In February 2017 I will be shooting a film in around around the greater Pietermaritzburg area. The film will be set in current day South Africa, about characters in and around Pietermaritzburg and will be an immersion into this current moment of our country’s history. I wish to examine the feelings, tensions, smells, colours, conversations, sounds and forces that make up this moment and the people that face it. There will be no Hollywood bullshit, no transforming cars, no exploding trains, no botoxed blondes kissing botoxed blondes to romantic music in the rain. This has no authenticity. This does not mean any-thing. What I am interested in creating is making a film that does mean something. A film that is courageous, honest and completely sincere.
In order to achieve this I will of course need to find people who will become the charac-ters in the film. So to do this I have decided to run a 4 week open-doors acting workshop for any and all who wish to get involved with the project. Twice a week sessions will be held where I will guide participants through various exercises and coach them on various techniques of performance. These workshops will be used as a space for people to ex-plore and/or hone their abilities, and as a incubator to develop fresh and new material from the participant’s own experiences that may find its way into the film. The workshop will have a focus on finding one’s own individual expression and delivering powerful and authentic performances. We will work on developing performance skills (particularly with focus on acting for film and methods to achieve realism) and trying to find one's inner voice. Another element of the workshop is that it will be a platform for participants to ex-plore their own personal experiences and find elaborations on them. At the end of the workshop those who have participated will be informed as to whether or not they will be included in the final cast for the film. My desire is to find people who can bring their ener-gy and their stories into the film so that it can be an authentic and resonant work that re-flects the good people of South Africa. With this workshop I wish to share and impart whatever dramatic skills I can with local individual and communities in a way that can help spread knowledge and skills within the region. I believe that the people we see in films should include authentic people. The people we see in life. My life, your life, our lives. The lives of South Africans. It is my intention to bring these people and these lives to the cinema screen.
The workshop is free of charge and the sessions will be roughly 5hrs long. It is open to ALL and everybody. ALL ages, races, shapes, backgrounds, etc. NO experience is neces-sary. ALL ARE WELCOME. Also, It is not necessary to participate in all the sessions if you cannot. The workshop will have a drop-in drop-out policy where individuals should feel free to make it when you can.”
- Joshua Magor
Dates: Every Saturday and Sunday until the end of November.
Location: Pietermaritzburg, exact location to be confirmed.
Any interested people should contact me at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Details for this weekends workshops:
This weekend there will be two sessions of the acting workshop. I urge people to feel free to make either or both if they can, they should just let me know.
The first will take place on Saturday 5th November, from 10am-3pm at the Hilton Baptist church, 4 Amy Wilson Dr, Pietermaritzburg, 3245.
I will be waiting on the lawn inside the property with a sign reading: "ACTING WORK-SHOP MEETING POINT", we will all meet there at 9:55am.
I will be waiting on the lawn inside the property with a sign reading: "ACTING WORK-SHOP MEETING POINT", we will all meet there at 9:55am.
The other will take place on Sunday 6th November, from 11am-4pm at the Redlands hotel across from Cordwalles School on Howick road.
We will meet in the front car park at 10:55am.
We will meet in the front car park at 10:55am.
About Joshua Magor:
Joshua Magor (born Sept. 1991) is an award winning South African Filmmaker from Pietermaritz-burg, KwaZulu-Natal. He first developed an interest in filmmaking whilst making video art during his senior school days at Michaelhouse. After graduating as Dux of Michaelhouse, and being placed on the national top 50 achievers list, Joshua earned a scholarship to study English Literature and Economics at the prestigious University of Edinburgh. After his time in Scotland he then progressed to do his masters degree in Filmmaking at the London Film School; an institution that has produced notable directors such as Mike Leigh (Mr. Turner, Vera Drake, Naked) and Duncan Jones (Warcraft, Moon) to name a few. Joshua has worked extensively in both fiction and documentary filmmaking and has developed expertise as both a director, writer and cinematographer. He also takes a particu-lar interest in the craft of acting and has participated in acting workshops at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and has frequently held his own improvisation sessions. As a creator Josh-ua is extremely passionate about cinema's ability to capture the ferocious intensities of life and me-dium's potential to confront people with emotions and thoughts that may otherwise remain hid-den. His latest film “People At Night” is recently finished and is currently being prepared to have a run on the film festival circuit.
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