South students had the opportunity to listen to Zachary Spicer this past Thursday in theatre class. Spicer is an Indiana University alumnus film maker returning to Bloomington to produce a second feature film “Ms. White Light.” Spicer has an independent film company Pigasus Pictures, which shot scenes for “The Good Catholic” here in Bloomington last year.

“Ms. White Light” is the first of six films to b shot in various parts of Indiana in the next three years. One of these six films will be an all-female comedy “Bar Crawl,” and a horror film that has yet to be named.

Spicer did not have any involvement in theatre until his senior year in high school when he worked on the sound board. He originally went to IU to study archeology but found his passion in filmmaking after being told he was a good actor at an unplanned audition.

From there, Spicer moved to New York, but did not land a role for six years, and his first Broadway audition did not go very well. A few months after that audition he got a call from the casting director’s assistant asking him to be a reader for new auditions. After he was a reader for understudies for a little while, he was asked to be an understudy in the play since he knew the lines. This allowed Spicer’s career to take off.

Between Spicer’s many auditions, he worked as a security guard for actors in the plays that he wanted to be in. He was even the security guard for Anne Hathaway. He was able to learn a lot from watching some of his idols act and reading lines with them. His biggest takeaway is that “acting is one thing, and auditioning is an entirely different thing.” Spicer could never land roles in plays because he always got so nervous at auditions.

If you’re interested in a glimpse of the life of an actor, Spicer started filming for their new movie at 6 p.m. Wednesday evening and they did not wrap until 5:30 a.m. He had not slept yet at the time he was visiting the theater class. He even developed back problems while shooting “The Good Catholic” last year and was seen by IU football trainers.

For any interested students, Project Pigasus will be launching an Indiana student short film competition within the next week or so. Pigasus Pictures will produce the winning screenplay.

For more coverage on Zachary Spicer see The Herald Times.