Nathan Gregory on The Actor's Church

"Greetings, Readers! I'm Nathan Gregory; I played Brother Bill in the "St. Genesius" film of February and I had a great time shooting it. Kirk is being a little modest to say that we shot it in 3 hours. True, we had the space reserved from 9-12 AM, but we didn't start shooting until about a quarter to 10. And right away we ran into problems. While running through the script, we learned that there was no singing allowed on our floor. The supervisor-guy let us sing until ten, which meant that we only had a few chances to shoot Annie and her beautiful voice. Right away, we started going through the vocal sequence, squeezing in as many takes as we could before 10. Kirk was very relieved once we got through that, as he rightfully predicted it to be the hardest part to shoot. We ran into some other roadblocks, namely time. There was also the shifting around of microphones, doing some guerrilla shooting in the hallway after 12, and the regular lighting and blocking changes as the setup moves around. But as my old film professor always said, "Filmmaking is problem solving." And after 7 films in 7 months, I think Kirk is finding a really deep groove. When he generously took the cast and crew out to a delicious lunch (featuring several orders of Stuffed French Toast), I asked him if he was finding the process becoming easier. He immediately and emphatically said "Yes." And with the efficiency and speed that we shot those 12 pages, I would have to agree with his assessment. I'm eager to see what this growth brings next!"

How to Kill Yourself in One Year #7 "St. Genesius: The Actor's Church"

After a couple H.E.A.V.Y. months worth of films...we just wanted to go back to the good ol' days and knock one out in a few hours and hopefully have some fun (for a change!).

Plus we shot the entire thing in 3 hours because I couldn't afford a forth...Kudos for Annie and Nathan for their hard, awesome and FAST work!!

an interesting thing has happened...

...and I don't know if this is good, bad or ugly. This has suddenly become work. a job.

let me explain.

Before this project, whenever I'd create something...like the uber shitty Snipe Hunt Massacre: The Movie or the only slightly shitty Ant Farm or even my first real "movie-film", F**K New York, or any multitude of awful short films, it was just pure joy; or as Ed Burns put it, ten days of awesome.

But somewhere in here this all became a job; something about having to deliver on my deadlines even when inspiration did not strike (see: Act, Battle) made this whole thing feel less joyous and more, dare I say, mundane. tedious? Like WORK.   I was thinking of this last Saturday while trying to load the truck to drive into NYC at the butt-crack of dawn to shoot St. Genesius. I thought, "man this suddenly feels like a fucking job".

but that's the point...isn't it?

isn't it?

isn't the point of all this to one day have a career in film? to create something that eventually will be a livelihood? Is this not the very thing I so desperately have dreamed about for a quarter of a century and more than half of my life?   that this should feel like work, means it's not a hobby, right?

haven't i arrived, somehow?

huh?

HUUUHHHH???

I guess I should feel a sense of validation but I actually just feel poor and tired. It would help if I actually could figure out how to make money off of this...because I guess technically i'm doing a self-imposed intership and you know what they say about a man who is has himself for an intern (he can only fuck himself in the ass).

honestly I am not sure what or why i'm saying this; it just seemed to pop in my head.

I never thought that an added side effect of doing this, treating this like my job, would be that, from time to time, my job sucks.

hmmm...

Photos from St. Genesius Shoot

Tawnya, make sure you take on set pix. Mission accomplished.

Grisel watches a smokin' take

"is this your first time at seeking spiritual representation?"

the line i'm saying here seems to scream for the word, "cockadoody"

"I just want to go to church"

We asked for a table, we got a music stand. sigh

when you don't have a crew, often, your  DP must also hold the reflector.

I tried to look douchebaggy but ended up looking a lot like my dad...which depressed the hell out of me

Annie Wild as Lucy (#387)

this is how swans kiss....

intensely directing.

Ms. Wild

Nathan Gregory as Brother Bill

blue steel?

whaaaa????

this makes it look like a sessy scene, but alas it was just microphone placement.

prepping for a smokin' take

yes. picture goes there.

Singing amazing grace just before the dude from the studio informed us there was no singing allowed...f**k you very much, Shetler.

funny director quip? NAILED it.

this is my patented "der" look.

too sessy?

CAST for St. Genesius!

Annie Wild as Lucy

Nathan Gregory as Brother Bill

your's truly as Brother Jimmy (I really think this is going to be my new headshot...couldn't do any worse with it)

lucky number seven? or: we have passed the halfway point or: the 7th one...the 7th script

February has been a strange  month...and, if I am completely honest, I've been a tetch lazy for a bit. Busy, but mostly lazy.  plus I have stuff lined up for march and april and just couldn't get my mojo woikin' for this.  plus I think all the events of Nov and Dec kinda all caught up with me at once and i'm a wee knee deep in exhaustion.

plus my film F**k New York got accepted into the Queens World Film Fest (still tix left...BUY Quite!!) and I've been trying to get all the marketing stuff for that. What do you think?

so anywhoo...I was floundering and then my wife pointed out that February is, in fact, a short month so I had better get off my keester, meester so here we are.

I thought it might be a fun little experiment (read: I couldn't think of a fucking thing to write) to revisit an ancient script back from the day when I was just a fledgling writer wannabe with no clue what i was doing and maybe rewrite it now that I'm a fledgling wannabe writer with a slight clue as to what i am doing.

the script is St. Genesius: The Actor's Church.  It was originally written as a sketch for a comedy troupe I was in called House of the Dead. and I think it was 1999-ish...possibly 2000-ish but it's at least a decade old and quite shitty.

here is the original script:  The Actor's Church It's in playscript format.

My friend, Melanie, actually took this and "optioned" it (meaning she made me a cake) and actually filmed this. I'm begging her to get me a copy so I can post...so stay tuned for that.

So when revisiting this script, I was struck immediately by a) how terrible it is and b) how many stupid pop culture references are in it (for crying in the sink I talk about Jessica Tandy...) and c) I guess Charlie Sheen was messin' up back then as well.  It was mostly just me trying to be funny and failing at being clever.

but I still think that idea is solid: An Actors Church that  treats actors like everyone else treats actors (like shit).

so i took to the rewrite.  I think there was a solid concept here and what I needed to do was cement the character of Lucy in the real world...give her a real need to get into that church. An actor's need. Once I hit upon the sincerity of her through-line...I was free to make Jimmy and Bill even more detestable. because I could just give them their own real world needs...to fill their church with the proper personnel.

here is the end result:  St. Genesius