We recently had a chance to talk to Nora Kirkpatrick, who plays Courtney Cloverlock on the weekly web series, Dorm Life. The show has been doing well on sites like Hulu. The cast of Dorm Life also produces and write the show. The series, produced by Attention Span Media is currently in the second season (or semester).
CraveOnline: How did you get involved with Dorm Life?
Nora Kirkpatrick: I went to the theater school at UCLA with Chris Smith who plays Mike on the show. He told me they were starting a web series and asked me to come in and audition. I remember we did some improv and some monologues they had written, and then they asked me to do the show. It was a great environment on set because basically everyone was friends or was friends of friends. It was a family vibe, which I think is evident in the chemistry between characters.
CraveOnline: What is the production for the show like?
Nora Kirkpatrick: We shot Dorm Life during the summers, basically moving into an unused dorm in a small Buddhist college near Los Angeles. Shooting at the Buddhist college was such an interesting dynamic, because I think we really frightened the students at times. We would be dressed up in our faux school colors, filming a “camp-out” scene in the parking lot in the middle of the night. Or, we would be celebrating a non-existent school sporting event while they were trying to study. Sometimes they would come out of their rooms and just stare at us. I don’t think they knew we were shooting. I think they thought we were other students at the college who had simply lost our minds.
We shot during the summers so that those of us who were still in school would be able to fit it into our lives, and to give ourselves more freedom with our shooting schedules. I feel the quality of Dorm Life is due in part to the fact that we shot in the middle of nowhere, and had the opportunity to actually inhabit the rooms in which our characters called home. You could go knock on Marshall’s door, or Josh’s door, and they would actually be there, in character, available to you.
Improv was a huge part of our production. We would often improv for hours on set between scenes. Or we would improv the scene before the scene we were about to shoot. This freedom allowed our characters to really interact, not just with the scripted scenes, but with their subconscious feelings about the other characters and the situations unfolding throughout the season. I would say improv was an integral tool we had the opportunity and time to utilize.
