A weekend without Subs or Buses…

The weekend wasn’t without it’s issues. The shoot started over two hours behind schedule, and my feet are still super sore from walking to my audition. The culpred behind these are both of these problems were the same: the subway/bus strike. Friday night, Toronto’s TTC workers rejected the city’s deal that their people had accepted and rather than give 48 hours notice, they walked off the job that night, giving people only an hour of notice before the doors were locked. So people were stranded and had no want to get around town all weekend because things fell apart with the situation with the union and the city for who knows whatever reason. Because of this unexpected strike, people were stranded after leaving bars Friday night, and a baseketball playoff game went ahead with no way for people to commute to it Saturday afternoon. Gridlock isn’t the right word for what traffic was like over the weekend. Despite the frustration and clear anger over the no noitce walkout, the city seemed to take it well, not getting angry or destroying anything… a real testament to the people who could have used the excuse to take it out on anything really.

As for yesterday’s shoot, our film production was delayed two hours at least because some of our crew and one of the actors was stranded at union station. I got a ride to the set which was in North York. So we had to sit there and wait while the rest of our people were picked up before we could get started. Once we did get things underway, we were a little rushed since we had a set time for how long we could use the set we were filming on. I’m hoping that didn’t cause any problems, but I have a feeling if we rushed too much that might lead to a reshoot. I’m hoping that’s not the case but if it is we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. But I thought things went all right and I went through my lines over and over and over and did the scenes until it was done to the director’s satisfaction. We did all right, and things moved along, and we were finished around 7pm, which was all right but we had been there since 8am so that’s close to 12 hours for what will likely end up being 3-4 mins of the movie. That’s it.

Interesting development, what I thought was going to be a non-paying gig just for the chance to add something to my resume has now turned into a paying gig! No, I haven’t been following the director around saying, “Am I going to get paid for this?” every five seconds. He actually came to me and said, “I’m going to get back to you next week for your salary, ok?” Since I didn’t think I was going to get one, I didn’t have a problem waiting for it. So what Leah referred to as a ‘charity’ acting gig is now a going to pay me. My first acting paycheque. I can’t wait to give it to Leah and let her do whatever she wants with it. Pay off a bill, toss it into next month’s rent. Part of me wants to frame the cheque, but we can’t afford to do something that lame. Not right now. But at least Leah can’t say that I haven’t been paid yet from this profession now. Now I’ll have to work on increasing the pay scale…

Speaking of inscreasing the pay scale, on Sunday I went to an audition for another feature length film that I think is working off a much more significant budget than the film I’m working now. The audition was in Toronto yesterday and started at 11am. I was invited to come in and read for the role of the bad guy, the character that everyone remembers. This was a huge audition, so the last thing I was going to do was let a subway strike stop me from reading for this part. Before the union walked, I had a good plan in place. I would take the inter-city bus in from Hamilton to Toronto, jump on two connecting subs and then walk ten minutes from the last station to my audition. Because the subway was shut down due to the strike, I had no choice but to walk from union station to my audition. How bad did I want this part? It took one hour and forty-five minutes to stroll through downtown Toronto from union station to my audition. Thankfully, the weather had my back and it was a clear sunny day, a great day for a stroll. So I took a long walk to my audition, read for the part, and then walked back to union station and took the bus back to Hamilton.

The audition itself was worth making the trek for. The director and producer were really nice people and we seemed to click during the audition. They were super impressed that I was there at all, considering I was on a set for 12 hours the previous day and I walked there from union station. The producer himself went out of his way to state how impressed he was with my dedication and thanked me for doing a lot to be there for the audition. To say the least my efforts and my reading, which wowed them to begin with, made a very huge impression on them. If that wasn’t enough, the director I am currently working with gave me a glowing reference letter to help me out, which I handed in with an updated resume. I applied for this movie over a month ago so the feature film I am working on right no was never on the resume when they asked me to read for this part. So I walked in today more qualified for the part than I did when the first called me to read.

So after close to four hours of walking around downtown Toronto, my feet were super sore. But I had a good snooze on the bus back to Hamilton and mini nap back at the house when I got home. If I don’t get the part, no one is going to say it was from a lack of effort. Hopefully I won’t have to do that much effort for a part anytime soon. So that was my weekend. I hope everyone else had a good one too! This week I’m going to take a break, actually hang with the kids who I spend little or no time with over the weekend and do much more fun things like puzzles and playdough. Until then, take care and I’ll be around!

Peter