Major Project Production Unit - Table Reading With Claudia

I decided that to ensure everything goes smoothly, it would be really useful to sit down with Claudia and read through the script so that she really knows the narrative inside out and is clear with what I am expecting from her performance wise. I set up a meeting with Claudia and we sat down and went over the script. I asked her to read the script out loud all the way though as I read the description parts.

After we read the whole thing through once, I then went through each bit and explained the purpose of each scene with its meaning and the importance of how it all connects. It also gave Claudia a chance to ask questions that she had and to really understand what was happening. From here I then went over the script and gave pointers in terms of the performance I was expecting. Explaining scenes on how the character was feeling, what types of expressions she would have as well as the overall emotion she was feeling at each point helped Claudia to understand the sort of head space she should be in on particular scenes. There are a lot of different emotions that the character goes through in the film so I felt this was really important. An example would be one scene at the window where the character is quite sad and gloomy to express feeling lonely and empty. In contrast to this, there is a scene later on where Sophie has reached breaking point and needs to make a dramatic change in her life. Where she is walking to kill Lorna, we see an expression is anger, frustration and determination. Its really important that Claudia can envision all the points that I have been talking about as I believe it really will elevate the film and make it more believable with her acting.

After this, I went through the updated schedule with her giving another copy of the call sheet in hard copy and broke down the schedule of the days booked for filming. I then went through all the times, locations and what scenes we needed to do so that she was fully aware of what was going to be happening in the next coming weeks. I also showed her all of the costume that she will be wearing and she did a last minute fitting to check they all fitted well and looked ok. 

Overall I felt this was a really important and useful afternoon. Claudia was able to really get in depth about her character and understand what she goes through as well as ask questions about the narrative and its different interpretations.