Kyle's Hadley Experience as Death

Kyle plays Death. Kyle freaking kicks ass as Death as he does in life. Kyle wrote this:

Most people who know Robbie and I know how similar we are. In fact, an on going joke is how he is my clone. We are both giant movie buffs and we are both awesome so it stand to reason that we would be friends. Robbie had sent me a few scripts one night, including the stage play The Death of Joe Britz and I thought it was well done. When he had told me he wanted to shoot it as a movie and that he wanted me for the part of Death, I was pretty excited. My current hiatus from theater had left a void in the part of me who loves performing and this was a chance to not only perform, but play something no one else had. It was also a chance to help out a friend who I think is very talented. Of course, Robbie had written the role for himself, so I wasn’t sure how open he would be at first.

The first read through took place like 3 months before anything got shot and I have to admit I was worried the thing would never actually get shot. Having spent high school and my first year in college around artists and film makers, I know how difficult it is to actually bring to life the things you want to make happen, especially something as long as The Death of Joe Britz. Even when I got the call that we were shooting one weekend I was still unsure that the whole thing would ever come together. But, I wanted to support Robbie and I was playing Death, so how could I not want to do this?!?

The first day of shooting this thing was really my first time shooting for a movie. Sure, my family had done a bunch of videos and stuff to get our extended family excited about family reunions (picture my family rapping over “you can’t touch this” talking about Lake Shasta) but I had never done any real acting on camera before. And right off the bat I was worried this film was doomed because the director was late. If you know me, you know I hate late people and this did not seem like a good start. After everyone was finally on set things went pretty well, except it seemed like important things were missing, like camera battery chargers. So we actually had to take some time to have someone go get one. Again, this was yet another worry for me because it seemed like things were not as in place as one would hope for something like this. Nonetheless, the first day of shooting turned out to be a success and it was a lot of fun. We got a lot of stuff filmed and we seemed to have a great time doing it. Robbie never turned into this stone cold serious hard ass and allowed us to have some fun during some of the messed up takes.

However, I did not get to film my big moment that day because of the sheer length of the section. So, it meant I would have to shoot for one more day, which was totally cool by me, except the next time we set to film, no one showed up. We didn’t have camera people, or cast members, so instead we sat and watched The Last Samurai and the beginning of The One. Movies are always cool with me, but it was a bit annoying because I could have been at home watching the 49er game. But, it is a great example of difficult it is to get things done when you are relying on your high school friends. It is a testament to Robbie that he even got the thing finished at all. When the actual final day of shooting came, there was an excitement in the house as we all knew it was almost done. I had to shoot what became known as “The Jesus Rant” and it took us over an hour to get the 5 page awesomefest completed. I was happy to get the chance to play with the monologues and get the chance to have it shot a few different times, so I could find a good mixture of loud, brash funny and the calm caring moments. I also got to eat some bomb ass cold pizza, which was good because when a shoot starts at 8:30 I don’t get to eat breakfast before hand.

In the end I am glad I got to take part of the movie and can’t wait to see what the final product will look like. I think with his next feature length film, Robbie will be a lot more prepared and some of the little things like missing camera batteries will not happen. Some of the time it felt like things we were being made up on the spot, but in the end it worked out pretty well, so I guess it is kind of hard to argue against it. I definitely hope to be involved in more movies in this area now because playing Death really filled the void but as the void starts to grow again, I will need something with which to fill it.