I‘ve worked with Roy when we toured Canada for a couple seasons of VIEW’s dance competition. While our roles never directly crossed paths, we spoke numerous times during our meal breaks and in passing throughout the comp. I’ve observed Roy to be a passionate, do-it-all kind of guy in the back end of production. He dealt with multi-media production and was bouncing around from graphics to the soundboard/music to helping other staff out backstage. Roy was never the loud, outspoken type, which is maybe why I perceived him to be more reserved, yet he always joined in on conversations as they occurred.
It wasn’t until he reached out for headshots that we had the opportunity to speak in depth about life and career. While in the studio for his portrait session, I learned that a great passion of his was background acting, something I knew little about. We spoke about unions, securing roles and what it’s like to go from role to role. We took the standard acting headshots he needed and then transitioned into portraiture of “Roy, the background performer.” The task was showing his reservedness, contemplation, advocacy for background performing and his competency in his multiple back end roles. Knowing how often he has to set things up and wait around both as a technician and an actor, I decided to show him in waiting while maintaining his determination and approachability.
