Adventures in Acting in Short Films

As previously stated I have been cast in a number of short films lately. One of the more fun and “bloggable” shoots was for “Resurrection”, which filmed in Ithaca.

I play a recently deceased man, Randall, who through some proprietary means known only to a mercenary funeral director is resurrected at his funeral to give his own eulogy. His widow Agnes paid through the nose for this privilege.

Here I am, on set, in an actual funeral home, viewing Randall’s casket.

The film was a senior project for the Ithaca College film school.

Here I am in make-up and costume, getting ready for my close-up.

The funeral director insisted that I be carried into the casket by several people like an actual body would, rather than climb in on my own; for safety reasons, I presume, since the casket stand is not designed to accommodate shifting weight well.

However, for the moment when Randall is resurrected, thanks to the twilight-zone-ish machinations of the film’s funeral director, I did have to climb out of the casket on my own… but the real life funeral director didn’t witness that…

To the right is writer/director Sam Zaslov-Braverman.

Here is Sam on Zoom rehearsing with the cast.

From the left, Norman Johnson as the priest, Dane C. Cook as the funeral director, Isaac Conner as Randell’s brother Paul, yours truly in corpse make-up and Susannah Berryman as Randall’s wife Agnes.

Sam asked for a picture of me to use as the funeral memorial portrait. That big cardboard blow-up of my actor 8X10 now resides in my storage room in Brooklyn.

Maybe I’ll take it out on Halloween to scare the neighborhood.

Being corpsed up.

The next pics are all screenshots from the finished film: here Randall’s awakes and rises on a cue from the funeral director.

The reaction from the assembled mourners.

Randall is in great pain during the 3 minutes he has to get out of coffin and give his own eulogy speech. After which he collapses, dead again.

Only to find himself resurrected again. Agnes couldn’t let go and mortgaged the house to buy more time from the funeral director. Three months more time, to Randall’s horror.

“Every breath hurts.”

“Why can’t you just let me die!” – actually the line as written and said on set was “Why can’t you just let me fucking die!” but the swear word got cut in the edit.

The funeral director tries to keep Randall and Agnes from leaving, but Randall bops him one, and the couple make their getaway.

Agnes takes Randall, who remains in great pain, home.

“I would have done the same thing in your shoes…”

“…but you have to let me go”

Agnes agrees to let Randall go. The death by drowning in the bath tub is meant to evoke a kind of baptism as well.