Actor Growth

As the title says, today I auditioned for what I believe was a commercial for a cat food commercial. This was one of those auditions where you just have to wing it as you are not provided with any sides to prepare.

It was kind of a funny audition as I was simply paired up with a girl where she was sitting on a table. I was leaning on a table and would then have to swoop in. Afterwards, I would have to kneel down as she fed me a grape.

My assumption is that I was suppose to be a cat kind of like that commercial I saw before where there was a human pretending to be a cat. Looking back though and with that in mind I don’t think I was creative as I would have liked it to be as I simply followed their instructions for the session.

I know for commercials it usually requires you to be super creative in order to know the socks out the people judging you on the other end. Was definitely funny though.

So today was the first day of the acting workshop and it was an interesting one. In the beginning the first hour or so was spent on the coach explaining about his views of acting as well as mindset. One point he brought up is how actors tend to think that they in some way have to prove that they are a good actor in the audition room when really the casting people already have that thought before they call you in.

He is very animated which made the workshop kind of entertaining. There were some people in the group that have already attended his sessions before too. In the day we all basically had to cold read a certain scene in an audition style process. We would first get critiqued on it and would do it again afterwards with more direction.

One interesting point for me was the stereotype comment came up except in this situation it was kind of different. I heard a comment in the class where some scenes the character just had one line. Andrew Mcilroy then made a comment on how those one liners are actually very hard to pull off in an audition. Therefore, I decided to go with that.

Now I actually chose a scene that had a one liner and was simply a part where a computer technician is unable to fix a computer and gets slapped. In my first run trough I had a blotch where I jumped out of the camera frame but in general he commented on how I was a very funny guy he thought.

He also made a comment which he found was funny as out of all the scenes I chose that one in particular kind of added to the stereotype of me being Asian and being a tech guy. Although, my main reason for choosing that was that I was trying to be realistic as a look type. There were scenes such as doctors and shop keepers which I didn’t think my young look was exactly suitable for.

It wasn’t until the second run through where while giving me a possible direction that he suggested that I pretend that I was going to block the slap in like a fighting type of way. From there I was just thinking “whoa, now that is stereotypical”. We ended up scratching it though as it wasn’t working for me. I personally felt that I didn’t do very well in the second run though.

One cool thing was that we all got a DVD copy of our sessions that I have yet to review fully. An interesting note which may have been a bad sign is that he was handing out audition scenes to some people in the class for a real production. Some people got it and some people didn’t. So I was thinking either he just trusted/respected those people more professionally to give them the opportunity or maybe it was for certain looks. Guess I’ll find out as the workshop goes on.

At this point I do feel like a number though where I am simply a guy that enrolled into the workshop and will go through various curriculum work. I say this feeling has stuck on me as in the beginning there were no real introductions of any sort and I don’t think he knew everyone’s name. Although, he said that he did things like that intentionally. Here’s hoping that he will take a more personally interest in one’s unique growth and challenges. Then again, this is the first time he has seen many of us.

On a different note my agent booked me for an audition tomorrow. So, let’s see how that goes.

I was reading a post today where a production was looking for a female who was willing to shave her head bald to work on a film. However, the payment for doing so was about $10/hour. I was just thinking how that was ridiculously low in doing something that you will have to deal with even after the productions for months.

Especially if you are an actor that does other work where you have to look a certain way, things like this you have to consider as doing it will affect all of your future opportunities as well. While it is definitely more about the opportunity, something like say simple background work wouldn’t be worth it I’d say.

Art and film is usually one of those very subjective topics where one person could think something is the best in the world while another would say the opposite. Recently I was reading some comments on a short film that I acted in where people commented mostly on the direction and technical editing work.

There was this one critic that sounded like he directed dozens of films and was an authority on the subject. While some would say you should ignore those and critics in general, I think from an acting point of view it is interesting to get feedback about your work regardless if it is negative or positive.

I think the key is ignoring the emotional rant that the person may have but rather really focus on what they are really trying to say. Actually, it’s a lot like doing a good scene where you want to focus on what they really mean and not necessarily the lines they are saying.

I guess it is kind of like networking or meeting new people too. Sometimes people are just complete jerks to you for no reason. In actuality it can end up being that they just don’t know how to approach people and are afraid of rejection. Or a person bragging about their expensive jewelry could really be saying they are poor and need to look rich.

So with that in mind I always try to listen o every type of criticism as even if you feel it helps you in any way artistically it can be useful marketing information if you are trying to target that particular audience.

I was talking to my agent over the e-mail the other day and he said that one skill that is important for casting directors is your ability to speak in an American dialect. This has always been an interesting topic for me as I always considered my accent as just plain North American English.

However, apparently a lot of Canadians speak way too polite that drives American nuts they say. For example, many Canadians end their sentences with an apology. Think of it like if someone needs direction they say an American is more likely to say “excuse me” only. A Canadian though would say something like “Excuse me. Sorry to disturb you”.

There are other ones that I have never really heard myself in a regular conversation. Apparently many Canadians pronounce the word “about” as “A Boot”. I guess I grew up watching too much TV that is American based as I never pronounce that word like that.

Never had this problem before, but then again I don’t exactly get to talk to many Americans so I can’t exactly say if one would recognize any odd Canadian accents from me.

During that long shoot yesterday I met a bunch of people who worked on certain productions that I was in as well except on different scenes. I thing I found interesting was the type of shots that people were in that never made it to the final cut.

For example, I met this one guy who also worked on the show Caprica and he was telling me all these scenes he was in as well as the plot based on what they shot. I did happen to see the pilot and it was interesting that so many of those things were taken out which made the story completely different.

There was another actor on set that talked about his experience in working with Steven. Essentially, he was in a movie and there are certain scenes that require stuntmen. The person used multiple examples such as how this stuntmen was just forcefully shoved into an object causing some major tooth loss. I guess it is kind of like the Ultimate Warrior story if you follow wrestling back in the day of the WWF (WWE now).

That then triggered some crew members talking about their experiences in working on his productions and mentioning that they would never want to work with him again because of things like that. Kind of interesting to hear all these types of things.

Guess that shows you too that it can be a small world in the film business in terms of the people you work with.