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For three years, I have been in China teaching Swing Dancing. Now I'm wandering yet again...
2005-08-22
Movie news
So, I received a call from a Beijing group which was doing casting for a Warner Bros movie being shot in Shanghai. From the description of the casting person, I thought it might be a significant part- maybe something with speaking lines, possibly with the star in the movie in the same scene.
As it turned out, this was not quite the case. It's an extra role, doing some singing and foolish revelry in the background, and yes indeed the stars are present but there is no interaction with them. Plus, then wanted me to come up for a screen test, then come up again for the filming, both of which are in Beijing. Given the minor nature of the role and the low pay (would not cover one plane trip of the four needed) I talked with the casting agent and she agreed it was not really appropriate.
However, I did get some more information about the film. It's set in the 1920's, and there is going to be a significant amount of dancing in it. I asked the casting agent, What are your plans for that? It seemed she wanted to get some videos of people doing dance from that period and just sort of 'fake it'. I cringed. Don't do that! I told her about my work on the White Countess, and I told her how I'd set this up. Plus I have a friend who I've worked with on several 1920-era movies who is very good at these ballroom types of dance and could get them set up on it relatively cheaply. My goal in this whole thing is to get into the role of the Choreographer - work again behind the camera and set up the dancers in the shots for the movie.
All of this stuff is off in Beijing, but it's an interesting sounding project and I'd make the trip, so long as I came out a little ahead from the experience. Plus, I know I would be able to contribute a lot to the movie - improve it quite a bit. The goal for this movie is not to have any incredibly fancy dancing footwork. If the movie's not about dancing, and there's a great professional couple showing off, I think it is rather distracting to the flow of the entire mood of the movie. However, what would be good is to get the people up to the level of dance skill which one would expect from everyday people of that era. You want to make it so that the average viewer would notice the dancing, appreciate it but not be too distracted from the point of the movie. AND, you want to have it so that those people who are really good at dancing will not say, "What are they DOING?"
There was a Weezer (90's pop-punk band) video called Buddy Holly. It was filmed on the old Happy Days tv series set. In the video, there were many people dancing, what should have been swing or rock & roll dancing. To the casual observer, I'm sure it looked fair enough. But to those who know swing, it was obvious the actors had never had any sort of training at all. They were told to come on set and merely improvise... anything which they might be able to imagine. Not one actual swing or rock & roll dancer present in the dancers, or probably in the entire production.
So for this movie I want to avoid that type of thing. Plus, from my involvement on the previous movie - doing the dance training, dancing in the movie, and in the second half getting behind the scenes and working with the director to choreograph the scenes - I can say that the most satisfying thing of all was choreography. To do it properly, you need to work with the dancers during training. Work with them, grade them, then match them up as partners. People who are good dancers should be paired with others of the same skill. People who are not very good dancers can also be dancing in the film, moved to a filming position so that they can fill up the room but not necessarily be prominently featured.
So, just an hour ago I talked to the casting agent, and I think I have a good chance of convincing them to get myself and my ballroom dancing friend involved in the movie. He as dance trainer and dancer, and myself as choreographer. The movie people are concerned about budget, but since it is a Hollywood movie I think we'll be able to do this at a fee much lower than they would expect.
More updates on this as we go.
Peace,
-J
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