That's a Wrap!!!

"Corpse" is officially (kinda) wrapped!

This wonderfully unique, creative undertaking concluded principal photography yesterday in a basement bar in Brooklyn (nice alliteration). The experience of this film has been nothing short of wonderful! Let me back up a little and explain why this stands out.

My involvement came about from a dear friend reaching out to a small group of people presenting an opportunity to make an independent film with a fella she'd worked with on an earlier project. Naturally, I jumped on it, as I'm dying to get back to more film work. So I went to meet with the director... at 1515 Broadway. The Viacom building (aka MTV- oh yeah, he's a producer there). Good sign! Sitting with Chris in his office, he explained the concept of an ensemble piece with some overlapping storyline, some characters will never encounter each other, and we won't know the full story and how it all connects. The whole Exquisite Corpse idea (google it).

Absolutely! I signed on basically right away. What Chris asked of us actors was to provide an idea for a character- which could be as broad or specific as we wanted. I won't go into the specifics of my concept, but Chris used it to create an amazing back story for my character & even added stuff I was already considering! We were on the same page for this character.

Our first table read only included myself and two other actors. We have a shared history in the film and our overall narrative arch climaxed with the three of us. We received our breakdown and a scene outline for our individual characters. It felt like we were taking a test and I couldn't let the person sitting next to me see my paper, cause I didn't want them to know about my character. We met the next day to do improvised interviews in character. The three of us are a research team developing nanotechnology dealing with epigenetics... basically we're super smart :)

For the next few weeks we'd meet with a version of the script to rehearse, and within that rehearsal we were encouraged to improvise, give feedback, offer suggestions for re-writes-- artistic freedom! Amazing to be given the gift of our voice. This does not often happen for film-- I'm getting spoiled! This rehearsal process and script/character development instilled such a sense of ownership for this film!

Last night marked the first time all 6 actors in the film were on set together! Some would eavesdrop on other scenes while they filmed, learning bits of information about story lines that never intersected and some still wished to remain completely in the dark. We all agreed to get together in a couple weeks for a full cast read thru of the entire script. The director promised to send us all the full script once we finish shooting, but this seems like the most satisfying way to know what happens. Our first full cast table read will take place after we've filmed the whole movie. Kinda backwards, but like I said, this has been incredibly unique from the start!