The Guardian: This Is Where the Fun Begins!

We have had two rehearsals so far. The first was a little rough from my perspective; I definitely felt a little underprepared and had no idea exactly what I was doing for a bit. We were able to get through the blocking of the second and third scenes, but I found myself being pretty indecisive about the blocking and changing my mind multiple times about things. I think we ended in a pretty good place, and everyone seems to be on the same page with things. It was mostly just me thinking that I could have been more organized. A good take-away from that rehearsal was certainly that I need to focus more on prep work, especially in regards to the nuances of blocking.

I felt much, much better about the second rehearsal. This one was just with Keanu, and we spent the first part of it with just he, Will, and I discussing the character of Beschut and making character choices. We then got into the specific movement, vocal quality, and some of the emotional quality of the character in a few of the scenes. I think I definitely gave Keanu enough elements of his character to think about while he's on vacation, and I'm confident he'll be well prepared when he gets back.

 I've got the rest of the schedule for the next few weeks planned out. After that, I haven't quite settled on how the schedule is going to look, but I will have it done within the next few days for sure. It depends on how much more work certain sections need, but at a certain point we're just going to be doing run-thrus anyway.

This week, I completed my ground plan, prop list, and list of sound cues (that one was a little tedious). I also found a time for Adam and Josh to come in and do their voice-over session, although scheduling that thing was a bit of a pain to do. I had to re-schedule it a few times to finally find a time when all of us were free and the sound lab was open.

In addition, Keanu being on vacation for a whole week does mean that there's a lot of rehearsing we can't do until after he gets back, on May 10th. I have a rehearsal with Chloe in the meantime, to go over character work and blocking for that first scene that Beschut isn't in. I have to make sure to do some more prep work for that scene's blocking and for Ren's character traits before that rehearsal.

I think I'm someone who learns best by doing, and this week definitely taught me a lot about how to be a director that I will take with me going forward.