A Tell-Tale Q&A and an Actor Panel

This August I participated in several Zoom sessions with the Art is Alive Film Festival.

I just received the recordings of two of them. First up is Art is Alive founder Cindy Mich interviewing me after a virtual screening of my short film Edgar Allan Poe adaptation “The Tell-Tale Heart – a musicabre” (which would go on to win the Judy Garland Award for musical score later in the festival).

Here are some topics we covered, and when in the recording you can find them:

0:24 – Why Poe not Shakespeare? – The Tell-Tale origin story.

3:18 – How did you create the performance?

6:00 – Where/How did you find your voice in this character?

8:25 – Contrasting this to adapting the companion piece “Pit and the Pendulum”. (PS: When I say P&P isn’t a first person monolog, I mean Tell-Tale reads like a spoken first person narrative, whereas P&P takes the guise of a written first person narrative).

11:00 – Talking about bringing the instruments to life on screen.

15:00 – Syncing the performance to the recording.

17:30 – Talking about getting the husband (Ed) involved.

20:30 – What is the driving force behind the film’s success? What makes it special?

23:30 – What’s with the facial hair?

24:15 – Talk about the awards.

25:45 – Where is the film going from here?

28:50 – Our Wisconsin connections.

30:55 – The Art is Alive awards.

33:00 – Adapting Poe’s text. Tell-Tale as a teaching tool.

35:15 – Jennifer joins us.

36:45 – Closing statements.

38:40 – Ed proves he exists.

The day before the Tell-Tale Q&A I had joined Cindy and Michael Gentile in an Actors Workshop Panel.

Below the video is the time guide to that discussion:

0:00 – Preliminaries

1:30 – Acting background / history

5:10 – Finding the right acting school for you.

6:30 – Accent or not an accent?

9:15 – Being married to a non-actor (Talking about Ed).

12:30 – Having support from your partner in the business.

14:10 – How to find acting work / make art in this era of Covid.

21:45 – How do you make yourself stand out, get yourself out there in this era?

26:45 – The ins and outs of Improv and/or working with the written text.

34:30 – Improv, depending on the medium / Improv idols.

40:40 – How many personalities are in you?

43:20 – Do you bring the character you play home with you?

45:15 – The relationship between actors and writers and directors.

48:20 – Being happy with the process vs being happy with the outcome.

51:20 – How do you make life easier for the actor and director on the set.

55:40 – Any regrets about directing yourself?

59:00 – Final thoughts