Online thoughts of actor Dudley Rees. A place to explore the big questions of acting. Blogerty Blog Blog.

I finally got my hair cut yesterday, and having shaved the beard off a month before, the character of, “Patrick” has finally been wiped from my person. It’s taken so long to get back to myself (from a hair perspective anyway) just because I’ve been so exhausted. Nothing tires you out like making a film. The last time I felt this tired was the last time I made a film. I was attempting to do the quintuple, write, act, direct, produce and edit. It's a combination that takes it out of you. Now I’m into the 15th minute of a rough edit I can see it's probably going to be worth it.

Having recently been screened at the Hyart Festival in Wyoming, USA and Roughcuts Cornwall, UK, I think it's time that this short film went public. I wrote "Working In Time" some years ago and then went on to direct and edit it (with Adam). It features Tess Alshibaya and Alex Harries. Remember to turn your volume up and enjoy it full screen.

It's probably safe to talk about, "Project Louise" now isn't it?  I mean, it's been 3 years.  At the time the mystery was everything though. It enabled the paying "patients" to forget themselves and join us in our strange, nebula world.  Were we actors or was it all real? (We were actors).

Code named "Louise", it was later publicly acknowledged as, "Secret Cinema Presents: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest". If you don't know what Secret Cinema is, you can read about it in the Metro here, but from my perspective, at its best it's an experience that the audience truly becomes part of, leaving their problems behind them.  At it's worst, it's a trendy Instagram arse fest.

There were accusations such as that one thrown at, "Lawrence of Arabia", the production prior to Cuckoo's Nest.  It had ambitiously aimed for grand spectacle - there were actual camels.  I'd acted in that project too, wandering around a fake desert, hoping desperately to bump into another actor amongst the thousands of punters dressed as Muslims.  I vowed never to do another one again.

But on Cuckoo's Nest they promised to go small and intimate.  It was pitched as an actor's gig and the rehearsal process sounded too intriguing to refuse (plus the pay was ok).  By the time we arrived, the brilliant design team had already transformed much of an abandoned hospital (previously for the elderly) into a working hospital of the late 1950s, Oregon.