Hang on.. that's not her real voice!

My Friend Ted is almost done. All scenes are shot and now there's just a bit of editing and the soundtrack to be done. I saw a rough cut of it last night. It was pretty bad. I shouldn't say that. We're talking about a movie shot with no budget with an entire cast and crew of amateurs, in which case, it wasn't bad, considering.

Of course, it was difficult seeing myself on screen. I look weird, not exactly fat but I have a weird shaped body. My face looks ok in some shots, but just awful in others, and I keep making stupid faces. My voice is strangely high and kind of whispy and my accent is completely unidentifiable and sounds totally different to what I thought it was. And the acting.... fuck! Most of the others looked and sounded quite natural, but I just seemed lame. My voice being high and whispy didn't help, and there was one scene which had a lot of dialogue cut out, that was kind of necessary to the mood, if not the plot. Of course it makes me look crap. Apart from all that I wasn't that bad. I wasn't horribly bothered by it.

The reason I was at the director's place last night was because we had to dub over one scene. It was shot outdoors by the river, with a camera, that's it. No lights or microphones or anything. You can hardly hear our dialogue at all in the original.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but when we sat down to copy our lines from the computer, I thought we'd never get it done. There wasn't so much dialogue in the scene, but I saw how much I pause, long or short in one place, rush my lines together in another and make faces all the time. And blink. I blinked a lot in the scene, but this didn't really matter for what I was doing.

I started first and I was supposed to follow myself on the screen, and say the same words the same way. I was completely off. I did it a few times and it was bad every time. Then he did some little fiddling around with the program, moved my dialogue up a bit and it fit perfectly.

After that it looked a bit like this would be possible. We did a tiny bit at a time, and a few times he cut the lines in half, moved a bit back and a bit forward until it fit. Once I started I actually got good at it, and got it right rather quickly. Of course the lines were delivered very blandly and sounded cheesy, I was too busy concentrating on when I was supposed to say the words to act, but it was good enough for the director.

The first few lines were short, so they were easy. The one I was worried about was the longer one, where I paused and huffed and made faces and all that. The first one was terrible. But after listening to it again, and recording it again I got it exactly perfect! Not just exactly perfect after he moved it to the right spot, but I actually followed the picture on the screen and said everything at exactly the right time in exactly the right way. I think it was a fluke.

Anyway it's done. We watched the whole scene afterwards, and of course we know it's dubbed and were listening to those same damn lined and saying them over and over again, so it looked like crap to me, but perhaps to someone who doesn't know will just think it's really bad acting.

At least I convinced him to get rid of one really bad bit. Before my long sentence I said "no no" where I was actually offscreen so it didn't matter exactly when or how I said it, but it was so bad, so unnatural and so wrong for the scene, but because I'd gotten that couple of lines in one go, he just kept it. It wasn't until the end I got him to let me rerecord it. It was simple, I just had to say it, or whatever I wanted that made sense, offscreen. So I replaced it with a "no". It still sounded crap but not nearly as bad.

I should get a copy of it soon. It still won't be the final cut because he wants to record music for it, but we're getting the rough cut version before Christmas, so I'll be able put it up on the internet so you can all see how useless as an actress I am, and see if you can guess which is the scene that's dubbed, (hint, it's an outdoor scene and it's by a river).

Movies, beer and a couple of tossers.

Last night I was in the pub. I didn't really drink though, just one small beer that I didn't get to finish. We were filming another scene for the movie My Friend Ted.

Anyway, we were in The Three Lions, British pub. The guy who plays the main character knows the manager so we were able to film there. They have an upstairs and a downstairs, and downstairs was empty, so we filmed there. It might look a bit weird having a pub scene where there's no one in the pub but the people at a very crowded table, but things can be done with editing, and you really can't have everything when you're making a movie with no budget.

It was fun enough, we sat around a table with beers, which we couldn't drink during filming so as not to screw with the continuity, a small setback. My bit of acting consisted of looking pissed off through most of the scene and storming off in a huff at the end. I quite enjoyed that.

There was a small incident on set when some drunk British guys came downstairs where we were almost finished filming and wanted to be in the scene, in the background. They were under the impression we were somewhat famous, it seemed. Some of us just ignored them and some of us tried to convince them that no, they couldn't be in the scene because the others we filmed had an empty table there, so it kinda wouldn't look right. They were persistent, particularly one guy. He finally fucked off, but not before saying goodbye to each of us and shaking our hands, (wouldn't want to miss the opportunity of shaking hands with stars) but one guy in our group, (also a British gentleman) politely said goodbye without taking the offer to shake hands, I think he didn't think too much of this guy. Well, the visitor got rather offended and called him a tosser. He stood around for a minute more going on about what a tosser this guy is, before going off, ranting on about how this one guy who wouldn't shake his hand is a complete tosser. He ranted all the way up the stairs until his voice mingled in with the customers upstairs.

We finished our group scene and I was looking forward to drinking that beer, but first they needed it for the scene of the group before I and the main character arrive. So I let it be used as a prop. They finished and then we had to go upstairs to do the arriving at the pub scene. So we did that, and by the time I went downstairs they were clearing up everything, including the beer! My beer! I hadn't finished it!

Oh well. I got to drink about a 3rd of it. It was a small beer though.

Well, that's the last scene I'm going to be in, so that's it for me. Except for of course the overdubbing for the scene we did by the river, you see when you film outside, without microphones or anything, you can't really hear a fucking word of what the actors are saying, so I'll probably be in "the studio" sometime next week.

Adventures of a scatterbrain during the filming of a very unprofessional movie.

We filmed another scene for My Friend Ted today.

Well.

I was to meet them at 13:00. I was pretty much on time when I left, of course I didn't take my phone, I just left it behind, I was too busy focusing on other things, like fetching the jaunty cap I had got it into my head that I wanted to wear in the film. So I went home to fetch it before setting out again.

We were meeting at Malostranska, at the tram stop, that I was absolutely, er kind of thought it was. Was it the tram stop or the metro stop? Was it Malostranska or Staromestska. It was definitely one of them. I was certain.

So I looked around, hoping I'd sight my fellow film makers, one of them would be carrying a camera and a big fuckoff tripod so I should be able to see him. I was on time, or about 5 minutes late so they should be there. I didn't see any of them, not at the tram stop, not at either side of the metro station or inside the metro station. By then I was seriously starting to think they'd said Staromestska, it was definitely one of the 2....

I began to have serious misgivings that I was in the right place. Staromestska/Malostranska? For some reason I always mix those 2 up. I didn't really want to ring William (the occupant of this flat, the place I left my phone) to get the phone number of the director because I'd have to fiddle around with change for the payphone, explain to him how my phone works and it would all end in tears. I was sure of it! So I just waited a bit and hoped they'd show up at one of the places I was looking. They didn't and it was getting late.

I figured I'll run over to Staromestska (which fortunately is just across the bridge from Malostranska to see if they were there. So I ran there. I looked in the metro, just outside the various metro exits, and the tram stop. No sign of them. It was already 15 past by this point so I figured I was right the first time. So I went back. And they weren't there. I had to make that phone call.

Luckily I had a bunch of coins in my wallet that I've been unsuccessfully trying to get rid of for days. I called William, he answered and of course I had to explain to him how to get the number. He said there'd been some missed calls so at first I told him to look at that, because it was sure to be from the filming people, but none of the names he read off to me corresponded, so I had to go through again and explain how to get into my phone book. I saw my time running out on the phone so I asked if he could call me back. My money ran out.

The phone rang about a minute later, thankfully, and he gave me the number. I had to write it with makeup, which I didn't actually need to use on my face while I was out, but as I didn't have a pen it was good that I'd brought it.

After that call I only had a 50 crown coin left, which is a strange kind of coin, in the process of being phased out, and it doesn't work in any type of machine so I crossed the road back to the main station area and tried to get change. I asked a vendor in some stand if he'd give me change, of course he said no. So I went into the metro, and just for the hell of it tried the phones in there. Then I couldn't find the piece of paper with the number written on it. I searched in my pockets, in all the compartments in my bag amongst all the rubbish I have in there. I finally found it and of course I couldn't use the 50 crown coin in the phone so I went to buy a ticket, which I figured I'll be use sometime, to get the change. I went over and asked for a ticket then I realized I didn't have the coin. I searched in my pockets, in all the compartments in my bag amongst all the rubbish I have in there, and I didn't have it. The guy in the booth gave me my ticket, and I said sorry and ran off, back to the phone I was at and like an idiot I'd left the coin on top of the phone. I rushed back and got the ticket and my change.

I went back to the phone, put my money in and nothing happened, it was just stuck. It wouldn't work. Luckily I got my money out with one of my cards but I couldn't use the phone. The other phone in the metro was for cards only, so I had to run back across the road to use the original phone.

I called the number, an old Scottish voice answered it, which belonged to the director, so I had the right number at least. He said hello and then didn't seem to hear me. My 10kc ran out and I stayed there for a while on the chance he might call back. Thankfully he did and could hear me. I said who I was and asked where they were. Of course he asked where I was bla bla bla and said they were at Staromestska. I was right the second time. They were just outside the metro, so I went back over, walked all the way around by the metro exits and didn't see them. I thought I was going mad when I heard someone call me from across the road, from another metro exit, one that I hadn't thought of.

So I finally caught up to them. We filmed the scenes and went home. The end.

....

Ok, filming was ok. It didn't end up taking too long which was good because we had a limited time because we need daylight, and daylight at this time of year is scarce, and of course I'd come kind of late...

He seemed pleased with out performances. And it didn't rain.

He's a star..

Ted
Originally uploaded by Ms Kat.

I did another shoot of the film I'm gonna be in last night. It went ok, not much else to say about it except for it was decidedly free of people peppering the word "darling" in their speech. Sure to disappoint some...

I decided to take along Mr Camera and get a few shots of the action as it was being filmed. This is Ted, and he is who the movie is all about. He doesn't do much but it's named after him so he must be important.

Making movies.

I'm gonna be!

Not a huge production of course, just a small amateur group that I met a few months ago, finally we're doing something. I've gone to 2 rehearsals so far, and it could be one of the reasons I haven't been blogging so much lately, but if it is it's not until at least #6 on the list, (#1 being laziness).

I play Mattie. Mattie is a friend of Dan's. Dan is a dude. He is a very well liked and well respected dude, but all is not what it seems.....

That's about as much as I can tell you now. I got the "lead" female role in the film. It was between me and the other female actress in the group (that was there the other night anyway) and my interpretation of the character was closer to what the director intended than hers was, and I thought I was pretty darn good actually. She was pretty good too, but not as much "Mattie" as I was.

I don't know when the film will be done, possibly about 2 months from now. I should be able to show y'all when the dvd is available, that's if you're interested of course.

Unless my performance really suck or look really awful in it that is.