"Because this was my first experience acting in front of a camera, I did not know what to expect," says Virginia Barr, who portrays Annie in "annie?" a BSC student short film.
It may be difficult to imagine Barr as anyone besides Annie. Even when dropping something on set, she rolled her eyes up saucily and said, "Oh that's so Annie." Her red locks, quirks, and fair face were straight from the screenplay.
I remember looking her in the eyes and thinking, this is her! This is Annie!
The film had evolved so far from the several short stories it had before. Yet the character always remained the same; a young woman still growing out of the quirks of adolescence who really just wanted to eat food and read books like she did when she was fifteen.
It was easy for me to see Annie that way, being the writer and director of the movie. But it wasn't so easy for someone like Barr, who had never seen the script until walking into the cold humanities classroom at BSC just a week before shooting to audition for the role.
"Acting with a script mostly comprised of stage directions was a new challenge, but Hannah he let me try out different timings, movements, and facial expressions for each shot until we had something that worked," says Barr. "I had to get used to how the camera could pick up the tiniest of movements."
As Michael Cane said a master class teaching theatre students how to act on film, film acting is underacting.
That was especially true with Harris Josey's role. While Barr's part required acting without showing it, Josey had to act without "acting" at all.
His complex, ambiguous character had to catch the camera's eyes without his eyes catching its. It still had emotional intensity like in Barr's role, but unlike Barr's, the audience couldn't know his feelings.
For a ten second appearance, Josey's role seems elementary. "Acting in front of a camera was pretty easy," says Josey. "Just listening to the director on what to do, and giving what [she] wanted." Yet even for a role like this, Harris did much preparation.
"When I was preparing I tried to look at famous creeps in cinema, and take stuff from them. Like Willard, played by Christopher Glover. Outside of that, I also researched some things creeps do and how to portray them on the screen, " says Harris.
When texting me this answer, Josey first accidentally sent it to his football coach. Interestingly, this was also the same coach he almost sent a disturbing text to when method acting on screen.
Throughout the shoots (filmed in Hill's Food Center in Pleasant Grove) Josey created the mood of the character by typing and then deleting the text, "I will kill her tonight," on his phone.
The phone plays a crucial role in the film. This is especially true for the voice actress Kimberlee Hudgens whose roles in the film are exclusively as a voice on the cell phone.
Hudgens first enters the film as the voice of Annie's mother; then, closes the film as the dispatcher in the 9-1-1 call.
"Having been in the EMS field for 12 years I felt I could bring a sense of accuracy to the dispatcher that could be recognized by first responders everywhere. As for the mother I thought to my great aunt and my mother having random conversations and tried to put that randomness into the voice acting," says Hudgens.
Working with a talented cast and crew--regardless of the excitement--was a first for everyone. The making of it was truly an experiment. Sabina Vafina, the DP of "annie?" squealed between shoots when she realized how to adjust the exposure of the film manually--something neither of us had known up to that point.
Barr got to experiment with acting styles; Hudgens operated the boom on one night, and styled Barr the night before.
Three PA's (Laura Sundman, Claire Campbell, and Stephanie Bailey) were assigned to help us with the film.
Two of them acted in the movie on the last shooting day. Claire Campbell and Susanna Scofield served as extras in the film, during the store scene with Josey and Stephanie Bailey.
"This movie is not like the musical," jokes Campbell, who knew full well after helping with the lighting for "annie?" how dark the story really is.
The two shopped in the background as Bailey entered the screen from the automatic doors.
Bailey had just applied a full face of makeup to Josey's face before the shoot.
"I appreciated the group effort it took to create the right mood for each shot. This was a lovely first experience acting for a film," says Virginia.
My, was she right. The film wouldn't have been possible without the amazing group effort every single person contributed.
And it definitely wouldn't be here without the incredible cast.
