Hello world! Welcome back to another blog. Today I will be talking about a workshop I had on 28th January this year with Sean Glynn, a director of Hollyoaks, other amazing projects and someone who I had a previous workshop with back in January 2023. This was a day to find out more about him, how he works and also perform a scene for him so he can give me direction.
As the session started, he told the story of his career growing up. To start with, he gave a brief introduction on who he is and how he got to where he is today. I won’t give too much away, but one thing I will say that he came from a working class background like myself. Yes everyone’s circumstances is different as some people may not be able to do certain things for different reasons, but he was a fine example of where if you have the time to do something you really want to do, do it! Here is the page to his official Instagram to see the work he has done and how he built up his career: https://www.instagram.com/seang21?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
It was then time to move onto the scenes. I was up first, so myself and two other talented members of the workshop in the form of Rebecca and Kaine did the scene with me. This was a scene from Hollyoaks, where it contains the theme of terminal illness and death. Whilst I was lucky that I was one of the people to go first, it was also quite scary. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I was quite in the right headspace as I didn’t expect to go first. However I just went for it. And I’m glad I did. During this performance Sean also went through what a director would normally do on set. This would be a line run, blocking, a rehearsal on camera and the takes itself. He then said that for him he would normally have 3 goes for different angles. These would be a wide shot, mid shot and the closeups. He also mentioned that in the actual scene it took longer than expected, but I'll leave you to guess how long exactly as I don't want to give away all of the secrets there. We only did 2 of the shots though as everyone else has scenes to perform but it gave me a real flavour on how the process works. But performance wise for me, I was surprised that I didn’t feel the tears rolling down. After explaining why this script stood out to me, Sean then mentioned that everyone feels grief differently and that you just need to feel whatever you feel. But I got a lot of praise from him and my peers so I must’ve done something right. Please see the link to my performance from the closeup (as that was the best version of it): https://youtu.be/PEug_sWZvJk?si=xz1drdDPlbH8cEMQ
Then after the break it was everyone else’s turn. And everyone did a brilliant job. I won’t give away full spoilers but all I will say is that some of the original pairings did get mixed up but it’s also a fine example of how very often you won’t meet the other actors until the day of filming itself. So the way they adapted to it was the sign of true professionalism. Sean also gave a direction to one pair that a timer was about to go off and that they had a certain amount of time to get through the scene. And wow did it make a difference. I think if that was used in every high stakes scene then this would make the show more interesting to watch.
I also admire how he took gave direction when 3 females performed a monologue which was one of the scripts he sent out. One of them to begin with performed the monologue with anger and passion, and she was the sort of person you do not want to mess with. The second time she did it, Sean gave the direction of pulling back, and let the sadness come, which gave a whole different feel to it. It also gave her some options so that when she performs this monologue again or performs something similar she has those options there.
Overall it was a brilliant session to go to. It was informative, it was intriguing and to be taught by him a second time to get a refresher of how he works on set gave me a real outlook on the industry from a directors point of view. It also showed me that directors are human too, and that they are on your side. And who knows maybe our paths will cross again soon.
See you soon for another blog. Until next time...
This is The Autistic Actress Signing off :)
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