For nine days, they got to hear it quite frequently as they were at various locations shooting a movie in which they star. Some 24 kids have worked on the film set of Stageworx’s movie called Standing Ovasion.
According to Stageworx general manager Jo Braine the children wrote the text themselves. “And they each had to create a character for him or herself. So it was not the normal audition process. They all had to present their characters and really sell their characters. The script and story was really a combined effort from all of them.”
This musical film tells a story of a theatre ghost, a lady who never got her standing ovation, as she died on stage. It would appear that this ghost prohibit everything’s that going on in the theatre but really the aim of this deceased actress is to finally get that standing ovasion. Gemma Donnelly from Stageworx is the film director. “I wanted to give my learners a feel of film work. Many of them have great experience of theatre work but not with film. So it was a chance to get them out of their comfort zone. “Film requires different skills. When the filming process is over, the hard work of actually putting everything together begins. And the kids’ voices will be dubbed, so everything will be new to them.”Both Braine and Donnelly believe the children are really doing well. Matt Marinus does the camera work – filming and the photography. “There are no lead characters in this film,” Braine says. “So everybody has the chance to shine.” Standing Ovasion gets released on 17 November at Promusica Theatre in Roodepoort.
