Actor Growth

I got a message yesterday from a person about a short film production I worked on awhile ago.  He mentioned that they are wrapping everything up and that I would be getting a copy of the DVD soon.  I actually had a lot of fun on this one playing the lead role and the people that worked with me told me it looked very good.

The actress told me that I looked genuinely po’ed for one of the monologue scene that I did which was so funny I thought as most of the characters I play involve me being the one that is picked on.  My only worry is that during the last day of shooting everything was extremely rushed due to time constraints and it was shot in a guerilla style.  Example, I only got one take to do a specific monologue that day.

This was a comedy though where my character couldn’t stand his messy roommate.  I hope it turned out okay.

Wow, that was the fastest background work I have ever done on a set.  My call time was at 11:30am and I was out of there by about 12:50pm or so.  The scene itself is probably only like 5 seconds worth of footage when it gets on TV.

I could have stayed longer as they asked for 10 people to volunteer for the next scene, but it seemed like 10 people in particular were very eager and so we all were pretty much in agreement.  Funny thing was that even though that was like less than two hours the production still has to pay everyone that left a minimum hourly payment similar to a regular job.

I thought everyone would be interested on a sample of the type of information we get in terms of the filming locations.  For this production in particular, this was the map I received late yesterday:

This is pretty typical as it shows you where the shooting locations will be as well as where you can say park your vehicle if you are driving and the location of catering.  In this case, the filming took place in the Shadbolt Centre and the Burnaby City Hall.

As mentioned before I never watched the show before.  However, I was paired up with a girl in the beginning who apparently was a fan and mentioned it was about lesbians living life or something like that.  Apparently this was supposed to be the last season too based on what I heard.

Alrighty, so the agent told me that the production decided to use me for The L Word tomorrow.  According to the breakdown, it I suppose to be around the Burnaby City Area.  I still haven’t received the call time though and sometimes they come as late as 11pm at night.

That’s one thing about doing background work where if you say you are available to do it then you have to pretty much make sure that you have the whole day available.  You never know when or how long it will last as this isn’t exactly like a 9 to 5 job.

I was contacted by my background agent today in regards to a possible booking for the TV show The L Word.  This is one of those times where I have heard of the show before but I never actually watch it personally.  The show is supposed to be geared towards a female audience right…..?  Watch me get my heard torn out from some hardcore fans of the show……

I always get to meet interesting people doing background work and so I would expect this to be no different regardless of the show.  I did inform her that I was okay with the booking, so we’ll see what happens.

Today I was looking at a list of agents here and was surprised at how many agencies there were here in BC.  The thing is too most of these aren’t listed as licensed agencies on the government site yet some of them seem like they have working talent on their roster.

I was always taught that if the agent was not licensed that it should be a sign for you to look elsewhere.  Just the other day too I was talking to a guy that I do some martial arts training with and he mentioned that his girlfriend was a model for a particular agency.  When he mentioned the name of it I didn’t see it anywhere on the licensed list.

I’m personally going to stick with talking to the agencies that are licensed though as to reduce the odds of meeting a lemon.  Of course like a lot of people say too just because it is licensed doesn’t mean it is good.

I was talking to another actor recently who apparently traveled to New York before to learn about acting.  When it came to getting training, he mentioned how there were so many different types of quality workshops you could take for as little as $17 for a 5 hour session with recognized coaches.  It was a group session of course.  When you compare it to the average price tag of say $250 here, he just felt that it was a scam.

While I personally never been elsewhere for acting training other than Vancouver, in many ways I do agree that the prices seem pretty high here.  Although, for myself a lot of my training came from public schools and so price wise I think it was pretty reasonable as it was inline with anything else you would want to study in.

Honestly though, I think like most things the best type of training is practical experience.  Even for myself I can say most of my real growth in terms of becoming a better actor came from high school as the instructor kept pushing me and gave me so many opportunities to be involved in plays.

As I grew up and went to a different school as well as learning from some working professionals, I felt that you were learning more about theory and technical applications.  I didn’t exactly get as much opportunity to get practical experiences in those situations and not surprisingly I don’t think the training had that big of an impact in me growing as a professional actor from a performance point of view.  It definitely helped me from the business aspect though.

I personally feel that actors overall are the worst when it comes to being very susceptible to every offer that they see which they think will be the answer to catapult their career.  Like anything else, you should really sit down and compare the value to what you are paying for.  Otherwise it is no real different than people who go to every get rich quick seminar and purchase every material that guarantees success.