So this post is about my most recent project - a short film titled The Rats of Hameln. (Pronounced Ham-lyn). I am told it was inspired by the Pied Piper tale and there are a lot of allusions to it. The director/writer, Elvis Chirinos, worked on Boiling Pot with me and is actually the person responsible for bringing me onto that project! He wrote the short with me in mind, but I still had to audition for it. It was a casual audition - outside of a Jamba Juice near my apartment. He filmed it on his phone, but it died and I ended up having him film it on mine and then sent the video to him. It's the first audition of mine that I've ever been able to watch afterwards. lol. After reading the script though, I wondered what that meant he thought of me, cause the character is kind of evil. lmao.
Well, I got the part (just in case you didn't see that coming even though I'm writing an entire post about the shoot haha).
The shoot took place over two days - a couple of weeks apart. Then a third day - only about an hour and a half - was needed to re-record some audio.
I don't want to give anything away - because there's a few twists in the film - but basically, I play a villainess (though of course, I think I'm in the right). Val (my character)'s boyfriend is conflicted about the life they live and that leads to a few surprises. There's a German scientist, love, guns, and blood! I even speak a little bit of German in it. Okay, okay, it's only one word, but still! It was my idea to have Val say something in German. :P
One of the things I really liked about it was the little details that Elvis really thought about. For example: My character always had something with lace on, and something red on. My wardrobe was entirely black, white and grey with small pops of red. Like a red bow in my hair or red garter.
Even though it was only a short, it was one of the best projects I've worked on! :)
The first day on set, we were in one of the crew members' homes. I had to drop my husband off on base that morning because he was leaving for month-long training. So I didn't arrive on set until 10:00am ish. I can't really remember for sure - but I know after dropping Ethan off, I went home to take a nap because I woke up around 3:00am to drop him off. lol. I was on set until about 7:00pm I believe. So that was a fairly short day. At least in comparison to the average day in this industry, which is about 10 hours.
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| Day one of the shoot. I had red lips for most of the shoot as well. I loved my costume and even got to keep some of it! yay! |
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| This scene was for a flashback so they made me look a little bit younger with a braid and a "fresh" face. |
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| Loved the fat braid and the glittery bow! :) |
Second day of the shoot was at UC Riverside in the Paleontology lab. I arrived at 9:00am and didn't leave until after 1:00am. It was a 16 hour shoot! Almost double the time we anticipated it would be. But that's the entertainment industry for you! Shoots almost always go over (not always over by 7+ hours, but they almost never take the time you think they will).
Most of the crew for this project also worked on Boiling Pot, so it was fun to work with people you already kind of knew. Although, I didn't really know any of them. Since on BP, I was mostly background and tried to remain professional and not step out of line and try and talk to any of them too much. But I recognized all of them. lol. The actor portraying my boyfriend, Ken Shiode, was in Boiling Pot as well (in a larger capacity than I was). The makeup artist, Brittany Durlach, who has become a friend, did makeup and hair for BP as well (for Danielle Fishel). The shoot took place about an hour from my apartment, so it was funny to find out that she lives right down the road from me! She works at Jeffrey Michaels Salon - which is fabulous as well. After the shoot I had her cut and highlight my hair since it had grown out a little since getting my head shots (cheaper than getting new head shots, that's for sure!)
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| Fossils at UC Riverside! |
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| Day two of the shoot, I wore a creepy mask!! |
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| I even beat up one of the scientists! Jenavee Shay also worked on Boiling Pot as background with me! |
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| My favorite makeup artist EVER, Brittany Durlach, (also from Boiling Pot), works on the mask. |
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| Some fake blood got in my hair, and since I had an hour long drive before I could get home to shower, I had it in a bun. Upon taking it out of the bun, it didn't move. :P |
Well a week or so after the second day of filming, I had to go back to UCR to record some audio. Since I had a mask on, some of the audio didn't come out right, plus, there was a loud fan constantly running in the lab which made it harder to hear. We used the boom mic about halfway through that shoot but all the audio before we began using it, I had to redo. It was made easier by the fact that I didn't have to match my lip movements since I was wearing a mask. Lol. I did have to match the sound of my walk though! But that didn't take too long, and I even got to see a little bit of the film while it was still in production, which was a first!
Well, I can't wait to see the final cut!! And don't worry, I'll definitely be posting it once it's up!
Thanks for reading!
