The 16-hour shoot

I didn’t take many photos during the 16-hour shoot I endured last week because I wasn’t really in the mood. But here’s one.

We had balloon props for a birthday party scene. Can you guess what object this balloon sculpture is supposed to be? I couldn’t.

One reason why I prefer playing leading roles is because you have so much more leeway to be creative.

I was at first very excited to get this role even though it was only a supporting role, because the character is much more colourful than the lead. I had fun thinking of all kinds of ways I could play this character.

But then, during my three-day shoot, I kept getting disappointed.

When you’re not the leading character, sometimes you don’t get the focus, you don’t get the close-ups, and you don’t get to execute all the brilliant ideas you have for the character because they don’t really care, because you’re not the lead.

But I still did enjoy the role. Just not as much as I thought I would.

That’s why I didn’t really have the mood to take photos. I just did my scenes and played with my DS Lite whenever I wasn’t needed.

It was around midnight when I whipped my camera out again because I met some actor friends who were involved in one of our night scenes.

This was quite a happy occasion, even though it was a hot night and we had to film in a location with no air-condition. Wearing party dresses.

Luckily, there was a bit of aircon in the makeshift makeup room, where we also dumped all our stuff.

I was done with my party scene, so had taken off my heels and was wearing my birkies while looking for my clothes for the next scene.

Off with the party dress and makeup. On with the glasses again.

This pair of prop glasses (no degree) is very uncomfortable. The bridge support is very short, so when I push it up to frame my eyes properly, the glasses press against my lashes and I can’t blink without feeling like my eyeballs are getting poked out. So, most of the time, the glasses are sitting low on my nose, making me look like a long-sighted granny trying to read the papers.

I hope I will look okay on TV.

By the way, I had to wear all my own clothes for this show because, nowadays, productions don’t have wardrobe budgets. I’ve had to wear the same clothes for different productions even. Where to find so many clothes to wear for different productions? I’m a poor freelance actress. They don’t pay us enough to even feed ourselves, much less buy clothes to wear for their productions.

So, if you’ve been following my fashion diary, you’ll probably recognise all the clothes I’m wearing in this production. Haha.

This 16-hour shoot, involving five different locations and seven outfit changes for me, marks the end of production. Like I mentioned before, I wasn’t tired at all, which was pretty weird. When I got home around 3 am, I was kinda depressed and couldn’t sleep.

I’m half looking forward to and half dreading watching it on TV when it airs next month.