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For self taping to audition for our characters, I was put forward to either play Noah or the nurse. Fortunately, when preparing to audition for the nurse, a close friend of mine is a professional nurse and as such I went to her for advice on the character in reference for proper bedside mannerisms. A lot of what she said matched with my further reading, the concensus of which being: "being empathetic and courteous helps gain a patient’s trust and boosts their confidence, which can equal greater levels of success after discharge". (GoReact, 2022, para. 15) I learned the best nurses employ a high amount of patient and empathetic speech while still having a level of assurance in what they are saying to maintain their patient's confidence in them. I brought this into my self tape by ensuring a slow paced and calm tone, being empathetic to Grace's situation, while being clear and assured on the key pieces of information being delivered. This is both important for delivering the key information to Grace while signaling that it's key information for an audience.

Unfortunately, I didn't have also have a friend who was a victim of time travel so had to develop Noah by myself. For my self tape I mainly wanted to focus on the idea of the relief of Noah seeing someone he knows in such a confusing situation and him trying to wrap his head around what had happened to him. I saw him as a character who hadn't had a chance to logically process everything that had happened to him so when he saw someone who understood what was going on he could finally vocalise all his confusion which culminated in a tirade of mad ramblings as he tries to understand everything himself. This came across in a manic and fast paced speech pattern.

A page I found while researching playing emotion stated: "Knowing how to access your own tears, fears, and smiles makes it easier to do so when you’re portraying a character. The Stanislavsky Technique urges actors to strengthen their "emotional memory." Take stock of any shift in your emotions throughout the day, and really interrogate what's causing it." (Waltmann, 2024) In practicing Noah's lines, I grasped onto moments I encountered an difficult to understand situation and tried to verbalise them. I captured that energy and transferred it across to my performance of Noah's lines which helped me begin to find the correct manner of speaking for him.

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Got my casting as Noah! Of the two, this was the character I was more excited to explore and felt would be a greater challenge against my usual casting. I knew his character would require a greater level of confidence on screen than what I've done before and will require a lot of work in preproduction to justify the motives behind his actions to bring a believable performance

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Over the week I worked on who I thought Noah was as a person in preparations for the shoot. Though he's only on screen for a single scene, I'm hoping the work I've put into his character will adequately assist in making his scene feel rich when it comes to shooting.

(Note! I've updated my sheet on Noah after reading the final draft, finalising my mental image of his character!!!)

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I had a bit of a breakthrough memorising my lines for Noah. Originally I was struggling with the wording of his larger chunk of text, accidentally blending some of the lines together and making them mean the wrong thing once delivered. I managed to rectify this issue when I found someone online say "Simply associate a specific image or visual with each of your lines and your lines will come to you much faster". Using this, I tried to memorise the images of the day that Noah was explaining to Grace rather than just the words. These images made the story of what he was saying much more solid in my head and made me find memorising the words much easier. The connection of the lines to images then made recalling my lines significantly easier.

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When working on Noah's scene during our test shoot, myself and Grace's actor came to realise the scene lacked the energy and tension we wanted to achieve in the final version of the scene. During the break, we took the time to practice adding more motion into the scene that would facilitate building tension while still working well on camera. To begin with, Vedad gave the direction of having Noah turn his back on Grace during his monologue. This direction worked well to add variety to a potentially stagnant section and also helped me with Noah's characterisation, having him come across more manic and suffering from the confusion of his situation. This also helped add an extra layer to the scene, with Grace trying her best to get the camera while Noah's back is turned.
We also added Noah grabbing on to Grace at multiple point through the scene. This eratic behaviour helped us build Noah's erratic personality and built more tension in the scene due to his unpredictability and how forceful he is being.
All in all, I'm happy with the progress made with this scene, and in reviewing the footage I feel we managed to create a far more engaging scene worthy of being the climax of the story through these changes.

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Building on the work I did the day before, I wanted to properly prepare my motions for when I would turn towards and away fromm Grace along with when to grab her. As an editor, I'd become acutely aware of the importance of continuity and knew this scene could be problematic for it if I didn't put this work in. I marked on my script every point of motion I would include by deciding which moments in Noah's script would motivate the motion. These markings would ensure that each take of the scene we would perform would match in terms of motion so that it wouldn't be difficult to cut it together if we needed to use different takes.

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Though a bit messy, marking my script like this helped me solidify the exact moments we require motion. This was vital for ensuring consistency in my scene

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In preparation for shooting, I made sure my mentality as an actor was in the right place to perform well while also ensuring my work was right for what was needed for the camera. My history has always been in stage acting, so I needed to make sure I was ready for what was needed for the screen. A quote that stuck with me in this process of preparation was "You always want to connect to the other character, but your audience is the camera [...] the camera is your friend, and you want it to see you. Always know where it is" (Stone, 2021). I need to ensure that I work closely with the camera department to ensure my work, especially with my new movements, were connecting properly with the camera. That my energy wasn't all directed at my fellow actor and I was also directing it properly towards the camera which is, after all, our audience.

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On the day of the shoot I found that I was able to find the energy of the scene much easier being within the set. This was also helped greatly by the direction of one of the assistant directors who helped me develop Noah's manic energy throught takes. Together we worked on increasing the pacing of the scene to help with Noah's characterisation and develop the tension of the sequence. The one difficulty I found was maintaining the pace while keeping my takes consistent. Fortunately, the work I'd done to lay down the groundwork really helped here, knowing almost instinctively when I was supposed to move despite the ever increasing pace of the scene. All in all I'm really happy with the work I did today as Noah. I feel we worked hard to create a scene with a good amount of uncertainty and danger which hopefully comes across in the finished product.

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Once I got the Elvis outfit on, after the first wave of the rest of the crews reaction, I found my confidence in the character really elevated. Having his costume on helped me connect more to Noah and what sort of person he is. This included snapping a classic in costume selfie of the character which was what caused all the issues of the film to begin with! I worked closely with continuity this day in regards to his costume, ensuring his belt was in the right position and all his accessories were in the right place, little details I knew that may be missed and cause continuity mistakes.

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Due to audio issues in the final film, I had to ADR my lines so the sound editor had spare takes to work with. This was a new experience to me which I would have liked to have time to research and practice, however the tight time frame meant I had to jump right in to recording. I fortunately had great guidance from our director to help me through the process and did my best to pick it up as I went along.

While preparing, I had a quick glance online to find tips for recording ADR. The best I could find in the short time was the quote "It’s important to look at the process as an opportunity to enhance your performance, not repeat it." (Miller, 2022, para. 19) This was the mentality I tried to keep in recording.

My process was to watch the scene multiple times to understand the pacing and watching my mouth shapes to understand exactly how I said my lines on the day. I then recorded it, replaying the video muted so I could focus purely on what my mouth was doing in the original scene. The process was relatively difficult, trying to recapture the energy of the original shoot despite not being on location and also being exhausted from a week of editing, however I feel I did my best to jump into the challenge head first and give the best performance I could given the circumstances. I now know that this is a skill I could be called on if I intend to do more films with a short turnaround so am wanting to practice this skill for the future.

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GoReact. (2022, 18 May). What Bedside Manner is and Why it Matters in Nursing. https://get.goreact.com/resources/what-is-bedside-manner-nursing/

Miller, A. (2022, 30 September). ADR in Film: Everything You Need to Know About the Process. Backstage. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/adr-film-explained-examples-75425/

Stone, P. A. (2021). Acting for the Camera: Back to One (1st ed.). Routledge.

Swanbeck, J. (2019, 29 July). How to Memorize Lines. Backstage. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/memorize-lines-fast-12848/

Woltmann, S. (2024, 15 February). How to Show Emotion as an Actor. Backstage. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/quick-tips-playing-strong-emotions-8205/