Actor Growth

So yesterday was day three of the acting workshop and as mentioned before it began with a Yoga class. Coincidentally enough, there seemed to be less people in the workshop today than usual. It was pretty standard I thought from what I read and heard about Yoga in general. Basically, you are trying to relax your mind and become more aware of your body energy, strength and flow.

We were also asked to do things like handstands as well with the help of a partner. How did this exercise class relate to acting? Well, the theory was that you need to really loosen and open yourself up when it comes to doing scenes and this is suppose to help you with that.

After that we went on to perform our scenes. There was an interesting twist to yesterday’s class though. When a person was brought up, they were asked by the acting coach, Andrew Mcilroy, to establish the scene with objects and other actors who would act as a clay for you to mold and you would have to explain everything as if you were that character watching yourself.

For example, in my scene it basically revolved around two high school kids. So, I had to choose a girl to bring on stage and as well a guy who was standing in as my character. While explaining to everyone else in the room, I had to explain the background and details of the world in character while molding the other actors and also the stand in as if that was the character too. Almost like a time freeze of a guy walking around in his own memory. These sessions and scenes weren’t filmed though this week.

Now here was the thing that was absolutely new to me and to virtually all the other actors in the room. Essentially once you are done explaining the scene you then tap out your stand in and go ahead with it. Now my scene happened to dealt with a guy trying to apologize to a girl who didn’t want to hear it. In context of the scene in terms of actions, this was all improvised and the actress literally began to walk off the stage.

The acting coach was like “chase after her if you have to. We’ll follow”. Literally, she walked off stage and out of the studio room and I was literally going after her outside to the office admin area as the scene kept going. The whole class was running out of the stage room too to watch it unfold. Was actually really entertaining and a unique experience I thought. Imagine that happening in an audition. Too bad it wasn’t filmed.

That made me think too on how the scene would have been really great if I didn’t hold back. It was just kind of a conflicting moment for me as the class is suppose to revolve an audition style setup. One thing I was taught in auditioning is how people have their own “bubble” meaning you are not suppose to get near or touch the reader. In this situation, my inclination for the character was to eventually just run up to the girl and then lift her up to stop her from running in a funny desperation type of setup.

One more interesting note of the day. The acting coach couldn’t remember my name. At first he kept calling me Jimmy and then afterwards he kept calling me Calvin. It wasn’t until he complemented me and then I just gave him that funny confused look where he asked me why I was doing that and I mentioned that wasn’t my name. I was then going to refer to him with a different popular Vancouver acting coach’s name as a funny joke, but thought that may have been taken the wrong way.

There was this posting I read today about a couple of casting director workshops here in the Vancouver area. The interesting thing was that the workshops were being conducted by the same institution and for the most part the offerings seemed the same except each workshop would be conducted by a different casting director.

The thing that stood out was the difference in fees. One of them was almost 50% as much as the other one which leads me to believe that they are capitalizing on a more well known casting director. At the same time, that made me wonder if the other person doesn’t feel a bit strange where their workshop session is valued so much lower.

This reminds me of the criticism that many have about casting director workshops too where many actors essentially treat them as a paid audition. I would have to say that the fees in this example kind of resembles that notion too. For the first ever casting director workshop I went to, I personally treated it as a way to learn and not an audition.

But I suppose it can be tempting to just think that paying big dollars to meet these people is the easy way to get seen and discovered for roles.

I was reading about this event happening in the weekend that was acting and film related where it looks like it was a seminar combined with a monthly group event consisting of mentors and coaches. Basically, the point is to force you to make specific goals while trying to hold you accountable in doing them.

I have always found that with the majority of aspiring actors they tend to have a lot of big goals and dreams, but in the end they don’t really push themselves to actually do anything. Having a group of people keeping each other in check can be a great thing I suppose.

Simply reading about other people’s challenges and solutions can be good too as it is almost like running a business and taking practices that helps another company become successful. The only thing about this event I was thinking about was the cost. Is it really wise to spend money as a way to meet more people in this fashion?

Yes and no depending on how you look at it. One thing that runs into my mind is it could end up like those pay to get discovered events. On the flip side it could end up just being a great convention with a bunch of like minded people. Plus I am attending that weekly acting workshop still which is factoring in on whether or not I could even commit to this in general.

Today I saw that documentary called The Slanted Screen that dealt with Asians in the film business and the type of struggles and stereotypes one has to go through. I saw it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJwAwH93Yhg

While obviously this one focused on Asian talent, it was so interesting to see the type of real politics that happen behind the scene. Example, certain films that wanted to replace actors simply because of their ethnicity to help draw in more acceptability. The comment towards the end too was pretty true where the bottom line it comes down to the money in terms of getting acceptance and more opportunities.

I mentioned before that my experiences have been pretty good so far when it comes to the independent circuit. I believe a big reason for this is that a lot of the younger generation of actors and filmmakers are used to growing up in a multicultural environment. Therefore, it’s more about who has the right skill and look.

Although, I will admit that for bigger budget items it is still hard. But realistically, it’s tough for everyone. Just like a business, the person funding the project wants a return on investment and so that’s just a challenge that you need to adapt with as they simply want to go with what is more likely to generate a return.

I was reading this interesting article at the Showfax site by a casting director named Bonnie Gillespie at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/index.html which had a lot of important notes about knowing your character type I thought.

There was a lot of insightful points such as if an actor submits themselves for virtually every role it can come across as desperate or that they don’t know their own look range. Another interesting note was the one I read about meeting casting directors.

Basically, she talks about how there are so many casting directors out there where it is better to just research the one’s that usually cast for projects that you would have a good chance of getting as oppose to just trying to meet everyone. Usually people tell you to always take every casting director workshop for example. I guess this puts it in perspective in terms of narrowing down your focus. You can probably end up saving a lot of money too.

It was a good read and I would recommend everyone take a peak at it if you are an actor as well.

Today I went to audition for what sounded like a fun project. It was a silent on camera type of role for a volunteer commercial done mainly for practice it seems. Upon arrival it was interesting as they had no script or direction at all.

All I did was go in-front of the camera and they told me to talk a bit about myself. Essentially, that was their way just to see how one looks on camera and it lasted about 2 minutes. It felt more like an interview than an audition.

Granted they were new, but usually in these situations you are set up in an environment that in some way mimics what you would actually being doing during filming. Example, in this case the scene was supposed to be a bunch of guys sitting in a boardroom and usually they would get you to at least sit down to see some reaction shots. But like in this scenario I just stood up talking to the production people. Very strange audition overall.