Actor Growth

A person was telling me about an interesting experience he had when he auditioned for a commercial not too long ago.  Like many other people, he was called in to read for a certain part and mentioned how it was pretty quick.  It just so happened that he knew another person that was auditioning for the same part.

As it turned out, that person got the part.  He then went up to him and asked what he did that was so special out of curiosity.  The guy mentioned that he didn’t even have to read anything as when he walked in the casting director simply asked him what his availability was like to see if it would work for the production’s schedule.  He brought up the point how the casting director has worked with him many times before.

A lot of actors I talk to complain about that as they mention how it seems to be impossible to get experience if no one is willing to give them the opportunity like in these cases to prove themselves.  I try to think of it a little differently as when you think about it’s no different in other industries and fields as well.

For example, a lot of companies refuse to hire fresh school graduates and only want people with say two years of real experience.  Similarly, does that mean it is impossible to find work as a result? I would say you just have to work harder.

Whether that be starting at the bottom despite your training and education or getting out there and trying to make a name for yourself through networking.  Like many things, it’s about dedication and persistent.

I have kind of a strange situation in regards to trying to find the right agent to represent me.  Earlier this year I attempted to find a principal agent and sent out my package to agencies I was interested in.  I did get responses from some and during this time an agent also scouted me on the casting workbook, an industry standard tool used for breakdowns and submissions, as I was an unrepresented talent and he asked me to meet him.

I did look at the talent agency license list before meeting him and so it seemed perfectly legit.  I ended up meeting him and he told me how he was impressed by my training and all that stuff and that he needed a talent with my look and age range.  He was saying the right things that sounded good to me basically.

He presented me with a contract that same day and wished to sign me and also told me that I could think about it.  I ended up saying that I would take it home with me and think about.  A few weeks later this agent in particular sends me a follow up e-mail expressing again that he really wanted to represent me while getting me ready for potential upcoming work/auditions such as preparing my casting workbook resume details.  So after thinking about it, I told him that I would be willing to give his agency a try.

Now we were supposed to meet up to sign the contract and discuss about anything I had concerns about.  Since he was fairly adamant of getting me ready though, he asked me to list myself as being represented by him on the casting workbook ahead of time and sure enough I phoned in and got that adjusted.  He told me that he would take care of the rest and set a date to meet to sign the agreement.

Weeks passed and I haven’t heard anything from him.  I even talked to him on the phone asking if a date was being arranged to discuss and sign the contract and he mentioned it was indeed and that he was just tied up.  I figured he was just busy and so afterwards I just decided to let him do his thing while for myself I went to audition and act in non paying independent films to get more experience while meeting new people.

Literally over 3 months had past and we still had not signed anything.  I also wasn’t getting any audition calls or updates from him and so I figured maybe this was a dud and while continuing to do independent films I started to casually research about agencies again.

A little over a month ago, I then got a phone call from him and he seemed disoriented.  He mentioned that a casting director wanted to see me for a commercial apparently and he realized that we didn’t have a signed contract.  He told me not to worry about it and that he will arrange a time to fix it later and gave me the audition information.  It’s almost as if he wasn’t the one that submitted me for it.

I was excited as this was technically my first professional commercial audition I guess you can say.  I believe I did pretty well as while I kind of screwed up on my slate, since I was so used to slating full name and contact details in independent films, the casting director said specifically “Wow, you really redeemed yourself after that slate”.  So, I was happy.

The agent then phones me with excitement to tell me that I have been asked for a callback and that shortly after he will phone me again about some other projects he had in mind for me too.  Again, it all sounded good.  I did go to the callback and ultimately they went with someone else for the role.

Wouldn’t you know it, I haven’t heard from the agent since and again we don’t have anything signed.  I then started to submit myself to for various roles and sure enough I got responses for auditions which made me believe that the agent isn’t really doing anything for me.  This is such a weird situation I thought.

As a result, I am currently still trying to find the right agency to represent me here in Vancouver.  Very interesting experience though.

I thought it would be interesting to keep a record of all the extra work I have done so far since I am keeping a sort of documentary of my journey.  So far, I have worked on the following productions:

Miracle (Movie) – One Day
The Day The Earth Stood Still (Movie) – One Day
The Dim Sum Funeral (TV Movie) - One Day
Battlestar Galactica (TV Series) – Three Days
The Reaper (TV Series) – One Day
Psych (TV Series) – One Day
Caprica (TV Series) – Three Days
Samurai Girl (TV Series) – One Day

Which one was my favorite?  Kind of hard to say as I have fun doing them even though a lot of people dread on how as a background extra you often sit in a tent literally for hours doing nothing until you are called in.

From a performance point of view, I think my most memorable one thus far was The Reaper. While I was suppose to be just a regular background, the assistant director decided to yank me out of the group of people for a specific scene/action where I had a close up and all as a disgruntled customer of sort.  I did do it and apparently they were really impressed on how it turned out.

There are also these people called “wranglers” who basically organize all of the background talent.  She came up to me and mentioned how the scene turned out so well as you could really hear my “angry breathing/sigh” that added such a great effect and she congratulated me.

Since it was a close up too I had to be in multiple takes and the assistant director was calling me by my name which I thought was a great form of respect and recognition.  Usually they just say “Background” or generic stuff like “Guy in the blue shirt, blonde girl”.

As a background extra you usually get fed too and I think the production Psych had the best catering services. I must say though, Samurai Girl was probably the most awkward one for me thus far.  Aside from wearing the business attire on a hot day, our holding area had this really weird smell which wasn’t too pleasant, but fortunately we did a lot of filming and so we were not in there for long hours like you would normally expect.

Not really sure how much longer I can do background work for as I have been told that you should stop doing it eventually if your goal is to become a principal actor.

While practicing some martial arts today with a sparring partner we were talking about trying to learn skills solely from a book without practical training.  The person I was training with mentioned how he doesn’t believe that would work and I mentioned about this guy that did so purely for film.

He then commented how you can make yourself look fancy and all, but in a real world situation that person probably would stand a chance.  That has always been a question on my mind as since I’m Chinese I was prepared to be stereotyped initially for parts such as a martial artist.

Now for myself, the martial arts I learn are not very film friendly as it is meant for self defense.  I even asked my film acting instructor whether or not she felt that it would be useful to learn a more flashy style solely for film in order to increase my chances of getting seen in my early career.  Her advise was that I should just be learning what I want as if I come across a situation where I need it more than likely they will take the time to teach you it.

At this point though, the only reason I would want to learn something such as Wushu which involves more high flying techniques like some kind of gymnastic routine would be for personal growth.  The idea of learning a martial art solely for film combat just feels unproductive in terms of growing as a person personally.

One thing that I have learned to do during my theatre training is the ability to cry on demand.  The play I was in was chosen to represent our area in Vanfest and considering I played one of the lead roles in the play I felt a lot of pressure to perform.

During the course of the shows that we did, the director never specifically asked me to cry but rather with common direction such as how the character should feel sad or frightened.  When it came to our very last performance during the finals I literally cried in all of the “emotional” monologues that my character had and the director was so happy of all of our efforts.  After that experience, I have been able to train myself to be able to cry on demand.

The funny thing is I read how people try to torture themselves to do it as if being able to do it puts you in some kind of elite league of actors.  Speaking from my experience so far, the only time that I really needed to cry on cue was specifically for a monologue I did in film school as it was done mostly as a portfolio piece for my reel.

Nowadays, for the most part I would think that if a film specifically required a person to cry that there are special methods of doing so.  I don’t remember the movie specifically, but I saw a clip before where the lady in it cried like every scene and the tears looked like a small water balloon that bursted.

The most obvious way to cry is to really feel what you are saying.  The other way I have found is kind of hard to explain as you can control it to a certain extent by becoming more aware of your eye senses, if that is the right term for it.  It’s just like me being able to wiggle my ears and how I learnt that from being aware of my senses around that area.

Either way though, usually if you don’t feel it then you shouldn’t try so hard I’d say.  No onions, eye drops or anything else that would inflict pain for me thank you very much.

I just finished auditioning for a short film that revolved around two technology guys that are having trouble with women.  As evident, it is a comedy.  I sure have been auditioning for a lot of comedy parts lately.

The audition went very well as the people were very friendly and I seemed to click with them.  It was interesting too as the director and the rest of the people involved were laughing pretty hard whenever the comedy bits came up.  At the end it appeared that the decision maker placed a mark on my headshot as a possible good choice.

It’s always nice to see your audience react as intended whenever you audition for a part.