Filming in the countryside...

So Reader, I've just returned from a few days working on 'The Kepler Deception' for Sky Sci-Fi channel in the wilds of Dorset with the fantastic people of Scanach Media Productions. Filming in the countryside is always interesting, from the people (we had a taxi driver who was best friends with Ray Mears and spends 3 months a year living with the Masai tribe!) to the weather (flooded roads meant our trips to set sometimes took twice the time they should have) and the locations (it was like filming Lord of The Rings. So much greenery...). I'm hoping the film is going to look rather beautiful, as the setting was fantastic!

We were staying in a couple of cottage/villa type houses on a working dairy farm, the crew in one house, the cast in the other and there was nothing in walking distance. And by nothing, I really do mean nothing. No pubs, no newsagents. Nothing. So making our own entertainment was an important part of the experience. Luckily, we're a resourceful bunch and every night made a group dinner together (my chef night recipe was caramelised onion and Gruyere tart with all the trimmings) and took the mick out of the people on tv a lot. One terrible thing did come of this though-I am now slightly addicted to Take Me Out. I'd never seen it before, and it is truly awful programming, but making fun of the people on it is a truly joyful experience. They are so cheesy, and so brilliantly, brilliantly thick. But now I want more. So far I have resisted the urge to watch another episode, but I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out! Send help!

Now I'm in serious recovery mode. After three days of getting up at 6.30 and working till late in rain soaked, windy conditions and travelling all the way to Dorset, I seriously need a break. In fact, I'm planning on booking a day of massages, manicures, pedicures and sofa time next week-I've had a headache for the past two days so some downtime needs to happen. But have some lovely things coming up-it's my gorgeous mum's birthday this weekend, so I finally get to give her the spoiling she deserves, Saturday I'm babysitting for my adorable godson AG, who I'm planning on giving all my cuddles to (he's at the age where he'll let you hug him, so I am taking full advantage) and during the day I'll be trying on bridesmaids dresses with The Bride and some of the other girls as well as a lovely lunch!

For my latest vlog on my filming exploits, go here (if you click on my picture below the video, you'll also find all my other vlogs too!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Fi1IOBcNk

Tarrah chaps!
Ash
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The first of many

Reader, I have about 6 blog entries I need to write. This is mainly my own fault for not writing one for so long, but then between trying to earn money, looking after my family, keeping my relationship in a happy place and feeding my ever growing Pinterest addiction, there hasn't been much time for typing up my thoughts and ideas. But I have realised that when I don't write them down, they are a lot harder to keep coherent in my brain, so I shall make much more of an effort to update weekly. Apologies for the long absence. Again.

So...updates!

The week before last was ridiculously full. Maybe I should make headings? That way I won't end up just mixing everything up in a big haze of bleh. Here goes..

Buffy on a big screen


So the lovely (and jaw droppingly young to be so wise) SJ had a birthday. As she works in a cinema, I found myself spending my Sunday night dressed as a geek in oversized glasses watching one of my childhood  favourites, Buffy 'Once more with feeling' (AKA the musical episode for those not acquainted with the series) on a big screen. Along with people dressed as Hans Solo, Lol Cat, My Drunk Kitchen and that masked guy from Watchmen whose name I can't spell (Rawshak? Raushack? Bollocks. I could look it up, but it's almost more fun not knowing.) Bloody brilliant. It reminded me of how good a role model Buffy (and indeed the majority of women in the series) is for young girls. I feel a bit sorry for the current generation of tweens actually. I mean...they have Bella in Twilight. I had a kick ass teenage vampire slayer. Who still found time to look after her mum and sister and do her homework. And choose bad men, not because they intrigued her with their sparkly male enigma-ness, but because if they took a step out of line, she was perfectly capable of breaking their pretty little necks. And because they were pretty (Oh Spike! Be still my beating heart! That awful accent....that gelled peroxide hair!) On reading The Hunger Games of late though, I was struck by the thought that Katniss kicks quite a bit of bum too. But there are only three books. Ideally, we need a weekly TV show with a strong female role model. I want my 8 year old cousin Daisy to aspire to fight her own battles, not to hope she'll be rescued in the nick of time by some randomer on a horse...

Retraining


Because the lovely fruit and veg account I was on at work has suddenly and unexpectedly downsized (major bummer), I spent much of the week before last training to go back on wines. I very nearly died of dull. It's not that the subject matter is boring, on the contrary, I'm actually quite into finding out about stuff like that. It's more that I did the exact same training nearly a year ago. And although it's very much needed, it was all stuff that in my heart of hearts, I knew. So although my brain needed to hear it so it could remember, it was also going 'uber yawn...I've HEARD this before!' I'm hoping that soon I'll get a nicely paid acting job that will take me away from the dreaded phonelines for a few months at least. Or maybe I'll get a promotion so I'll have to talk to people on the phones less. I am quite possibly developing a phobia of talking on the phone, having worked at the office for a year (in between various acting projects). Going away for four months to do my tour actually made it harder to come back I think! Having done something I adore for so long, going back to the daily monotony of phoning people was like going back to jail after a holiday in the sun. And speaking of holiday in the sun...

Holiday


An exciting thing has happened! I've just booked my first ever holiday with just me and The Lad (apart from our two nights in a dodgy Britannia hotel in Brighton last year, which was lovely, but more mini-break than holiday). In September we'll be spending a whole week in sunny Cyprus, eating nice food, lounging by a pool, dozing in the sun, frolicking in the sea and generally hanging out. I am so excited that I've already started making a list of the perfect holiday capsule wardrobe. It will be a short list since I'm only allowed to bring hand luggage, but I feel this means it's essential to get planning early. I'm even getting a Kindle so I can bring loads of books and not have to worry about not having room for clothes! Can't wait!

Film festival


A film I made got featured in The East End Film Festival! And people seemed to like it! There was applause and everything! There was a bit of a scary minute when my sex scene came on (I'm always worried I'll overhear someone talking about how mad my sex face/noises are in it) but everyone seemed to just take it as part of the film. And no one noticed me giggling nervously into my shirt and hiding my face while it was being shown, so I didn't look too uncool. Hopefully. There were so many great shorts that night, it made me really excited about the short I'm writing at the moment, about which you'll probably hear quite a bit more over the next year or so, but for now, I'm keeping mum.

Dreams


Coming back to the callcentre has made my dream life go crazy. At the moment I'm having vivid dreams every night about everything from primary school, to exploring alien planets, to cooking, to The Lad, to family, to little ruby babies with rabbit ears, to castles in the sky, to eco systems and worlds based around having water fountains everywhere, to weddings (of which I will be attending a lot next month), to acting, to poems by Blake, to dragons with opal stone scales. I'm not complaining because they're brilliantly interesting dreams, but they're a bit mad. It's like my daily working life is so boring now that my dream life has to be super interesting in comparison. Lets hope soon I have an acting job I can flood it all into!

Spiderman


I saw Spiderman. I kind of expected to hate it. But I loved it. I cried. Rhys was brilliant and green. I'm a little in love with Andrew Garfield right now (super strong, super cute, has big eyes and floppy hair, brings you flowers and stutters a little? Erm....yes please. Also, his and Emma Stone's on screen kisses look HAWT). On a less teenage crushy level, Garfield is a great actor. I saw him years ago at the National playing an American kid thrust into a massacre abroad and he was off the charts brilliant. He gives Spiderman something that I felt Toby Magwire lacked, a kind of teenage boy appeal that is very truthful (despite him actually being older than me). He gets bruised and battered, he can't form words without a slight lisp appearing, he walks like he's only just shot up to six foot whatever and still isn't used to it and he has a charming teenagey clumsiness to him. And Aunt May! She's so much more interesting in this film. In the last set, I always felt like she was a very 2D image, in this film they don't offer huge amounts of back story to her, but the relationship between her and her husband is so real and silly and touching that the tragedy (trying not to spell it out for anyone who somehow doesn't know what happens) is a huge blow when it actually happens. The mystery surrounding Peter's parents was also great and left me wanting more. The inevitable Stan Lee cameo was hilarious. In fact, the only thing I didn't like about the film was the teaser after the credits. It felt poorly structured and rather than exciting me about the next film (as the Avengers teaser did) it felt like an unnecessary nod to the fact that they still hadn't rounded off the narrative. Apart from that, damn fine show.

Fringe


I have a fringe now.

I guess that's about it for now! Hopefully there will be another post from me tomorrow eve, quite possibly about the family day I'm going to be having!
Tarrah Reader!
Ash
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How do you fund a thing like theatre?

Reader, a lovely chap who I went to uni with asked me to write a little bit about theatre funding recently. Mainly because he's doing a show and is trying to get people to give him money on a site called wefund so he can get it off it's feet (if you want to help out a very worthy cause and donate a couple of quid to this up and coming company, I'll put all the info you need at the bottom of the page, please do, they are jolly nice). Once I'd gotten over my epic smugness at being asked to write about something rather intellectual and 'proper' (which surely marks me out as the sort of writer who should get paid for what they do...no? Not yet? Blast.) I was hit by a sudden and abject fear.

Reader, the truth of it is that I know NOTHING about funding the arts. Bugger all in fact. I am supposed to be making a short film at the end of the year/beginning of the next, and although I know that we'll need money, it's a very vague concept that I assume I'll just magically understand when I need to. Like getting a mortgage. Or having a baby.

The thing is, increasingly for actors in today's industry, if you want to play the big/small but interesting parts, you have to create the stage on which you present yourself. Producers and directors go for named actors from the larger agencies rather than taking a risk on an unknown actor and when the opportunity to do that part that you've been dreaming of finally does come up, what's the likelihood that you'll be able to play with it and make it truly yours? Actors and crossing the line into writing, producing and directing, meaning a wider skill base (and higher levels of sanity) is needed. And as well as accepting more creative control, you also take on the not such fun bits. Like finding locations, paying for things like lighting, cameras and theatres and being the person that's supposed to be a) responsible for everything and everyone and b) the fall guy. Hmmm, a less attractive prospect perhaps. Luckily there are ways of getting help from the public. Increasingly, fewer creatives are relying on producers or commercial partners to fund their projects, but are instead putting it in the hands of the public on websites like wefund. As far as I can tell, you basically create a page for your project, you set a target and people pledge money. So if you make your Target, the money automatically goes to you, if not, no one pays anyone anything. Which seems fair. I may even use it myself one day soon!

Of course, if anyone would just like to donate a couple of grand to me to get it made, that would also be marvellous...

Hope you're enjoying the sun Reader!
Ash
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Some Stuff on Volpone (The play being sponsered on WeFund.com


With thanks to Matthew Badham


http://www.wefund.com/project/fire-under-horizon-present-volpone


1) why did you decide to use wefund?

This is my first time funding a show with we fund, a few companies I know have used it in the past to take shows to Brighton Fringe or Edinbrough etc, So after seeing the success they had using the site I decided we should try it out.

One of the great things about We Fund is that it gives you a chance to spread the word of a show before it even happens. Usually getting together the money for a show is quite a solitary affair, a lot of sitting at a desk and letter writing; with we fund you set up your own page for all to see, get a bit of hype going (hopefully) before the show is even in rehearsal and even the chance to forge relationships with supporters of the theatre who will continue to follow your company’ future productions.

2) What sources of funding have you used in the past?

In the past I have funded shows thoroughly through corporate sponsorship. It’s a lot of hard work though, consisting on letter writing and phone calls to follow up. It’s a bit of a pestering game.

Of course there is the option of applying for ACE funding, In the future I would like to apply for some form of Arts Council England funding for company development; our plan is to start to run workshops for actors, but the task at hand is to get this show funded and up on its feet. 

3) And what do you hope to achieve from the show? – Kris to answer

The shadow of Shakespeare hangs long over British Theatre. In this year where the UK plays host to the Cultural Olympia to play side by side with the Olympic games you cant help but encounter more and more of his productions; the Globe to Globe project, RSC residencies at the Noel Coward and Roundhouse, Timon of Athens in the Olivier, the Histories on the BBC. Shakespeare is our national poet and it is fantastic that he is being celebrated in the year where Britain is being showcased on a global scale. However our reverence does seem to lead to other playwrights of his era being left in the shade. The case for Ben Jonson is that he is too good to be ignored.
In his time Jonson was the master, Shakespeare his heavyweight challenger. Jonson, a man with links to high society, resident playwright to King James, tackles in his the man on the street; the rogues, brawlers and hookers, Shakespeare more often then not wrote about Kings and those who aspired to be. Ying and yang in style and thought, the audiences at the Globe spoke and Jonson eked out a points victory to stand as the Jacobean’s most important writers. Now looking at his legacy he has left us with three comedies that more than match up to any written by the quill of his rival; The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair and in my view his ultimate masterpiece- Volpone. The chance to tackle one of the great, underperformed plays in world theatre was an opportunity we couldn’t turn down.
The themes of greed and avarice chime particularly loudly in our present society; desperation to gain more then what we own compels people to acts of desperation and folly. Jonson writes about human foibles and the darkness of human psyche but keeps us on side with a great sense of mischief and rollicking set pieces. The audience is charmed whilst in the company of the louche playboy Volpone and his ever-resourceful parasite Mosca. These are two of the greatest parts in the classical repertory, a joy for the actors to embody and a joy for the audience in encountering them.
By cutting the sub-plot of the Politic Would Be and entourage, the plot of Volpone ricochets along, akin to the great mechanisms of farce, as the leading protagonists juggle the scheming legacy hunters and take disguise to keep their ‘plot’ going right through to its definitive conclusion. By updating the action to a modern day anachronistic world we aim to bring out the bawdy, dark, sexy and hilarious world that Jonson created
Memorable characters, thrilling, funny and dark, Volpone was the obvious choice to complement the Shakespeare heavy summer we are about to witness. We hope audiences will come and witness a play that stands up to the very best work of his friend and rival William Shakespeare.