Shoot Day 4 Greenscreen heaven

Jordanna Moran, Ioan Hefin and Emily Graham

Today we had a professional actor on the set in the shape and form of
Ioan Hefin.  I've known Ioan for many years - an incredibly generous man,
and even more generous actor.  Before shooting started, I began winding up
my angels about a mysterious guest actor.  They twigged straight away
it was goingto be Ioan.  The man is a legend in these parts.
Still didn't stop them getting an extra bit nervous and a little star-stuck
when he arrived on set though.  Ioan had recently been in "Pen Taler",
Ed Thomas's S4C political drama series, playing a major supporting role of the
character Berian, a Plaid Cymru politician - so for the girls he's someone 'off
the telly'.

Greenscreen heaven

I was more worried about the actual writing in the scene, Ioan has a lot of lines,
a lot of exposition about what's happened to the two girls - doubts flooded my mind,
was it twaddle - was this scene going to kill the whole film?  Added to this was our
first green screen day, so even more pressure.  I'd deliberately cast Ioan because
I knew he's be superb, he's tall and has a magnificent physical presence in relation
to the two girls, and visually he has to have a sense of both compassion and mystery.
Emily and Jordanna are equally string in their intense listening - superb reactions
and simple visual acting...but always difficult to do if the actors aren't
concentrating.

The Director sweats - the cast laugh!

It only took a few minutes into the shooting for me to relax and realise that all of
these elements were going to work.  Most importantly, Ioan's voice.  He is THE MAN.
He makes the words sound better than they are - he brings them to life off the page.
At one point I asked him to deliver only half of a paragraph of dialogue because
I knew I'd be covering the other half with a new angle.  It sounded so good I forgot
to shout cut - I was simply lost in his performance.  Later, when cutting the scene,
Ioan's impeccable camera technique reveals itself - as usual I shot everything three
different ways with slight adjustments in the performance - ALL of his shots match -
I could have cut any part of one with any part of another and it would have worked.
It's called 'consumate professionalism' in my book.

Emily enjoying herself too much