In the week of the shoot, we got our actors together at uni to do a read-through of the script. This was an interesting experience for me, because it was my first taste of one of my key roles as the director; coaching the actors.

Once again, I was struck by how differently people interpret lines of a script. I found that the actors were performing many of the lines quite differently to how I had imagined/intended them when writing them. So, it was up to me to explain to the actors how I wanted the lines delivered, and encourage them to do different variations of their deliveries to see which worked the best. I found that I was quite comfortable doing this, and I think it helped the actors to better understand the script and the characters as I explained the desired tone of the film. Occasionally I felt a bit awkward telling them to deliver a line differently because there was a risk of offending or embarrassing them, but the actors were very receptive to the advice I gave them which was helpful.

Overall, the read through was definitely valuable because it gave me a chance to start preparing the actors for their roles, and also gave me a bit of early experience in working with them. Reading through the script with actors is definitely something I will do in future projects.