By Norm Scott
Last Saturday, February 23, was a day of movie making at the RTC as an independent film company used the theater for a movie about a famous Latina singer and needed an audience for a sequence featuring a Latin band. About 50 extras showed up, me included (of course, they had food). The lead actress and director is a native of Rockaway with a wide background of credits but I am not yet at liberty to go into more detail.
I had heard that being part of a film can be tedious due to set up times and take after take, but this being my first time as an extra and somewhat of a frustrated film maker, I was fascinated by the process and the sophisticated equipment -- the 60G camera had me drooling. The Tony Homsey construction crew had just about completed the set for the upcoming opening at the end of March of “A Comedy of Tenors” and I was wondering how they would deal with that. They just dropped a massive gold cloth cover, closed the curtains part way and made a lot of use of the fog machine and lighting to get the atmosphere. I hung out from 1 until after 8 PM when my lust for a chicken parm sandwich from Ciro’s got the better of me. When they say being part of a film can be like watching grass grow, they are not kidding.
When I went back Sunday morning for Frank Caiati’s acting class, some of the film crew were there still packing up. They used a lot of stuff for that one day of filming. Everyone at the RTC knows how talented Frank is as a director, actor, scenic designer to name a few. But to get the full flavor it takes spending some time in his acting class and seeing him dissect each line of a scene for meaning and infusing the actors with logical choices. He has paired us up and each pair is doing about 5 minutes from a play they choose. In one scene a young woman playing a student engages in a confrontation with a professor who she feels has wronged her. Her complaint has led to his being denied tenure and ruining his career. Frank would take what seemed to be throw away lines and weaponized them trying to bring out natural anger in someone who clearly doesn’t relish getting angry. “what do you want,” he keeps asking? And if they aren’t sure he offers them choices. Fascinating stuff and the essence of why acting can be such an intellectual exercise – as long as people are willing to put emotional skin in the game. Our pair is doing a scene from the Odd Couple where my amazingly dressed partner is taking the Oscar slob role while I the ultimate slob is taking neat freak Felix. That will take some real acting.
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