COVID19 has had an immense impact on all of us throughout the world. We experienced something that no one has seen in decades. I am a teenager in high school, and the whole "best time of my life" years have been spent at home or in a building with a mask on.
The pandemic started when I was just a freshman, so I haven't even gotten a normal high school experience. We can't give hugs to our friends, or enjoy the simple things in life, like dinner at a restaurant without needing a vaccination card for seating. Harvey, the director of an upcoming film, is surrounded by this idea of how COVID19 has impacted our lives in his short movie, "Life’s A Show" screening later this month at the Raindance Film Festival. We had the opportunity to get in touch with Harvey and ask him a few questions.
What is “Life’s a Show” about?
"Life’s a Show is a short comedy film about an actor, Matt, whose play is canceled. Without the stability of a directing giving him instructions, he starts to feel lost and soon decides to hire a director to guide him through his everyday life. Matt quickly realizes that there’s something else needed for a performance to be good: an audience."
What was the inspiration for this film? How did the idea come to mind?
"The film was inspired by the struggle the film and theater industries faced last year during the lockdown in the UK. I started to wonder how a self-involved actor might cope without having something to perform in and thought it could be fun to explore that. Naturally we also had the same restrictions that the rest of the industry had when making this short film, so it was decided that most of it would be set over video calls early on."
What actors can viewers look forward to seeing in this project?
"The lead role Matt is played by Jon Tarcy who is best known for his role as Isaiah Morton in the hit historical drama series Outlander (Amazon Prime), as well as Rolf Gruber in The Sound of Music Live (ITV), Lucky Man (Sky Atlantic) and West Side Stories (BBC). His theater work includes Anthony & Cleopatra and Titus Andronicus, both with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and A Christmas Carol at the Lyceum Theater. The film also stars Dušan Mrđen as the director Matt hires, and Lucy Hilton-Jones as the second director who is brought on to direct the lackluster audience."
Jon Tarcy's Instagram Handle: Jontarcy
How has COVID19 impacted this film?/Were arrangements needed to be made in order to complete the movie? How did this new way of filming and adjustments impact your directing experience?
"The film was written with Covid in mind so from the very start we started to make arrangements to shoot the film remotely. The scenes with Matt were shot like a ‘normal’ film with a skeleton crew of 6 (including the actor) in one day in London. Both director roles were shot over Zoom, with the actors setting up their own cameras whilst I directed their performances.
The audience members were then filmed with a mixture of screen-recording Zoom calls and sending the actors drafts of the film for them to watch and react to. All this footage was then put together with a fake Zoom call layout in the edit. It definitely changed the way I directed as there was less face to face time with the actors, and we weren’t physically in the same space."
Where can viewers access the film to watch at home?
"The trailer is available on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/530382393) and the film will be playing on Curzon Home Cinema as part of the Raindance Film Festival from October 27th to November 6th. It will then be widely released online to watch for free later this year."
Thank you, Harvey, for the inside scoop of "Life's A Show!" Make sure not to miss out on this amazing film!
