It is now just a little under 24 hours since filming wrapped up on The Silent City. With a number of the other cast members popping up to join in the final moments, it was a rather large and noisy crowd occupying the better half of an alleyway in the city, toasting to our future success and a job well done.

Now, like a Doctor Who or Sherlock fan, we wait while the editorial and production techno-wiz's put the various bits of film together to complete the project.  I have had a lot of fun doing this and have learnt much as well. More importantly, I have made some great new friends, made some very useful contacts, and been introduced to the future of film in Perth. Things are changing in our little town and I think this is the right time to have stepped up.

I don't believe I could have picked a better project to work on either. Professionalism, talent, dedication and a strong belief in what we were doing made this a particularly wonderful experience all around. There has been several theatre shows that I have directed that have developed a small "family" of sorts. Well, a family is clearly what has been formed with the Silent City cast and crew. Well done all and it has been such an incredible pleasure.

It is very easy to be biased about a project you are personally involved in, and I have had the opportunity to stand on both sides of the set as I doubled up taking photography between takes. With this double perspective, I really do believe that we collectively have created something rather special.

Thank you to Matt, our director, for giving me the chance to be a part of this story. Thanks to everyone for being so incredible, supportive and inspirational. Some memories fade with time. Others last a lifetime. Have a guess which one this will be...

This is the end of days for The Silent City. That is, in terms of filming. After this Sunday, all filming will be complete. It does seem like we have been at this very long but over all it has been a few months in the making, yet a total of 28 days of actual filming time.

I pause to consider this point: a feature film in less than a month of constant filming... Seems a little unreal. Of course this does not take into account the time required in casting, location finding, building a production crew, nor the pending months of editing and promotion. Still, it seems to be far too short to me.

The Wednesday night just gone, I got to work with ASJAD ABID (right in the image above) for the first time, apart from the initial script reading. He plays a hired gun, and I get to insult him a little, which I won't deny was a little bit of fun. Plus trying to make him laugh a little while I played my part as the slightly screw-loose Irish prick. Then Friday (last night) we were back along with ANTHONY CICCOTOSTO playing the honest yet hard-nosed rookie beat cop.

Tomorrow will be the official last day of filming. I am anticipating the majority of the cast coming down to be there for the last few seconds. Not sure how I feel about it...

Last night was another night of filming in rather cold conditions. The Thursday session had been cancelled due to really bad weather, and Friday almost was too. We were nearly rained out as it was.

Still we ploughed through and after several takes got the shot that had me in it, and I was able to go. While I have a few more shots left to do, it was curtains for one of the Cast; Laura.We are getting to the tail end of things after all.

She is not the first to have left us. We have previously wrapped up the boxer (Ben) and his girlfriend (Alla) after cramming all Ben's scenes in before he left for pastures overseas. I didn't really get a chance to know Ben or Alla (even though Alla has appeared on set a few times to help out), but Laura I have had some opportunity to talk with.

What she has done for this movie of ours is simply incredible. Beyond putting a fine performance in for some rather emotional scenes, see has been instrumental in several areas of marketing. What a power house she is.

So fair well for now Laura. I am sure our paths will cross again and in the meantime, keep up the great work.

http://www.lauraamycollier.com/

Here it is, the Teaser Teaser Trailer for The Silent City. I hope this gets you wanting more.

Saturday was a long day, and a little longer than expected, but all round an enjoyable one. Much of it was spent watching these two young lads (shown left) running through a loosely structured fight sequence, which then required certain adjustments for various shots. I was itching to exercise my own martial arts and join, and did stick my nose in a little (hopefully not too much.) During breaks, we swapped a few stories back and forth. Great work guys.

This week should be interesting. This Wednesday, they are to release a short teaser for the film at the Perth Film Network meeting. I actually haven't seen any footage as yet, just a few screen grabs, some of which I have  tinkered with to create a collection of Facebook Cover Profiles for the cast members. It will be good to see some of it in motion. I believe it will also be made available through the official web site later in the week. More on that later.

After the network meeting, I have a further two nights of filming on both Thursday and Friday. I am particularly looking forward to Thursday as I get yet another chance to really play with the psychopathic side of Jack a little more. We may get to see some of the madness that drives him.

Friday is a simple scene which basically is a catch up from previous filming. Then I think I have only two more scenes to shoot. With filming scheduled to be finished by the end of this month, the crew are really cramming in what they can. Hats of to the crew in general and our DOP Ross. He has certainly been putting in some long hours.

As an actor, I only have a few scenes to worry about. The crew have every scene, then editing, and all the other steps that I have no idea about. In truth, the role of an actor is a very small one.

Well, tomorrow it is back to filming for The Silent City. I have four more scenes for Jack to do, and this Saturday is a big one. A total of seven hours on set as it is scheduled, but who knows, it may be more. At least this time around, it will be during the day as opposed to the late evening at near zero temperatures. Which reminds me, I must review my lines tonight, just to have them fresh in my mind.

Coming from a background dominated by theatre, I have been told many times about how different theatre and film are. Well, I'm here to say that that is a load of bollocks. There is no difference when it comes to acting. Sure, theatre is all-in-one-take and film has edits, camera angles, and is more start and stop, but the performances required of the actor are no different.

The "volume" of a performance in theatre can vary depending on the size of the theatre and the closeness of the audience. If you are playing to a small 50-seat private theatre where the audience are sitting right at the edge of the stage, you would play a more intimate and toned down performance than if you were to play to a 500 seat, multilevel Regal Theatre. Cinema is no different in that aspect except that the size of your performance can change in the progression of a single scene, from an extreme close-up to a long shot, then back again. The technical aspects may be different, but how you perform or act remains the same.

Once I was able to, as Yoda put it, unlearn what I had learnt, i.e. that film requires a completely different style of acting, I found the process far more enjoyable. I am still creating a character with ideals, purpose, plans, associations and flaws, just as I would in theatre. That character is still reacting to various events occurring around them, just as in theatre. From this base point of view, there is no difference between the two.

That being said, I found one thing different in film that I did not expect; it offers the opportunity for a more varied performance. The audience can be, at any moment, close or far and coming from any angle. You are no longer playing to a fixed imaginary "fourth-wall" as this is now a moving point in space. As an actor, you still need to be aware of this point in space just as much as you need to be aware of the fourth-wall in theatre. You are still performing for an audience after all, but as it is no longer fixed, you now have an extra dimension to perform with.

Tomorrow I return to the film set. It will be a large set with a large number of extras and ... things going on. It will be busy and most of all, exciting. Yet I will still be the same; Jack O'Rielly, with all his traits and faults.

It was been some weeks since the closing night of Twelfth Night and I recently was sent two "reviews" for the show. I use quotations because these are rather special "reviews," in that they have been written by adjudicators for a local Community and Independent Theatre Awards ceremony called the Robert Finley Awards, which is basically the Perth Non-professional version of the Tony Awards.

These two reviews were actually rather pleasing to read. Being somewhat brief (a necessity due to the need not to give away anything too early) they were, on the whole, very appreciative of the two separate performances seen by the judges. The only critical aspects were a couple of directional choices which I therefore am happy to take completely on me. My cast were brilliant and it was wonderful to see no negative concerns regarding any of them.

I set out with a specific goal in mind, to demonstrate that Twelfth Night was a wonderful comedy, not a melodrama as it is so often portrayed. In that, I believe we were entirely successful. The number of genuine and unsought for remarks that patrons did not realise that the play was that funny and fast paced was incredible. This too was reflected in the reports from the two adjudicators.

Orsino, the character upon which much of my direction choice was made, is frequently portrayed as a melancholic romantic type whom is more love-sick than head-over-heels in lust, yet this character opens the play. His first scene, and most famous speech, "If music be the food of love" are the first thing that audiences see. I see only two ways to play this; either overly dramatic to the point of drama queen, or as a passionate plea to the mysterious gods of love. I went more for the latter having come from a pub where he has been drowning his frustrations with one too many jugs of ale.

By injecting a high level of energy and pace to this opening scene, it set a bar for the rest of the cast to follow, and follow they did. The pace was such that we were able to do the entire script without cutting a single word, officially. Mind you, through a little improvisation and slips, the occasional word may have been lost.

That said, Twelfth Night is not without more serious or poignant moments, such as the heated argument between Orsino and Viola, the incarceration and release of Malvolio and the exchange of heated words between Orsino, Viola and Olivia at the plays end. There is even one instance when the fool of the play, Feste, comes down from his silly antics and wordplay, to berate Malvolio for his thoughtlessness and nasty comments.

Interestingly enough, the most memorable character of the play is, at first meeting, the most annoying. Malvolio, Olivia's steward, starts off being obnoxious, uptight and very condescending. We are not meant to like him. So when he is then given his "just deserts" and locked in a dungeon as a madman, we are then brought to feel sorry for him at the plays end when all that has been done is revealed to him. People have often made the comment to me that they would like to see him have a happy ending. I feel that this would ruin his importance in the play. We are meant to hate him then long for him. Through his journey, he wins our heart and holds it. If he were then to have a happy ending, he would no longer need our love and care.

So why was he written this way? We can only guess, and my guess was to look in to ourselves and see the hypocrisy of human nature. How easy is for a person to put on a façade of arrogance in order to protect themselves from the barbs of the world. How easy it is for that world to fall away when dreams and hopes seems but a small step away. How deep the wound is when, having opened ourselves to the possibility of hope, to then have that hope ripped away from us.

Twelfth Night is a wonderful examination at the strangeness and vulnerability of people. I am glad we were able to play successfully to that message.