I came across a mention in a Facebook Norwegian acting group that the Danvik Folkehøyskole School project needed a pastor. I decided to send them the following picture as well as a link to my portfolio page which showed various things I have taken part in. I end up getting the part in the short named “Markert av Djevelen” – Marked by the devil.
A few days before shooting began I dropped by Danvik Folkehøyskole in Drammen as we were to go through the costume. The costume I had worked nicely.
17 Nov 2024: I have now finally been given the ok to openly show the 10 minute long film made by Danvik Folkehøyskole.
(Language is in Norwegian but one can get a feel what is going on without understanding the dialog.)
13 March 2023.
First day of filming.
Vilde (daughter) and Ulf (Father) had started that morning. My call time was at 12.30.
Location: Lier Bygdetun (old building museum area outside of Oslo).
I received a message that they were very delayed. So I had to just wait. Lunch came and went and I still had to wait. I made a in character video selfie as Pastor Johannes.
Pastor Johannes 15 march 2023 Lier Bygdetun The 1600’s. A kind of preparation before my first scene of visiting the sick man Knut and his daughter Victoria. Speech is in Norwegian. Attitude and tone of voice is without language.
The first scene.
A while later they were ready for me. So I went outside to the stabbur/old tree house. I was to enter the house and say: Good evening! Are you still among us Knut? The daughter came to greet me. Various things happened in the scene. Here is a screenshot where I say in relation to using our God given time on this planet: It is our responsibility to make sure that it is used.
As it was my first scene. I did not have any preparation time on set and was thrown into it. It worked out alright.
Another scene was in relation to the daughter giving medicine to her father. Pastor Johannes did not like that. As one should just pray to God and He will heal. Not some medicine. He took the medicine and poured it out on the floor. He then grabbed the daughter and pulled her along out of the house.
That was the end of day 1.
14 March 2023.
Second day of filming.
Same location as day one.
I rested up after the first day which was fairly exhausting for me, as I had had a cold a few days before the filming.
15 March 2023.
Third day of filming.
Same location as day one.
There was delay in shooting again. I did so so with my lines. As we did the scene a few times from different angles and went better. I rested more into myself and my own grounding and that helped a lot. The pastor held a speech about opening the heaven for them.
16 March 2023.
Fourth day of filming.
New location: Today we were to meetup at a turist cottage and cafe further into the wilderness in the Lier area where there were various criss country tracks.
I had told the director that we needed more prep time among the actors whom was to take part in the scene. So before we went out into the show we ran our lines a few times to better get into it. That really helped a lot!
I thought we were breaking up the last scene into smaller pieces but we end up filming it in one long piece. That was a huge surprise but it went pretty well.
I wrote the following on my Facebook page to share with others about my last day of filming experience.
Learning about grounding in relation to acting.
I learnt something very important as I was the main lead in a short film by Danvik folkehøyskole i Drammen. (a school for students usually around 18-20 whom live for 1 year at a school studying a field they want to get to know more about, such as film.)
While learning my lines as Pastor Johannes in this short. I memorized the lines, and going deeper down they would almost become like a second nature, or say it another way. I would pull these out from various aspects of my own beingness. As we contain all different aspects of being human. I did not have as much time to bring it as deep down as I hoped, which perhaps is a good thing because of how the character acts.
On the last day I had a lot of dialog as well as some monolog. I had to figure out how not to freeze, a kind of stage fright and go blank. I had to ground myself. The deeper the grounding the better. The lines would sound better and come out more correctly as I spoke them.
I had told the director and script writer that we had to prepare better before doing the recording on the last day, and that we did. We did a run through a few times which helped a lot.
I suddenly understood film actors. As in the morning I had to be by myself and interact very little with the others, as I had to be in my own bubble of grounding. I got to the area where we were to record and the first scene went really well! It felt like something clicked in place. Something about the energy and how I delivered the lines.
I had understood something about grounding, something about being by myself to keep my own grounding and then on set delivering the lines from my own grounding and presence. It felt wonderful. Even the second take of scene 1 went pretty well.
After the two first takes going through the full scene for the day. I felt like I had done what I came for and felt like I was done. I relaxed as I knew now that they planned on recording shorter sequences from different angels. That would be a lot easier compared to running through the full scene with all the dialog and monolog I had to go through.
But…
Later in the day after a scene that was very strong emotionally they told me out of the blue that we were to run through the full scene again, as we had done in the morning. But this time the focus was even stronger on me. I told them that I was blank and not prepared to run through the full scene again.
I felt I had let my grounding go.
The scene went really bad as I blanked out a lot. There was a small break to retake the scene. I stepped a little away and visualized my deep connection with Mother Earth. Grounding myself again. This time the scene went better. Not as good as the first two takes we had done in the morning but a lot better compared to the take we had done just before it. Part of the monolog was very different and I believe I paused too much, but it was totally ok. They can cut and adjust what is needed.
In general I felt I did a pretty good job of the 3 days of recording I took part in. There were some scenes that just felt right, and clicked in place. Other scenes that went so so. They have material to work with in the cutting room and I am excited and just a little scared to see the result.
Here is an image showing the burning of the witch. The pastor has a speech at the same time. The below words say: Together we are gathered for the church.
The below image shows the end of the short. As the pastor looks into his hand and has also become marked by the devil (plague).
