Film and theater both involve actors, directors and stories.
However, that’s where the similarities end as UCLA alumna
Robin Larsen, theater student turned dark filmmaker,
discovered.
Perhaps Larsen will help others discover the disparities between
theater and film when her movie “Out of Habit,” is
broadcasted Aug. 30 on KCET, the local PBS station, on the show
“Fine Cut,” featuring the works of student
filmmakers.
Raised in Miami, Larsen was an undergraduate at Southern
Methodist University’s theater school in Dallas. With initial
interest in being an actress, she found herself more engrossed with
directing and started to direct theater in Los Angeles for The
Attic Theatre and The Hudson Guild.
“I started directing in my junior year as an elective
class, and I discovered that rehearsal time just flew by,”
Larsen said. “My mind was absolutely engaged the whole time
whereas as an actress it wasn’t all-engaging.”
After graduation, she came to Los Angeles to direct theater and
started to discover film as a storytelling medium. As Larsen
researched all the film schools in Los Angeles, UCLA became her top
and only choice. Since graduating from UCLA’s film
department, Larsen is able to mesh her degree in film direction
with her theater background.
“Theater is more about the spoken word while cinema is
action,” Larsen said. “I got my training in
storytelling in the theater which I’m so thankful for now
that I am in film. It gave me very specific training in how to talk
to actors, to how to bring out the performance that I want out of
them. It taught me what is dramatic.”
As a co-writer, co-producer, director and star of her 20 minute
thesis film, “Out of Habit,” Larsen dabbled with her
dark side.
The story circles around a milkman, who accidentally kills the
parents of Finn, played by Larsen. After years as an orphan, Finn
becomes a nun and must wrestle with her conscience as she finally
gets her chance at revenge.
Though mostly set at a convent, Larsen doesn’t think her
movie has much association with religion. She only saw Catholicism
as a good vehicle in which to display the character’s inner
conflicts.
“What better way to make it more of a conflict and her
struggle more dramatic then to make her a nun because when we see a
nun we automatically think this is a good person, this is someone
who’s going to do the right thing,” Larsen said.
Though only a UCLA student at the time, Larsen was able to land
John Astin (the original Gomez in “The Addams Family”)
in the role of the flippant priest that Finn goes to for spiritual
guidance.
“John Astin is a wonderful man. He’s very giving. Of
course he has so many more years of experience than any other
people on the set, but he didn’t tell anyone what to do. He
was very gracious.”
Now Larsen is in the process of writing another variation of
darkness, a thriller this time.
“I wanted to learn comedy but I couldn’t let go of
the dark,” Larsen said.