No matter how long you have worked on a script it always feels different when you hear it read out loud in front of someone else.
This is a good way of testing a writer's work to see if it has got what it takes to survive the long haul to the screen. If you don't keep them engaged, a live audience will often vote with its feet. One audience even got hostile during question time because people objected to the script's content.
If the project is close to production, it gives the film makers a chance to see actors in the parts.
This is also another opportunity for film people to get together and talk about film.
This was taken over by Robert Conolly (of Arena Films) and after him, by Craig Kirkwood (Producer of FLICKERFEST, a long-standing festival of short films.)
Microphones are fairly essential. If the actors have to belt it out, it tends to sound more like a Greek tragedy.
The actor reading the screen directions should have a separate mike. Three mikes between the remaining actors should be plenty. Even if there is as many as eight.
The screen directions should be read by a good actor who understands timing.
The actors usually sit in a semicircle and stand to 'enter' the scene.
No frills, no props, no slides, no music, live or otherwise. Keep it simple. No more than eight actors on stage MAX. It's a reading, not AIDA.
Have a rehearsal a couple of hours before the show with the mikes and everything. It is surprising how many good actors don't know how to use a mike. If you don't rehearse the thing that goes wrong will happen during the show.
You need a context like a creative centre, or a film festival or film school. It's good if the audience has a place to hang around and talk about the script after. The relaxed atmosphere of a pub is excellent.
The pub in Sydney had a lot of regular 'cultural nights', comedy, literary readings, improv theatre, as well as bands. So Films On Stage was well within the sort of thing people would expect to see at this venue.
Try to get as early a starting time as you can. It always starts late and the read is usually longer than the screen time.
On the nights where we had name actors, directors or writers we had audiences of between one and two hundred people.
You have to lay a lot of responsibility for publicity in the hands of the writers. Most of the audience will be people they know. This is an opportunity to invite everyone they want to impress and influence.
One of our readings was attended by members of one of the local funding bodies. This script got production money. It got made with a theatrical and video release.
You are just providing an arena. Strangely, some writers think they are doing you a favour by letting you put on their script.
One very shy writer actually chose to stay away from the reading and rang up half way through to get a report on how it was all going.
Don't do it solo. If you're doing it all yourself, every week it's not as much fun and it's hard to get any serious 'shmoozing' done. By the time you are finished everyone's gone home.
There is nothing hard and fast about the guidelines I have laid out here. If it works, do it. If you can find a better way of doing any part of this I would appreciate you dropping me a line.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have at:
peter_rasmussen@aapda.com.au.
If you should decide to accept this mission - good luck and make sure you have fun.
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