my friend if she had heard from the Theatre Manager about the show, and if they wanted us to come in and work for it again. My friend said if she had not heard anything by the end of the day she would call the next morning.

Myself, and Miss Lian Bekker while packing up after the last show and
a nine hour shift. My partner in crime on these proceedings, and not just
 because were are all dressed in black.

About half an hour after our conversation a message appeared on my phone. We would be starting with a week's work on Monday.
Now every year there is some or other very large prop. A house that needs to be wheeled in midway through a dance, or a throne that weighs about the same amount as I do. And there's always something hanging from the fly bars. Whether it’s just flakes being released from the snow sheet, a chandelier that needs to be dropped or a mere sign.

This year we were spared the heavy lifting but four swings had to be released from the fly facilities which we had to catch as they were dropped down in the wings and then swing them on stage (in an aesthetically pleasing manner), and then later knot two swings together with a rope and have the other stage hands in the roof pull them back up again in literally a matter of seconds. The four swings were hanging in-between the lighting bars, so too much movement from the swings could not only move a light, but hook it and perhaps break it. After about half an hour of closing our eyes and not looking up while the teacher and various other people swung myself and my friend around on the swings, seeing how much movement could happen without the lighting being a problem they realised another solution needed to be found. So the bar with the swings on was holstered in a manner which would prevent it from swinging into the other lights. And after all our effort the swings were used for about a minute on stage before they were pulled up again.

We were also taught the knots to use so that the swings wouldn't come lose half way through a show and decapitate a dancer, or some such nonsense. On my side of the stage, with my friend being in the opposite wing, the rope which I need to tie the swings back up again with hung far behind me, and I needed to release it into the waiting hands of about ten dancers between the ages of 4 and 7. It’s entirely safe, but I need to grab the rope again later and children, being children, find the rope hanging from the heavens exceptionally fascinating.
Our stage manager commented on the dilemma:

"Its’ find having them play with it, they won't hurt themselves, but you know they will have wound it all around them by the time you need it"

"Yip, and there will be a suspended mummy hanging behind me by the time I need to tie the swings up again"

We decided to throw our ropes over one of the lighting fixtures instead of letting them hang behind us.

On one of these occasions when I had to release and retrieve my swings I was surrounded by the wings, unable to see much else of the backstage area or stage itself, awaiting the swinging moment. Afterwards I heard from our stage manager that she couldn’t see me, engulfed by the black curtain of the wing, and was starting a mild panic as the big moment drew nearer and she didn’t know where I was.

“I asked myself at what point do I abandon my com set and start looking for you. Where would I even have started looking for you”

Just as she was pondering this decision she said she saw the slightest sliver of my elbow poking out behind the wing, and she knew I was at my post, awaiting the swings from the heavens.

Some of the set pieces back stage we were moving around

As show business tends to go, there were quite a few quick changes. As the pre-teen girls ran into the wings my friend and I started unzipping the back of their dresses so that they could get the next costume on in a matter of seconds. As they realized there were two pairs of hands zipping and unzipping, and they didn’t need a friend to do it we had girls, high on performance adrenaline and time limit wiggling and jumping around in front of us “Zip my dress! Zip my dress”. 

Only by the last quick change did they realize that the whole process goes a lot faster when they actually stand still, or didn't squirm until the zips on the dresses stripped and Lian and myself had to safety pin the girls into them.

Slow-Mo Video

Whenever any work is done involving a camera a lot of waiting can be expected. Whether you’re waiting on set for your part to be filmed, or a light or camera to be moved, or fake sweat to be sprayed on. We call it hurry up and wait. And generally the longest wait is for post-production before you can see the final product.

About 6 weeks ago I danced for a music video. An acquaintance from my studies is in a girl group, and she asked one of my cast mates if she knew dancers who had time to dance for their video. And as I only had my taxes to do the day of the shoot I decided it would be more fun to help out. So earl on a Monday morning (filming tends to require pre-dawn wakeups unfortunately) I headed into an open retail space in a mall to dance for the Sandra Prinsloo music video. Shooting at really high speeds the director wanted us to dance, and then slowed it down. It looked amazing seeing the dancers jump and turn in slow motion.

Slow-mo ring leap for the video

 

With a limited amount of dancers the director didn’t want it to be obvious that the same dancers were in most of the shots. After a few takes the director came to me, to comment on my individuality:

“Is it possible for you to tie your hair? We don’t want it to look like we’re using the same girls, and your head is like a flaming ball of fire”.

After the video was released this last weekend my boyfriend put it on his TV while friends of ours were visiting without saying anything. My friend watched the video quizzically:

"Wow Chandré, that one girl looks just like you"

I just smiled and didn't say anything.

"No really. You could put this on your CV. She really looks like you"

"That's because it is."

Way in the background, you can see me about to film one my dance sections.

Going BIG parade style!

‘Go Big’ was the catchphrase for the MTN festival held at Monte Casino this past month. And part of ‘Going Big’ was a parade, held twice on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. 

The Pink Acrobatic Clown

The casting brief sent out by the entertainment company who put the parade together just asked for an acrobat. So when I auditioned I had no idea what my character would be for the parade. I knew there was going to be at least 2 saxophone players, and I knew there was going to be a Charlie Chaplin (the people I saw at my audition) but that was it. And when I arrived for a costume fitting I was presented a very large, and as it would turn out see-through, chequered clown costume, complete with ruffles. Now I don’t mind being a clown. As an acrobat one does sort of expect it, but I could not do acrobatics in a suit with ruffles tumbling over my head, hands and feet. I explained the lack of safety and visibility to the producer, who kindly said there would be another option for me at our rehearsal. What greeted me was an explosion of pink. Pink leotard, pink tutu and pink curly wig. I think many off my friends would imagine I chose the costume because of my personal obsession with the colour, but none this less, this was a lot of pink. And the pink puff of acrobatic clown came to life for the parade. I joined a host of other characters, all relating to the various special events which were being held at Monte Casino. For the kids there was Spiderman, Batman, a generic mouse to avoid copyright infringement and a large clock. There were showgirls for the entertainment, beer maidens for Beerfest, there were hip-hop dancers dressed as chefs and sports players and a mobile drummer keeping the beat. Our mad-cap group of diverse and interesting characters, and even more diverse and interesting people, danced around our parade route.

Preparing for the parade we had one rehearsal, before final dress and showing the client. There wasn't really time to learn names as we dived into our first rehearsal, and generally we were referred to by our characters. I was known as ‘Clown’ for the first few days, my friend Herman who portrayed Charlie Chaplin was called ‘Charlie’ right up to the end. Names only came around later, when you got to know someone. I did not know the two saxophone players very well, when during our first week of performance I lent one of them my shoes as she had forgotten hers at home. And a pair of sandals wasn't going to work with her costume. In our tiny dressing room space (you would imagine there would be bigger facilities) chaos always ensued once the second parade of the evening was over as everyone got out of the costumes as quickly as possible. I saw the saxophone players leave together, and about five minutes later, once I had wiggled out of my leotard I realized that my shoes had not been returned to me. I didn’t fancy a walk through the casino and its parking lot bare footed. Our production manager gave me her phone number and as about five people listened I said to her voice mail:

“Hi, it’s Chandré…the clown. I think you may have left with my shoes.”

\

Show Girls Caitlin Clerk and Bryony Whitfield

I think what I enjoyed most about the parade was watching the people in the casino. The different characters joined the parade at different times as we walked through the casino. Being a clown, I had to wait in a small vintage car until the parade came along. Then one of the other characters would open the door and I would, unexpectedly, pop out of the car and do a few tricks before the parade moved on. So, for about ten minutes before the parade I would sit in my clown car watching the patrons. Often children would notice me, and frustrated parents would drag them along without paying attention.  It was also entertaining as many people wouldn’t notice the ball of pink sitting in the car, and then get a fright upon realizing that there was an actual person in there. I also heard a young boy yell, as loud as he could when Charlie Chaplin came walking around the corner:

"Look Mom! It's Mr Bean!"

That was until I hit the pre-teens/teenagers.

As I was stationary in my clown car for a while the pink clown seemed to become the object for a group of teenagers to ridicule one evening. Sitting in an old vintage car, which I realized was quite fragile when seeing it from the inside, I did not want to give anyone permission to climb into it, especially while I was there. So whenever someone asked if they could climb into the car with me I would say with great enthusiasm: “It’s a clown car! It’s made for clowns!” This usually did the trick, and the passers by would laugh, take a photo and move on. This did not work for the teenagers, who stood around the car, pulling faces at me, and preventing me from interacting with the little children and eventually shaking the car (which did not help my slight claustrophobic tendencies). And as it is my job to be an eternally positive, happy and progressive clown there weren’t many options available to me. Eventually the beer maidens who were across the way saw what was happening,  stepped in and engaged with them. Essentially transferring their attention away from me. But interacting with the younger children, or people who got into the spirit of the parade was a lot of fun.

Caitlin Clerk, one of our Show Girls

Charlie Chaplin, or Herman Vorster and myself

Our drummer, the well-known Paul Ditchfield

One of our Beer Maidens, and Charlie Chaplin

There were children elated to see Batman and Spiderman, and a few that were brought to tears by the sight of them. In these instances our mouse was quickly called in to cheer them up! And many, many photos were taken of us. It’s part of our job to be friendly, and to take photos with children and tourists.  That’s what we’re paid to do. But now and then it gets out of hand, like when a group of non-English speaking tourists decided to keep me occupied for about five minutes as our parade moved on. Each wanting to take a picture with me. I was very relieved to see our amazing production manager and a member of the casino staff waiting patiently, and keeping an eye on me as the rest of the group moved along with the parade. Or when, as I walked past a possibly drunk older lady she grabbed me and pulled me into a bear hug (or perhaps more accurately 'beer' hug). Thankfully I was released quickly enough.  She was in the spirit of the parade. She was going big.

Lessac: Re-connecting

In January this year I had the great privilege and pleasure of attending the first Lessac Kinesensic workshop to be held in Africa. For three weeks I received intensive training from three amazing teachers. And met fantastic people at the course.

This past week I attended a four day course on the application of  Lessac work I did in January for acting specifically. Not only did I get to reconnect with some fantastic actors I had met in January, a new face of a well known director joined us, making us a total of seven for the course.

So, on Sunday morning at 8 I started physical warm-ups. The work we were doing is not light, and plainly put, incorporates your body, breathing and senses for vocal production, and finally it all comes together in an acting performance.

One of the exercises we were using is ambiguous dialogue. Two actors receive a sheet of dialogue, the no explicit meaning. And by playing around with different techniques different interpretations emerge. In so doing, as an actor, one experiences different options and choices. And then a lot of my preconceptions were shattered.

As I learned, and had previously believed, it is a common misconception that a lower voice is always better across the board. For acting and recorded work. And as the teachers and I worked we realized that I, along with another experienced actor both had the habit of speaking lower whenever we were on camera, and sometimes on stage. I couldn’t believe the range and expression that I had the moment I allowed to speak myself in my natural range.

As the workshop ended, and I said goodbye to our American teacher it felt amazing to hear both the good things and bad things I was doing. Getting a handle on what to work on, and being told to carry on.

Its always good to be told to carry on working. And although I’m not there yet, I feel like the right people are telling me to carry on.

Making it to the big screen

They say that life happens while you are busy making plans. Apparently computer glitches too. So after planning for our whole team to watch the first airing of our short film together at the Rosebank Nouveau Cinema our team leader could not book tickets for us to watch our short film for the 48 hour film project on Tuesday. So, scattered throughout the week, our team watched our film as each had the opportunity. For me, this was yesterday. I saw myself on the 'big screen' for the first time. And immediately strengthened my resolve to diet...



After a full day of Lessac voice training in a workshop yesterday my partner and I left Pretoria to watch the films of Group G (I was doing my hair and makeup in the car via map-reading lights). Ours was the fifth film to be show and I found it fascinating how involved and personally vested I was with the characters on screen, as well as making mental notes as to what I felt did and didn't work with regards to my performance. About half way through I realized how tense I was and consciously forced myself to relax and try to enjoy the film.

For those who don't know, the 48 hour film project is an international competition in which film makers have merely 48 hours to write, shoot an edit a film between 4 and 7 minutes long. After drawing the genre of your  film at 7 on a Friday evening teams have 48 hellish hours to create a genre specific film, including compulsory elements (a character, line and prop). You can tell how excited I am about this project as it the third I am writing a post on the subject, and I will probably post again once the films are released onto YouTube.

It was fantastic to see some of the other short films, and the talent that it is emerging in South African cinema. There were some really amazing concepts, and hopefully the beginnings of some fantastic careers.

As last night was the final screening of the films a small thank you was handed out to anyone representing the films. I was the only member of our team present, so when called for I stood up to fetch our little certificate and pop corn tub full of sweets as a "thank you", or more accurately, "Congratulations on surviving and making it this far" . I was welcomed with warm applause from the cinema audience as I walked to the front to receive our thank you.

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A peak of things to come!

A still from the trailer of  Unsolved

This past week I was again adjudicating a local eisteddfod for a small town in Mpumalanga. Besides running late on the first day due to 27 late entries, and missing out on my supper the eisteddfod was relatively uneventful. Well, besides the 5 to 6 year old category, the youngest of the eisteddfod, deciding as a group to walk onto the stage to collect their certificates after I had directed them to the floor space to my left to receive them from me personally. And a child with a silver certificate walking up to me and informing me her father would purchase her something or other if she received gold. I was not sure how to respond to this. So I was rather thankful when, on my second morning I was running ahead of schedule and had a full hour for tea before my second session of the day started. During this time I turned on my cell phone to receive a message on the whatsapp group for the team I was part of the 48 hour filmproject. The trailer for the film we had shot two weeks ago had been released! As the trailers for films friends of mine had been in popped onto social media throughout the week I was awaiting the release of hours with baited breath. And as I refuse to look at any of the takes while I'm busy shooting I was excited to see, on screen, what our film is going to look like.

Tomorrow the short film UNSOLVED for the 48 Hour Film Project, made by Zwoosh! premiers at Cinema Nouveau in Rosebank Mall. Most of our team, including myself, will be there for the premiere. Our film shows tomorrow evening at 20:00 and again on Thursday the 26^th at 20:00, Saturday the 28^th at 14:30 and Sunday the 29^th at 17:30. Enjoy a couple of short films, and see the wonderful work filmmakers are doing in Johannesburg.

Big, BIGGER...Technical?

My directors have often said it to me, and I have said it to my casts: in live performance things go wrong. Somewhere you are going to make a mistake. It's part of what we do and what matters is how you handle the blunder, miss-spoken word, the entrance you missed or the choreography that temporarily vacated your current consciousness. And 2 weeks ago our cast had to deal with just that. The insanity of live performance.

CHASING had been invited to perform at the University's weekly 'Lunch Hour Performances'. So the week before the performance we changed the format of the show to fit the 40 minute time limit we had. Our director and choreographer could not attend these rehearsals and we were left in the equally competent hands of her business partner, friend and the designer of our show. With the time imposition placed upon us many of the transitions between the pieces of our show changed, meaning that entrances and exits were different, and people were on stage or off stage when they had previously been doing something else. Many of the routines were also shortened to carve our hour plus show into the 40 minutes. But knowing the show as well as we did, and being comfortable with the changes we weren't too stressed about the performance. That was until the morning of our show.

Checking the lights and setting up the morning of our performance.

We moved into the theatre, which none of us had performed in before, the night before our lunch time performance. We were informed that the workshop and props department had lost one of our four boxes. I found it odd that they were able to lose a box made of steel and wood, which weighed almost 5kilograms and stands about a meter high. But it was gone. A new one had made to replace it, so we were not too bothered about this first development. Two other props were also missing, including a black chair and an old fashioned typewriter, which was essential to some of the show's spectacular visual elements. We thought we knew where they were, and we would get them early the next morning before we performed.

And so we arrived bright and early on campus the morning of our lunch time performance, with earrings in place for later, we all realized, and costumes in hand. We found our typewriter without too much bother, but our chair was missing. This meant that while I was fixing the box used for my solo with contact adhesive which had broken in Grahamstown (using my fingers as a brush as it too was missing) our stand-in director found a stand-in chair, bought spray paint and painted it black (I ended up performing with a thin stripe of black paint on my forearm and bits of stubborn contact adhesive all over my fingers).

And then we heard the news that changed the energy of our entire group instantly: it had been made compulsory for the entire drama department to come and watch our performance. Classes and meetings were put on hold and rescheduled so that we would have an audience. And as we walked on stage, to an audience of about 700 people, more than double our biggest audience we had had before we realized that the black coats which were supposed to be hanging on a hatstand for the beginning of the show had not been pre-set. And there was nothing we could do in that moment. Thankfully one of our male cast members on the opposite side of the stage and the sense to put them on the hatstand in the momentary blackout we had after the opening of the show, and the show was off to a roaring start...and yet not without its hitches...

 A Section of the seating...which was soon filled.

The large rolls of paper we had never had a problem with before and which we use in our show decided to tear while being used on stage, or simply not to roll across the stage as they were supposed to, and had done so often before. In the second routine of the show the four ladies in our cast dance to a piece of music called "Fragment". The music comes from a poem written by the female poet Ingrid  Jonker, whose life serves as inspiration for the show. Essentially a large sheet of paper is held across the stage and in so doing our bodies are fragmented while we dance as the paper covers parts of us and only disjointed arms, heads and legs can be seen. When the paper tore this illusion was broken, but we carried on without batting an eyelid. This was followed by our essential, and incredibly heavy typewriter being put down on top of my dress and I had to keep my calm in order to free myself unobtrusively before we started dancing again. Seconds later the typewriter hooked on the edge of our new chair when it needed to be lifted high in the air, and I again had to unobtrusively manoeuvre the typewriter to get it to do what it was supposed to do. And my favourite moment of them all…

Our show

After my feet got covered in salt in the new format of the show, we performed the second last routine, a routine our cast dubbed 'chasing', and by implication involves quite a lot of running. As I jumped my salt-slick feet broke my trust in them and I fell on my (already temperamental) right knee. I was up in a flash and only grazed but only I will manage to do that in front of an audience of 700.

So despite the technical issues, and dancers forgetting cues, and spectacular falls I had fun on stage. And we performed our hearts out. I couldn’t be happier.

Sci-Fi Psycho...for 48

At the end of my third year I was not regarded as much of an actress. A physical theatre performer and dancer yes. But straight acting… Let’s just say that mine was not the first name that would come to mind in my year group. And the repercussions of this has affected my confidence in my straight acting and the agent I have now. Which made this past weekend both unexpected and rewarding.

Earlier this year a friend I had met via my Master’s studies, who had done his undergraduate work at a different institution asked if I would have liked to audition for a short film he and his sister were making. Although I didn’t get the role he and his sister remembered my work, and asked if I would like to act for their short film in the 48 hour film project this last weekend. So this last Saturday I joined team Zwoosh. It started with a message, summarizing that we had drawn the sci-fi genre, the wardrobe options I would need to take with and my character description: psycho bitch.

Some of the equipment in one of the unused rooms of the house we were graciously given full reign over by the owner. It was amazing to be supported in such a way...and his attitude towards us breaking more than one chair was refreshing: "Oh, its only material things"

So I arrived on set at 7 in the morning with freshly highlighted hair,  wardrobe options, a full makeup kit and my straightener. I was greeted by an amazing crew, tea, rusks and a script. Just before we were about to start our first read through of the script the tiny model who was playing my sister sat down on a low couch, and a moment after her I sat down. As I did the couch broke and the two of us were thrown to the floor. In a tumble of laughs we stood up. As the admittedly 51 kilogram model claimed she had picked up weight recently I joined the conversation:

“Well in that case it has to be me. I’m not sure my self-image is going to survive this shoot”

Our director, who had witnessed the fall,  joined in the laughter:

“Now that our two fat actresses have been knocked down a peg we can start”

The laughter set the tone for the rest of the day off camera, which was a fantastic change of pace considering the heavy subject matter of the shoot. My character was deeply disturbed, and the scenes my co-actor and I were shooting were very emotional and challenging. As we wrapped a very difficult scene my co-actor, who is more experienced that I am asked if I had ever done such challenging work before. I hadn’t, and neither had he. It was exciting to be challenged, in manner that wasn’t in physical theatre. and it was so much more rewarding when our director, editor and director of photography were all impressed with my work. Congratulations were handed out via fist bumps and the word 'respect' after scenes were wrapped. Considering how nervous I had been the day before I was not expecting it. Especially as I had always been considered more of a dancer than an actress I was happy and humbled by all the compliments. And considering how professional all the members of our team were I was blown away by the fact that there were keen to work with me again.

One of my favorite moments on set on Saturday was when I was doing Sudoku when I knew I wasn’t going to be filmed for a while. One the crew members walked past:

“You’re blonde, and you’re doing a sudoku.”

“And…? Just because I’m blonde doesn’t mean I’m stupid”

“Yes, but I do sudoku”

“And….?”

The character I played was married, and as is expected for a married woman, I was given a ring for my left ring finger to show this on film. As I was about to send a picture to my boyfriend my co-star saw what I was doing:

The little bits that make the character...

“Please tell me you’re going to post that photo on facebook.”

“No. I don’t think that’s wise”

“Just as a joke. I’ll comment and say that I was there, and that it was amazing”

After I finally got all the fake blood out of my hair, and assessed all the blisters on my toes from spending a day shooting in high heels I was happy. I had done challenging work, well. I had spent time, and laughed with an amazing team. And I’m not sure, we had made an amazing short film. The details of which I will write about once the film has been screened. For now, I'm holding thumbs that we will do well! Go Team Zwoosh!