Doctor Frank
This is being written after the event, rather than some time before recording. My very first TV and a completely different set of challenges faced. Being sent a script ahead of time, and taking part in a read-through still left me concerned that there would be re-writes before we actually recorded. I was right, too, but it didn’t affect my lines. I still felt shaky on lines before we recorded, but I would have hours alone, in the green room, in costume and make up to get them right, right? Wrong. A 0730 call was followed by being hustled through Wardrobe and Make up, and a 0800 rehearsal, followed by an 0830 recording. I crammed lines throughout.
We recorded three takes. The first time we had a camera problem, the second one was spoiled by one of the cast ‘drying’ (Guess who?). Third time was, indeed, a charm, though and we soon got into the spirit of the piece. I was concentrating on an American accent rather than anything else, and the speed of the process together with my suddenly spotty memory made for a somewhat panicked morning. Reading the faces around me, though, this was nothing out of the ordinary, so I eventually relaxed and delivered a performance. I slipped into my suddenly created personal back-story and acted through the strange set, the constant attention of hand-held cameras appearing all around me, extras moving back and forth, and the eyes of my fellow actors as our lines knitted together into a dramatic piece. I believed it and, I think, we all did. By lunch I was done and wrapped. A fast experience, but one that I would have liked to re-done; at last the first scene we did, my biggest.
In the end, Dr. Frank was a caring, but slightly panicked, attending emergency room doctor, whose frustrations were showing through the cracks of his appearance: Hopefully, along the lines of reality that most professionals in this capacity would be. The accent appears a little strangled to me, but I am confident that the Director, Producers, and other technical professionals wouldn’t have let it go to air if it was crap, just in the name of speed. I have also heard of actors that have got fired off this set, so overall, I give myself a grade of C+, and more knowledge of what to expect next time. Perhaps my best memory was a conversation with a producer who let me know it was ‘great to see me on set.’ They had, apparently, seen a handful of casting videos of mine and knew there was ‘a part somewhere for me.’ A lesson learned that when you audition, you are being looked at for many parts, and all it takes is a few things to happen in a certain order for me to get a part. This is something to bear in mind for the future.
