ScreenDUNEDIN

Every couple of weeks, Dunedin’s Perc Cafe is transformed into a set and an actor’s, director’s and writer’s training ground and collaboration hub. Below, facilitator Dan Eady shares with us an insight into Dunedin actors initiative ScreenDUNEDIN as it nears its 100th session.

Dan Eady

In Dunedin, there is no day-to-day film industry. Productions arrive sporadically, shoot, and vanish. A feature here, a commercial there- then silence. The cameras leave, the streets reset, and the city slips back into its quiet rhythm.

Elsewhere, the industry draws a clear line between hobbyist and professional: daily auditions, regular shoots, constant demand. In Dunedin, the line is thinner - blurred. For actors here, it is pretty brutal.

In Sydney, Los Angeles, or London, training is constant and work is cyclical: maybe a class on Monday, an audition on Tuesday, a shoot on Wednesday. In Dunedin, there is no cycle.

Still, ScreenDUNEDIN is a small group of actors that meets weekly- or fortnightly- in The Perc café and treats it like a working set. We run scenes, perform under camera, and review. Then we do it again.

As the facilitator I describe it something like this, “We focus on building a creative process that you can carry straight onto a professional set. Things like building relaxation under the lens, hitting marks, resetting for a new take without losing your focus. It’s a discipline of staying relaxed under pressure, listening, taking risks, and making bold choices- always within the framework of collaboration. Fundamentally, staying creatively available and sensitive to your scene partner and the story. Developing a repeatable process that is based on craft rather than chance.”

Some participants come for professional development. Some stay for the camaraderie. A few describe it as an outlet to explore emotions, relationships, and the human condition in ways daily life doesn’t allow. For many, it’s the joy of dissecting a scene, unpacking a story, and practising screen technique in a space where the stakes feel high but safe. It’s addictive, and it offers experience  that can require months of hard to get on-set opportunities. 

Jason Holden, who has trained with the group over a number of years says “since starting here, I’ve auditioned more, and landed professional work. Much of that from what I learned comes from these sessions.”

The benefits aren’t just for actors,  they can be for filmmakers, writers, and crew. Directors can learn how to communicate with performers. Writers can see how dialogue lands. For instance, crew can explore their new gear without the pressure of a paid shoot.

This model based here in Dunedin is an iteration of one originally from Brisbane, which then became another iteration in Sydney. In those places, they enabled powerful professional  creative development opportunities. Feature films in development would use them to refine the writing. Maybe casting was explored. Many times the sessions allowed for short film genesis and support. 

In 2023 ScreenDUNEDIN, created Sandwich, a short drama pilot produced over a weekend with a small crew and minimal resources. Member, Emily Frith wrote the story about an overworked parole officer. The story comes from her working experiences here in Dunedin. It picked up a Bronze at the most recent NZCS awards, managed to be selected for a number of international film festivals and  it also enabled discussions surrounding its possibilities with Sky Originals and RNZ. We are still working on developing more episodes. Not bad for a bunch of people coming together and working on the shared passion of screen acting.

Directly from the actors’ hunger for craft coming out of the sessions, we organised with support from Film DUNEDIN and the NZFC  a guest workshop led by Miranda Harcourt who ran a two-day intensive in Dunedin. Local actors and directors gained direct access to world-class methods without leaving the city. Encounters like that show what’s possible when professional training is taken seriously, even in a small centre.

The long-term vision isn’t just to train actors- it’s to seed a culture where screen practice is constant, not occasional. That means more workshops, more collaborations and more grassroots projects like Sandwich.

For now, the work continues. By the end of the year we hope to hit over 100 sessions.

The door is open to anyone serious about screen acting- or about developing any of the collaborative creative skills that envelop it. Because in Dunedin, if you wait for the industry to arrive, you’ll be waiting forever. There is an alternative - collaborate.

You can find the group on Facebook here to stay tuned for future sessions.

Actors Mel Barton, Charlotte Webley & Rimu Donovan.