Chapter Four - Paid To Party

I did two more films that summer. One was called ‘If You Could See What I Hear’ about a blind singer Tom Sullivan and starring Mark Singer. The scene was shot in Toronto harbor on a beautiful ferry boat. The weather was perfect and we were supposedly all partying and enjoying a festive cruise. The director really wanted an authentic party scene and so real beer and wine were flowing freely.
This was the first time that I learned about ‘continuity’. Simply put, when there is a cut in a scene, it is important that everything match when you resume shooting. You can’t have a half empty glass of beer at the end of a scene and then it mysteriously appear with more or less in it in the next shot. It just doesn’t look right. Of course this need for continuity applies to clothing, hair &makeup and the set conditions. All films have a continuity person who advises the director and ensures that continuity is maintained. They will carry a Polaroid camera (in those days, pre digital) and take dozens of shots of every aspect of the scene and they use these shots to compare before shooting resumes.
We soon discovered, as the director shot take after take, that if we drank the glass of beer during the time the next shot was being set up, an AD at the direction of the continuity person would quickly replenish our glasses with nice cold beer. After a couple of hours of this, there was a few of us who started to get a little tipsy. I went home with beer on my breath and with a pretty good suntan.
Four films in just a few months and I felt like I was heading for stardom. There was no way that anyone could live on such sparse work and pay though and I had to face reality. In the fall I took a new position with my employer in Sales and realized that I would not be able to continue dumping work for such an indulgent pastime. It was truly bothering me to lie about my health in order to attend the sets and I made a decision that even though I absolutely loved what I was doing I would, for the first time in my life, and at the age of 29, retire from acting.