Friday 12 June 2009

Frustration in Film

12th June, 2009
Last night I got screwed and not in the good way. Although my primary source of income is as a …………. in the media industry, I also do a bit of acting. The first pays in cash, the second nourishes my soul (but is conspicuously monetarily challenged).

The whole story:

So I got a role as a reporter in a feature that is being submitted to the Black Hollywood Film Festival in LA - pretty happy. Then three days before filming I contract a bacterial infection in my glands that puts me in hospital (and a subsequent body suit) for two days straight (still in body suit now). They send me date/time of filming at midnight the night before. Feeling quite frankly like I could die. Regardless I get up in the morning and head out to another audition that I'd already set up (filming is scheduled for the afternoon). Still feeling like I could die but struggle to audition. Call both audition people and filming people to see if one of them can do Sunday instead as doing both audition (in the sticks) and filming (in Shoreditch) seems impossibly Everest-like. Neither budge. Internal sigh then I suck it up and get to audition, do audition, leave audition and trek to Shoreditch where I meet a friend to while away the hours in Hoxton Square with nibblies and papers. Call half an hour before call time to check it's going ahead. They say yes, come now. So I get up, they call to say, no wait. I sit back down. Half an hour later I call again, they say they're running behind schedule (big surprise), can they shoot my scene tomorrow. I say, ok. I go home (I live in South London). Next day call to say when do they want me, they say 9pm. 7pm I call to make sure shooting is going ahead, they say not today. They'll call me to get me in sometime that week. Two weeks later, multiple emails/texts/voicemails on my side - their side nada. Last night finally text back saying and I quote "MM we are in LA. We have finished shooting. As you couldn't make it on Sat we readjusted the schedule. We really wanted you for the role but you said you couldn't make it on Sat morning. Regards etc".

WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE SMOKING?!?!?! GRRRRRRRRRRR!!! I don't know how I could have been more accommodating.

And that's how the little blonde girl from Sydney got screwed by the film makers of London town. A cautionary tale indeed.

1 comment:

  1. You definitely did get screwed! My two cents as someone who works as a ________ in the media as well . . . people that screw others, you probably don't want to work with them anyways. They quite possibly would have been a mess. But I know it's frustrating that you bent over backwards and still got screwed.

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