TABLE READ

Hearing the words that we had written being read back to us by professional actors was a surreal experience. It was the moment that myself, Sam and Dan all realised that ‘this’ was actually happening. Sunray was coming to life. 

As first time screenplay writers, Sunray was a huge undertaking for us all. Over 30,000 Words and 120 pages later, the full narrative would now be tested by those who would be performing the lines on screen for real - our talented cast. 

The idea of having a table read was something we always wanted to do, but due to Covid-19, it was something we feared we might have to forgo or do remotely. As restrictions were relaxed, government guidance for film and television production allowed us to meet. Strict measures were put in place including temperature checks, track and trace as well as lateral flow testing for everyone arriving on site.

We invited the core cast members who play significant roles in the production. Due to the nature of the schedule, many of these actors will never actually cross paths during the production so it was nice to get everyone together to talk about the project before we started shooting. Our ethos has always been that of collaboration, we understand our own weaknesses and the strengths that others bring to the party. With the combined industry experience held by our cast, we would have been stupid not to engage and listen to their thoughts and comments. After each episode had been read we opened the floor to the cast for their feedback. This feedback has since led to countless alterations to not just dialogue but the plot and story as a whole.

Sunray has evolved enormously from the teaser trailer that we dropped in November and now features two intertwining story arcs. While our focus remains on Andy and the Echo callsign we have introduced another layer to our story with additional characters. These two parallel narratives explore the human psyche, loss and survivors guilt before colliding in an explosive finale.