Monday 10 October 2011

Stranger Things and Other Things

Last week, as you might remember if you follow this blog, I had the UK premiere of my first full-length film, Stranger Things, at the Raindance Film Festival. Which was amazing and bizarre in equal measure. Try seeing your own face, very close up, on a big screen when you're only sitting in the second row... I'd imagined it was going to be like watching the DVD only bigger (logical enough, when you think about it) but actually the whole experience was different and weird. Mainly good but also... odd. It hadn't occurred to me to be nervous beforehand, but so many people asked me if I was that by the time I went into the cinema I was feeling very jumpy indeed. And of course watching that first scene with the zombies didn't relax me much...

The really nice thing, though, was that I found myself forgetting that it was me onscreen, and just letting the film tell me its story. Sometimes I think that story-telling is really the thing I love best about acting (or possibly about everything) - and in film you don't get to do it yourself, you're only providing the raw material for someone else to do it. So seeing it all put together and looking beautiful is a lovely eureka moment. Oh I see, I said to myself. I understand now...

On a less thoughtful note, I hope and pray that I am better-looking in real life. Several of my friends assured me I was. But then, they're my friends... Maybe I should ask an enemy.

Anyway - so that was Friday. Then on Saturday, just as I was going to bed (a little bit addled from my father's birthday dinner)* I had a phone call from Ron, one of the directors, saying we'd won Best UK Film! I had to check on the Internet the next morning in case I'd dreamt it... Very exciting. And it also won an award for Best Direction at a different festival the day after. Honestly, Ron and Eleanor (the other director) are so successful it would be unbearable if they weren't so nice.

So I radiated glory and triumph for about two hours yesterday morning before I had to go to rehearsal for King Lear. And had a splendid time forgetting my five lines and being restfully dead. I'm loving rehearsals at the moment.

Oh, and did I mention I sent Mazecheat to my editor? So it's Liberty Hall chez moi at the moment, as I'm not exactly sure what to work on. Slash novel? Historical novel? More blog?

Time for writeordie, I think.


* I had scallops with pancetta and chillies, calf's liver with fig sauce, semi-freddo and coffee. Since you ask.

2 comments:

  1. I can't imagine how strange it would be to see yourself on a big movie screen. Though I think for me the weirdest thing would be to hear yourself deliver the lines (I always freak when I hear my own recorded voice. It's just not how I sound to myself, you know?) Though congrats on your film being so successful!

    Had a small fangirl happydance over Mazecheat going to your editor. I seriously can't WAIT for it to be published (I've just ordered Tyme's End in and have realised how depressingly fast I'm coming to the end of your, patently brilliant, catalogue)

    And writeordie is champion, isn't it? I'm just getting into the habit of using it again in preparation for NaNoWriMo.

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  2. Thank you! Hope my editor likes the sound of it as much as you do... :)

    Yes - writeordie is great, although now I find myself procrastinating *before* I open the webpage! I was thinking about doing NaNoWriMo this year, because it sounds really fun, but I think now that I've already started my novel I'd be cheating.

    Then again, maybe I should just cheat...

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