This is a story that has a point. Trust me.
A while ago a friend of mine who I really respect suggested me for a short film being made by a friend of hers. I was (and am) keen to build up more material for my (still) non-existent show reel so I accepted the role, sight unseen.
I arranged a meet up to have a chat with the director and met her at her place and a few things worried me. She lived in a boarding house in a room the size of two average sized doorway (so what, you say, art pays nothing). Secondly, her only experience was in photography (again so what, film is film). And thirdly, she was Spanish, with English as a second, underdeveloped language (now you’re just being racist, you say). So, It seems that I was signing up for an unfunded, ill equipped art film directed by an inexperienced surrealist artist with difficulties communicating.
Also, the script made no sense.
So, in short, I was having serious doubts about my involvement in this thing.
Now, I know what you are thinking: “Ok, so you told her no, went home and laughed about it to your friends, right?”
Nope.
“Cool” I said. “Right right right, I see.” I said. “Well, I’ll have a look at home for some costume ideas and I’ll email my availabilities. Oh, you don’t have email? That’s fine, I’ll just give you a call. Ok. Ok great. I’ll see you at the read through. Thanks so much for uh, meeting with me. Bye!”
I stepped outside and instantly regretted everything I had said inside. I’ve had “DON’T REFUSE WORK” imbedded so thoroughly that I was stuck in this thing and completely miserable about it.
For the next week or two I swung between “no, I can’t do it. I’ll call and she’ll just have to find someone else” and “I dunno, it might be good. I’ll go to the read and see if it could work… It’ll be fine.”
So I did nothing and went along to the read through. The read was at an abandoned flour mill in Newtown. (Apparently there is an abandoned flour mill in Newtown) that a guy was slowly converting by hand to an incredibly crummy house. (No pun intended). The place was immense, run down, dusty and shithouse. Perfect for a zombie movie, not so good for a film about a 19th century dinner party. The other actors whilst keen had no acting experience, except for one woman who was an aspiring opera singer. I could tell she was an aspiring opera singer because she would sing all her lines. And whenever you talked to her. And loudly to herself when no one was talking to her. So we read the script and we all agreed that it was very interesting and unique and interesting and umm challenging as each of us talked out of our respective arses to prove that they ‘got it’. Meanwhile, the director calmly informs us that, due to the cinematographer’s work commitments at ‘Ivy Bar’, the shoot won’t be starting til 11pm and should only take a few hours, hopefully.
So now you’re thinking “so this is when you get your shit together and tell her you can’t do it, right? Nobody can be so desperate for work/polite to put up with that, right? Right?”
Nope.
9am on Day 1 of shooting, I am a wreck. I’ve been worrying about this fucking thing for 2 weeks now. I am so far into it that I can’t possibly drop out without wrecking the whole project but still I cannot possibly go through with it and not feel like a pathetic sell out. So I do the only thing I could: I pretend to be in a panic, called up the director and said I can’t come to the shoot because my dad is in hospital, I’m so sorry to let her down, but this is an emergency. I put on a pretty good performance, short of tears (it’s a phone call: don’t gild the lily) and the response is: “uhuh. Sure. Ok, bye.”
She knew I was faking, she knew I hated the project and she knows that I have fucked her over.
I don’t know what happened to the film. I haven’t spoken to her since, nor have I spoken to the friend who recommended me. I feel like a snob for hating the project and a coward for not doing anything about it for so long.
But what have I learned? Nothing, apparently. I’m still accepting any project that comes my way, regardless of quality and ‘tsk’-ing at actors who drop out of them.
So then, what is my point?
I guess I want every project to have a ‘return-by’ date. Crazy projects are great; everybody going out on a limb to try and make something special but with big risk you need big commitment and if you can’t give it, don’t try. I want the right to say to a friend “I don’t want to do this” and still keep that friend.
That may never happen.
Merry Christmas!
– Wally
pantsguys 