Lights, Camera, ... ACTION!

Recently, I volunteered my services to act in one of the educational videos that my company is embarking in. Interesting experience! Below is a short article that I contributed on my company intranet. :)

Audition
It was with much apprehension and doubt that I went to my first audition for the GIC videos - as far as I can remember, I've never acted before in my entire life!

As I went through the scripts during the audition, I was praying hard that someone would tell me - "Vincent, I'm sorry, you can't act. We'll be pulling you out of the video..." Unfortunately, that moment never came (even though I have ZERO acting skills to speak off. Maybe they were trying to be "nice"... )

Training
When that fateful email came in and it dawned upon me that I landed a role in one of the videos, I knew that I needed to pull up my socks. When the final scripts and castings were confirmed, I promptly printed out my lines and brought it home for my wife to review. Being the drama-mama that she is, she has acted in numerous TCS drama serials (unfortunately she's not Fann Wong - just a part-time actress) and many lead roles for musicals in church and varsity. Of course, it helped that she learnt speech and drama since young.

That one night going through the script with her was the turning point. I learnt so much! Every little movement you make has a purpose - from your body right down to your facial expression and even your eyes! I was enlightened on 2 things that night - (1) Acting is tough work (2) Acting is not for me. Nevertheless, that night of training gave me more confidence. I memorised my lines and was finally able to at least produce the expressions that the director was looking for.

And... the rubber hits the road!
On the actual day of fiming, I went to office and saw all the sophisticated fiming equipment. Cool! It actually feels quite weird with all the lights and camera (and all eyes) being focused on me as I acted out my part. And it was also at that point that I realised that making a film is all about teamwork. If any one person (the lighting guy, the camera man, the soundman, the actors/actresses etc.) screwed up, the whole scene had to be done all over again. I told myself that I needed to try my very best - if at any point I forgot any of my lines, I'll be wasting so many peoples' time and effort! (& of course, I wanted to go home early as well)

Looking back, it was actually fun to be part of a set. It was an interesting experience, and I'm glad I was a part of this and was able to learn so much from it! So, to all my fellow GIC colleagues who have (like me) never acted in their entire life, step out and take the next opportunity to be part of the cast! You'll learn incredible lessons from it!